More than one a night, ideally, with a breather of a day or two in between. You’re a new couple! Everything is so fresh and so clean (clean!). You shouldn’t get bored of each others’ bodies until you’re old and sad and fighting about mortgages. 

0: Number of f__ks you should give before the first date. The number of f__ks is directly proportional to the chances that your date will be a Massive Fail because you are too nervous.

1: Times he should instigate contact within the first week of dating. Otherwise you’ve got a Stage 5 clinger on your hands.

2: Days that should go by with unwashed hair on the night of one of your dates. And don’t try to fake it till you make it with Rene Furturer and a spritz of Eau de Not Disgusting. I’ve tried.

3: Number of dates that Pop Culture informs us is time for Sex O’Clock. (But you do you — whether it’s 3 or 300.) (I am partial to Date 5.) (But honestly, it’s more like Date 2.)

4. Amount of times that you should mention your ex within the first few dates, maximum. “Oh, you like tacos! My ex liked tacos!” *bursts into uncontrollable sobs*

5. Number of profile pictures he should have on Facebook.Just enough to be able to tell his average state of attractiveness (generally speaking, 3 of the photos will be great, 2 will be subpar), but not enough to indicate that he’s a Photo Booth slore. Having a gazillion sepia-toned selfies in your Profile Pictures album is so 2007.

6. Sex acts a week. More than one a night, ideally, with a breather of a day or two in between. You’re a new couple! Everything is so fresh and so clean (clean!). You shouldn’t get bored of each others’ bodies until you’re old and sad and fighting about mortgages.

7. Months should pass before you meet his parents. Any earlier, and you can go ahead and refer to #1.

8. Minutes he should take to answer your texts, maximum.This is a personal preference; if a guy doesn’t write me back in eight minutes or less, even if he is currently perishing in ancient Pompeii, I assume he’s just not that interested in me.

9. Number of friends — good friends, or just party-friends — you should have in common. Enough of a clique to keep it interesting, and be able to go out in groups together without the significant-other-tagging-along weirdness that happens when you bring a guy out with your friends who don’t know him. But not so many that you’ll lose all of your friends when/if you break up.

10. Miles away you should run if he follows all of your social media accounts immediately after you meet. Swear to God, this is the guy who will eventually be yelling at you to put the fucking lotion in the basket.

11. Weeks you should date before you have “the exclusive talk” (if one or both of you want to be exclusive, that is). A healthy chunk of time, but not too long for one person to be leading the other one on, which would make them a scrub, also known as a buster.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.