We’ve all been there.
First date. You’ve chosen a movie. Obviously, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is in it. Your witty banter game is on fire and everything’s going great. Popcorn is ordered, and you get ninety minutes or so while the world is saved. Thankfully your date doesn’t chew with their mouth open. This might be going somewhere.
Closing credits: your date stretches and smiles at you — two things pop into your mind almost simultaneously.
- Is that popcorn lodged in their teeth?
- Should I tell them?
There are a million reasons to keep that tidbit to yourself. Too much tension. Too many as-yet unanswered questions. You can’t just embarrass your potential future spouse with this sort of ego-crushing observation. Do they want to know? Sure, they do. But they want to hear it from literally any other human being on earth.
So, when is the right time to tell a love interest that they have Holla-peño popcorn all up in their teeth? We took a quick poll, and the top answers were as follows:
“Third date. After that, anything goes.”
“First home movie viewing. If you’re on the couch together, honesty is implied.”
“The first time they annoy you by chewing with their mouth open.”
And our personal favorite:
“Wait until they start making that crazy face as they attempt to use their tongue to extract the popcorn from their gum line unaided.”
At the end of the day, we’re not relationship experts, but we try to live by the golden rule. Honesty and direct communication are the underlying characteristics of our company culture… which basically means that, first date or not, you best believe you’ll be getting candor and a covert toothpick from us.