Good Crazy

And I'm a creeper with a heart of gold, right?

“Good crazy” doesn’t exist. If this concept sounds reasonable to you, you may stop reading right now.

But what if you’re one of those people—they tend to be women but are by no means restricted to identifying with the female gender—who refuse to believe this? What if you honestly think an introductory OkCupid message stating, “I don’t know if you’re awesome in an insane way or insane in an awesome way” is a compliment? Well, hello there! How are you on this fine day? PS—You are crazy and this article is for you.

Instead of examining how “good crazy” when it comes to dating is just a thing people believe in to feel better about having ruined potential relationships due to their cuckoo factor, let’s look at a few dating/relationship scenarios together.

Scenario 1:

You’re on a first date and the guy sitting across from you (that’s your date, in case you wondered) has just asked about your last relationship. You know you’re not supposed to talk about past relationships on the first date, but he clearly wants to know, so you launch into the saga of you and X, which, while it was over a year ago, is still somehow fresh enough in your mind to take 92 minutes (including one bathroom break) to tell.

Does this sound like something a crazy person would do?

If you said yes: don’t do it.

When you do it anyway, just remember: the longest word in English takes over 3 hours to say out loud. Try to keep your story under that time limit.

Scenario 2:

It’s the end of a first date. The guy hugs you good night the way he would hug his grandmother if he had never met his grandmother before and she sort of creeped him out for some reason after having only talked to her for an hour. You realize this relationship is about to go nowhere, so once you get home, you email the guy a goodbye email so you don’t have to wait around wondering whether he will ever contact you.

Does this sound like something a crazy person would do?

If you said yes: don’t do it.

When you do it anyway, just remember: your email should be funny and smart so at least the guy will wonder whether he might have really liked you if only you weren’t so crazy.

Scenario 3:

It’s been four days since a second date. After exchanging texts for two nights straight following the last date, you haven’t heard from the guy in the next two days. You assume he has lost interest and, not wanting to seem pathetic by texting him to say hi like a normal person, you text him to ask why he had a change of heart.

Does this sound like something a crazy person would do?

If you said yes: don’t do it.

When you do it anyway, just remember: you have no way of knowing whether the lack of response to your text is a direct result of asking why he changed his mind after merely 48 hours without communication. It could have been any number of other things you did.

Scenario 4:

You’ve been on several dates, so you are clearly still in the getting-to-know-you phase. One day, the guy does something he would have no way of knowing annoys you, and you just happen to be in a bad mood (which he would have no way of guessing). You make a big—like Reese’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups are suddenly discontinued big—deal out of it so as not to give the impression that you will sit back and tolerate behavior that someone doesn’t even realize bothers you.

Does this sound like something a crazy person would do?

If you said yes: don’t do it.

When you do it anyway, just remember: you have the potential here to completely mess up a good thing, so pick a behavior or action that truly does bother you a lot, like someone eating your last Reese’s dark chocolate peanut butter cup.

Let’s review: If you still think there is such a thing as good crazy, there is no hope for you.

Unless…acting “insane” is just your subconscious’ way of saying you two aren’t right for each other, because when you do finally meet that person who both appreciates your particular brand of madness and loves you for it, not only will it be kind of remarkable but you will also—coincidentally—no longer be compelled to act so nutso in the first place.

But that’s crazy talk.