Consideration for others is the basis of a good life and a good society," according to Confucius. Though etiquette's form has changed a good deal since 500 BC, its intent has not: to encourage us to put others' comfort before our own - or at least, not to act like the centre of the universe and spoil it for everyone else. It's why we chew with our mouths closed; it's why we send thank-you notes; it's why we hold the lift for someone running towards it; and it should be why, when we tell a date "I'll call you", we actually call. Good manners are part of the social contract we voluntarily enter to create a more harmonious society. And where can we benefit more from a little harmony than in the complicated world of dating?
Unfortunately, yesteryear's guidelines for formal social interaction don't usually apply to today's more casual romantic connections, so modern daters are left floundering when it comes to politesse.
Sure, there are a thousand and one dating handbooks out there, and a plethora of women's magazines trafficking in how-to-catch-a-man articles. But relationship advice is usually about how to get something. And it is frequently given under the assumption that you have to pretend to be someone you're not to win the game of love - less needy, more cocksure, vegetarian, a sports fan, rich. Etiquette, on the other hand, is about giving, whether it be comfort, consideration or courtesy to others, while being yourself (albeit your best-behaved self). In other words, you give just as you'd like to receive.
Unfortunately, how to be a giver when it comes to dating these days isn't very clear or agreed upon. We're living in an uncharted "hook-up" culture, not unlike the one described in Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. In an essay on this novel in the New York Times last year, columnist David Brooks wrote: "Highly educated young people are tutored, taught and monitored in all aspects of their lives [at university], except the most important, which is character building. And they find themselves in a world of unprecedented ambiguity, where it's not clear if you're going out with the person you're having sex with."
In the hopes of clarifying at least some of these dating situations, we wrote Nerve's Guide to Sex Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen. We operated under the assumption that handbooks on locating the salad fork and curtseying for the Queen are popular because people like to know "the done thing", especially if they're about to join the Queen for a multi-utensil meal. It's not as if you can use the rule of reciprocity here: How would I like to be curtsied to, if I were queen? Empathy and instinct can only carry you so far, whether we're talking royalty or romance.
For example, maybe you find it "rude" to tell someone you're not up for a fourth date, and so you simply go AWOL. Plenty of people have told us that in the opening stages of the wooing process (after, say, one blind date), they would prefer a date to drop off the face of the earth, rather than bluntly stating a lack of interest. However, once time has been spent and lips have connected, a gentle e-mail or text is in order to keep the over-eager from repeatedly calling for another get-together and so humiliating themselves. In this situation, remember the 19th-century US clergyman and historian Abel Stevens, who wrote: "Politeness is the art of choosing among one's real thoughts." Blame your departure on a vague lack of chemistry, or "no click". Keep the particulars (that whinnying laugh, the bowl haircut, their humour deficit, their failure to name the current prime minister) to yourself. Then you can disappear.
Of course, some people will disagree with "the done thing" as we've determined it. There will also be others, men especially, who feel burdened by specific behaviour guidelines, and others, women especially, who have utopian expectations of them. When we were researching our book, we asked people what the phrase "new dating etiquette" meant to them. "More things to get wrong," sighed Tom, a 28-year-old banker in London. "Yay!" cheered Elizabeth, a 29-year-old A&E nurse in London, "finally those bastards will learn how to behave!" As Benjamin Franklin said, "Savages we call them, for their manners differ from ours."
Then there are those who embrace etiquette for the wrong reasons. Studies by psychologist William Altermatt, of the University of Michigan, found that men who were most supportive of chivalry not only tended to view women as less competent and powerful, they also believed that a woman's place was in the home. In addition, those "gentlemen" who believed in such courtesies as holding the door open or giving up their bus seat to "the fairer sex" were partial to homemakers, while expressing unfavourable feelings towards career women and sexually permissive females - that is, women who didn't conform to the weaker, less competent stereotype.
And it's not just men who cling to antiquated rules of gallantry. Plenty of women still agree with 25-year-old Saskia from Stoke-on-Trent, who told us, "The guy should always book the restaurant and pay for dinner on a first date. I know it's old-fashioned, but I think it still stands."
Well, not in our book. Thankfully, times have changed and etiquette should change with the times. Emily Post, the 19th-century grande dame of US etiquette, wouldn't have dared discuss the nuances of asking out a co-worker or first-date sex - how indecorous! But in an age of feminism, gay rights, alternatives to marriage, rampant sexually transmitted diseases and titillating television, such debate is not indecorous, it's much needed. And so we've tried to set a few standards, appropriate to the time, that most civilised (and rational) people can agree upon.
We aren't interested in listing rules for the sake of rules, or locking people into strict gender roles. Nor do we hope to emasculate men or defeminise women. We simply refuse to use the men-are-from-Mars model to dictate our standard setting, and instead assume that everyone deserves to be treated well and fairly (unless you're dating a masochist). Etiquette's a two-way street.
Let's take the sticky issue of paying for dinner. We say, whoever initiates the date, pays - man or woman. The only occasion this may be trumped is if one party clearly out-earns the other (stockbroker v starving artist, say), and graciously offers to get the bill. "Once I paid for dinner several times in a row for a girl who had far more money than I did," says Bill, a 26-year-old New Zealander. "It felt inappropriate."
And in case the Neanderthals among us are confused, it is entirely proper for the woman to do the asking. "It would be nice if there were a rule saying it's okay for a girl to be the first to call", says Stacy, a 25-year-old frustrated single. "I'm a little annoyed with guys who get weirded out by that." Stacy, consider it done. However, just because it's deemed proper (by us) doesn't make it popular. "Believe me, I've tried to break that rule about the boy needing to ask the girl out," says Rowena, a 32-year-old writer in New York. "It always backfires." As with any etiquette, you can only be responsible for your own behaviour; good manners are best dispersed by example. Knowing this, Rowena sallies forth unafraid: "I often pay for dinner, especially if I know I make more than him. Otherwise, I prefer to go Dutch: it evens the playing field."
Rowena and Stacy, meet Chan. He's 25, he's single and he's enlightened: "Nothing makes me lose interest faster than a woman who says, 'I really hoped you'd ask', because I think, well why didn't you just ask, then?" Chan would also like it made known that he won't change his mind about calling a woman back "just because she puts out on the first date". (Our hero!) While some might argue Chan's stance is more about dating philosophies than polite behaviour, we would counter that the latter reflects the former. As another US authority on etiquette Amy Vanderbilt wrote, "To make [manners] ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them." In other words, there is no such thing as a scoundrel with good manners.
Unfortunately, for every Rowena, Stacy and Chan, there are 25 scoundrels. Unanswered text messages, two-timing partners and one-night stands who kick their guest out before dawn - it's enough to make the most evolved dater throw his or her hands in the air and long for the days of Jane Austen, when it was "a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife".
Colin Firth achieved heart-throb status as Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and Gwyneth Paltrow charmed as Austen's matchmaker in a film of Emma but their romantic trials seemed fusty and time-worn, in other words, easy to solve. "People have a lot of baggage these days," says Saskia. "Divorce, psycho-exes, kids: it stops relationships working. Back then, if you met someone in your class-bracket and they were nice, you'd probably end up with them for life."
Yet even between the pages of Jane Austen's novels, you'll find heartbreak, game-playing, scheming and property disputes messing with love's true course. Things always look much "nicer" when cast by Hollywood. Besides, who wants 45 years of "nice"? There's a lot to be said for being a single woman chasing down a good fortune of her own before she's in want of a husband. "I don't pine for those days, because I like being able to be friends with guys," says Allyson, a 30-year-old hotel manager. "And the most painful situations I've been in don't strike me as things that would have been changed by more formal rules of courtship. They would have simply expressed themselves differently."
Etiquette is no more adept than Jane Austen at influencing love's course: at best, it just makes that course a little smoother.
And as for Saskia's "psycho- exes", there is an etiquette for every occasion. Because just as defending freedom of speech is most exacting - and yet most important - when the speech in question is truly horrible, so the upkeep of manners is most taxing - and most important - in the company of a psycho-ex who you think doesn't deserve politeness. For if today we are rude to our past loves, tomorrow we will stop carrying shopping bags for the elderly, and by week's end we will be answering our mobiles in church.
If you truly hanker for the olden days of dating, you're better off scouring online personals than you are 19th-century novels. It sounds like a paradox until you've met someone who's tried it. "Online dating offered relief from the world of 'Is this a date?'" says Michelle, a 29-year-old student. In that world, dating is superseded by the "your place or mine" chat-up routine of bars and clubs - what an old classmate of Michelle's calls "Schrödinger's Date." It refers to the "Schrödinger's Cat" of the uncertainty principle: the date, like the cat, both is and is not. "Nerdy," says Michelle, "but true."
A date that springs from an online encounter, on the other hand, definitely is. "You set up a meeting, it's a date and everyone knows it," says Michelle. It's a more formal process than the post-pub snog that morphs into a relationship. "You're both aware that what you're doing is auditioning each other," she explains. "You can even joke about it, if you're uncomfortable with it. One guy I went on a personals date with answered a question with something like, 'And yes, eventually I want to have children and I pay my rent on time'." Now that sounds like Jane Austen! We can practically picture Darcy's singles ad: "Looking for a headstrong woman with wit and intelligence to spare; I admit to a touch of pride and some prejudices but would be patient with the same in you; perhaps you can change my manners and I can change your mind."
Of course, online dating has its own, unique etiquette dilemmas. "On two occasions I've shown up for an internet date and just high-tailed it without identifying myself," says Bill. "It's a shitty thing to do, and I regret it on one level. But one of the women had totally misrepresented herself."
Here's how we calculate this situation's etiquette: a blind date is a deal with Cupid. You give up 45 minutes of your life (no less) for the chance to meet the love of your life, or at least spend an evening with a beautiful stranger. No matter how disappointed you are, you must make good on your end of the deal. It's good dating karma - and karma is simply a new-age term for etiquette. You may not sneak out the back door or fake an allergic reaction to the house red. If you feel you have been grossly misled - that is, the photo you saw was a couple of decades old or stone out of date - then you may state so politely and excuse yourself. But if your imagination had simply run away with you and your blind date turned out not to be an undiscovered supermodel? Stick with it and have a pint, dear friend.
These rules are not set in stone: they won't apply to everyone in all situations, and they probably won't last. In fact, we expect to blush furiously when we read whatever sex manners manual is added to the canon 50 years from now. Because while we may feel terribly modern in pronouncing that it is not only okay but obligatory for women to carry condoms on a date they hope will end fortuitously (that is, in someone's bed), surely our grandchildren will roll their eyes at our quaint attitude. And we will certainly date ourselves with our recommendation that lovers not kiss with tongue in public except at airports and train stations, and only then if you will be parted for more than a weekend and your tongues aren't visible to those passing by.
Who knows how the next generation will say their goodbyes? Today's closed-mouth peck on the lips could be tomorrow's curtsy to the Queen.
'Nerve's Guide to Sex Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen' is published by Hodder & Stoughton.
