Sex and the Steel City: The Great Escape

Being an available bachelor or bachelorette in university is a generally positive experience. You can mix and mingle whenever you want, friends set you up on charming blind dates, you don't need to shave your legs very often, and you can save money by only investing in a single bed.

Single life is good. You feel like George Clooney and get to do whatever and whoever you want. But mingling does have a drawback: a constant nagging cycle of dating. Sure, dating does help you meet people. But, if it doesn't lead to finding that "special someone", it can drive you insane when you don't know how to get out of an evening with that weird guy your sister's boyfriend's mom found for you at the YMCA.

It's great to keep your options open, but when you're uninterested, how do you end a date without hurting someone's feelings?

• Drop the F bomb: Nothing says you don't want to date someone more than telling them how much you value them as a friend. As you're exchanging conversation, casually drop into the mix how happy you are to have them in your life. As a friend. As a platonic relationship. No, not like Harry and Sally, or Ron and Hermione, but like Calvin and Hobbes, or Harold and Kumar.
• Engage in a Menage a trois: Bring a friend to your date. Everyone feels uncomfortable and wants to leave when your gently eccentric roommate comes rolling in unannounced. Suddenly, your cute dinner and a movie is a group hangout with an invited third wheel. Just roll with it. They'll veer off eventually.
• Pull the sick card: "Oh no, my allergies are acting up" "I think I may have caught something from that boy hacking away at the back of my calculus class". Pity and fear are public onsets of illness, and two traits never associated with dates (well, not conventionally). BUT NOTE: this plan may heavily backfire on you. Faking an illness can lead to a weeklong string of text messages asking how you've been. A string of text messages that you will eventually feel obligated to respond to.
• Be popular and unavailable: Schedule everything on the busiest day of your week. As you walk into your date, explain how you can only stay for half an hour because you need to get back to work, or walk your dog (that is, if you have a job…or a dog…). An alternative, have a friend phone you thirty minutes in and explain that you need to runaway to address a crisis.
• Be honest: I know, it's a cop-out suggestion, but sometimes (read: most of the time) escapism isn't an acceptable or respectful tactic. Maybe they aren't really your type or are a little more into Elton John than you're comfortable with, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve your respect. The occasional shrug off is ok, but not everyone is dismissible.

Dating can be fun and beneficial when it comes to meeting new people and developing relationships, but every now and again, a break is needed. Try these strategies to weasel out of your next unwanted encounter, and if all else fails, simply just act like a crazy person. I guarantee, you will not be the one ending that date.