Rory Gibson: My dating advice for my sons

Rory Gibson says his sons will never know the fear of having to ring a girl on her family’s landline, but they do have to deal with being swiped left.

I really enjoy giving dating advice to my sons. I especially like the eye rolls and deep sighs it elicits.

Of course it’s a changed world for them. The effort required to get within touching distance of a girl now requires little more than knowing the difference between left and right, and swiping accordingly.

At first glance it just seems so easy for their generation. My boys will never know the fear of having to ring a girl who lives in a house with only one landline telephone that is always answered by a father whose voice drips with menace.

They won’t experience the terror of having to knock on the door of that house to collect the girl, only to have the same father answer the door and appraise them with a look of pure malevolence.

Columnist Rory Gibson on a recent motorcycle trip around Africa. Picture: Supplied

No, today’s young lovers need only possess a smart phone to bypass all of that trauma, texting the girl who just swiped right to meet them outside well away from parental oversight.

But as I said, I like to shower the kids with the benefit of self-professed sagacity in such matters, so when the youngest declared he had met a lovely girl and was going out with her that night, I waded in.

“Mate, do you really think it’s a good idea to go out with her on the same day that you and your tradie friends are getting hammered at the work Christmas party?” Cue the eye roll.

Later, I asked how the evening turned out.

He recounted a night of dancing and laughter, but didn’t think he’d see her again.

“Everything was great until we went for something to eat,” he said.

“I wanted a kebab. That’s when she told me she was a vegan. She said she didn’t mind if I had the kebab but I could feel her judging me.”

There were no vegans when I was his age. They weren’t part of the dating landscape. There were a few vegetarians around but they smelled nice and weren’t militantly dogmatic.

I’ve always wondered whether a vegan can kiss a non-vegan, knowing that meat products had passed over those lips?

My boy can’t say, because he never got the chance. It’s still a minefield out there.