The Dating Game

When I was a sweet young thing, I didn’t know anything about the dating game. I was naïve when it came to the affairs of the heart. Oddly enough, now that I’m an old, married lady, young people frequently ask me for dating advice. I learn through observation. Here are some things I’ve learned over the years by observing doctors.












Tell Your Date You See Dead People.

When I lived in Chicago, I worked with a very handsome, young, psychiatrist. He was well dressed, well spoken, and a complete gentleman. His package included soulful brown eyes, a dazzling smile, and rock hard abs, and yet, he couldn’t find anyone who would go out with him. I asked him why he couldn’t find a date, and he said that while women love the idea of going out with a doctor, they don’t want to hang out with a psychiatrist. He said that women were more afraid of him getting inside their head than inside their pants.

A few months later I noticed my favorite psychiatrist was glowing when he walked on to the unit. He told me about his new girlfriend. When I asked him for the details, he said that before he asked her out, he told her he was a funeral director. He said she was creeped-out and didn’t pressure him for information about his line of work, and that they had a great time on their date. When he confessed his sins, and told her about his true occupation, she said she would rather go out with a shrink than with an undertaker.


Never Date a Married Woman Whose Husband Has a Gun Rack Mounted on His Pickup Truck.

When I worked in Southern Illinois, I knew a doctor who was a notorious womanizer. He never met a woman he wouldn’t bed. One day a raging husband of one of his conquests appeared at the doctor’s office. Apparently, the doctor had made a “house call” when the woman’s husband was at work, and one of his business cards had fallen out of his pocket on to the bedroom floor. The husband parked his pickup, complete with a gun rack, in the clinic parking lot. An office nurse noted the truck’s “optional equipment,” and called the police. As the husband was being lead off in handcuffs for disorderly conduct, the doctor apologized to him in front of a waiting room full of astonished patients.



Painting by Will Bullas.


Don’t be a Stupid Lounge Lizard. If You’re Married, Take Your Date to a Place Where People Don’t Know You.

When I was young, single, and free back in the glory days of Disco, I liked to hang out with my nurse-girl-posse at the local watering hole. One night when we were out, I saw a man on the dance floor who looked vaguely familiar, but I could place where we had met. He was wearing a bright orange silk shirt, brown polyester bellbottoms, and layers of gold chains around his neck. His stomach protruded over his belt buckle and his shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a thick rug of curly hair on his chest. He was with a woman I didn’t know. As I sat staring at the man and his date, one of my friends gasped, and then started laughing so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. The lounge lizard was a psychiatrist at our hospital, and his date WASN’T his wife. The doctor claimed he had an open marriage, but his wife didn’t agree. She filed for divorce. The doctor’s ex-wife received all of the marital assets and Dr. Disco got the shaft. Party on!