For most people there are four seasons in the year. For the chronically single among us, especially those of us over 30, there are only two seasons: Dating Season and Couples’ Season. Today, the day after Halloween, is the official beginning of Couples’ Season. It’s the time...

So no more Republican. That was fun while it lasted but we split amicably and mutually after just a few months, which leaves your Chop in a frustrating and absurd position: the state of Passive Dating. For most of our life we believed Passive Dating was a fiction- a made up thing that people...

Yes friends, today is a most unusual day in the saga that is the life of the Chop. It’s the day that we, being of sound mind and body and with a full awareness of the world around us and the possible repercussions have willingly agreed to go on an actual date with a card-carrying...

You know, the discussion of who should pay on a first date is a pretty old, circular and tired argument. There are tens of thousands of opinions on the question in books and magazines and all over the internet, including our own sage advice on the matter. It’s the kind of question that...

It’s a thoroughly modern world these days, Baltimore. The days of presenting debutantes, old-fashioned courtships and calling cards are by and large over, and they’re not coming back any time soon. Likewise the ideas about dating that a lot of us grew up with are also fallen by the...

Ahem. This is one of those topics that has been done to death on the internet, radio, TV… just about everywhere. Asking who should pay on the first date is pretty much like saying “Please beat me over the head with your reactionary and ill-considered opinions until I never want to...

It’s Monday Baltimore. It’s a new week, and the perfect time to introduce the first in an occasional series of posts called House Rules. House Rules will focus primarily on Barroom etiquette. The art and science of buying rounds, what to drink and how to tip, rules for last call,...

Here we are again on a Sunday, Baltimore. Nowhere to go (unless you want to go to this), fuck-all to do, and a hangover to cure. We figure Sunday is a good time to wax philosohphical, at least until there’s Sunday O’s games or softball to play. What we’re on about today is...