1)In words of Jerry Maguire himself 'show me the money'.
So we're students, yes we get it, we're both shamelessly poor, we're both not so great at the whole saving our loan for anything other than alcohol, and impulsive shopping trips, however boys; if you actually do ask a girl out on a date and clearly tell her you want to take her out, then surely this must mean a dinner, a cinema ticket or a few drinks are paid for in the date? Now I don't go on dates for freebies, but if a boy asks a girl out, then I'm pretty sure he's taking her out. Be a gent and spare a tenner for a round of drinks or if even go on a first date on a bloody orange Wednesday to the Odeon, but just if you're asking, then you betcha bottom dollar you're paying.
2)Taking girls on absolute rubbish dates and blaming it on the uni location.
I'm a city girl and its safe to say I've been spoiled with the luxury of living in a place like Liverpool, where there's plenty of dating options to choose from. Where I go to university, it's a different story, I live by a tired bowling alley, a Nandos, an 80s style cinema (and not in a cool retro way either) so it's safe to say there's not too many hot date options. After (half) joking to a boy to take me to Alton Towers for our date so we didn't have to be in the town we were, he actually managed to do something better. He made me (dare I say), actually like the location my university was in for that night. By taking me out for a decent meal and cocktails, he made the most of the crappy options we had and it was a good effort. It's no excuse if your university scene isn't very interesting, if she's a foodie get some fresh ingredients and cook her dinner, if she likes films, go and have a novelty cinema afternoon watching a few movies consecutively, think out of the box just ever so slightly because being in a boring place isn't an excuse for a boring date!
3)Movie. Nights.
So usually this means some sort of easy watch film playing on in the background, so you can both suitably gage through the date tension what's the right moment when you can get stupidly pashy like 15-year-old olds on the sofa right? Apparently not. I went over to have a DVD night around the fifth date mark, and sure enough the very cute Sam* wired up his laptop to his TV and we were away on Netflix choosing a film. All fine so far. He said I could pick, good start, we're watching Clueless (jokes), ok all normal, then wait for it, he said let me show you first "some really, funny YouTube videos of me and my friends on nights out." Ok I'm polite, I'll let him have his moment of glory, this is obviously his chance to prove how hilarious and how popular he is back home with the lads, so I'll entertain the idea that I'm obviously going to fancy him so much more after these belly laughing videos. Two hours later, I'm there sat with popcorn in my lap (probably stuck in my hair and down my top but by this time I'm not actually bothered about him finding me irresistible) he's in the lent forward position, howling at himself on screen and telling me every two minutes to "Just watch this bit." I smiled through it and promised myself to never ever go on a movie night again with this crazy. Even though I know this was probably just a one off weirdo occurrence, boys, even so, save in-jokes and lad banter for those certain friendship circles and pick your audience. Wooing factor? 0.1000.
4)Talking too much.
In my experience it's a cliché that girls are the big talkers on dates, when I've been on dates, boys have been the ones talking their travelling, their dreams, their life, their friends and their hobbies. My friend and I briefly dated the same boy months apart. She called me up and asked me, "Did he always talk about his ski-ing holiday to you too?" I burst out laughing. I remembered his ski holiday well, in fact I could tell you everything about his ski holiday like I was there, with it dominating the entirety of our conversations and every time I tried to swiftly change the topic of conversation, (you know to make it that bit more interesting?) he would always turn the conversation right around to ski-ing. How did we get there again? As much as I do want to know about your ski holiday, genuinely I am interested in getting to know you and the things you are excited about, I want you to get to know me too, so let the conversation be pretty even stevens.