BALTIMORE—Saying he doesn’t want to scare her off by springing too much on her all at once, local man Daniel Hastings explained Tuesday that he has devised a carefully calculated timeline for revealing his negative personality traits to the woman he is now dating.
The 31-year-old IT technician told reporters that by strategically planning when to expose each of his various character flaws to new girlfriend Melanie Carlin, he hopes to provide her with a sufficient period of time to acclimate to one shortcoming before she is presented with another.
“I’ll probably reveal my occasional stubbornness and impatience to her right off the bat, just to get those out of the way,” said Hastings, noting that years of experience have taught him he will need to “play this just right” if he doesn’t want the relationship to end prematurely. “Then I’ll lay off for a full month and let that settle in before I start showing her how I can be pretty sullen and childish when I don’t get my way.”
“If I were to let her see I’m a slob right at the beginning, that would probably be a little much to take,” he continued, “but after 12 weeks it should be totally fine to stop picking things up off the floor before she comes over.”
“If I’ve laid the groundwork ahead of time with a handful of snide comments about her parents, it should feel like a natural progression of the narcissism and thoughtlessness she’s already seen.”
Hastings went on to state that by the end of the summer, the 29-year-old woman would likely be invested enough in the relationship for him to safely display his short temper, and that he would wait until then to snap at her over the phone or make petty, passive-aggressive remarks without any provocation.
Once he has passed the important milestone of meeting Carlin’s parents, Hastings said he would carry out an ambitious back-to-back unveiling of his arrogance and lack of direction, followed up with a next-day disclosure of the fact that he’s really bad with money.
According to reports, the Clarksville, MD native has even slated an empty “catch-up week” just before the holidays so he can disclose any unappealing facets of his personality he has been unable to get to as scheduled during the calendar year.
“By month 10, I should be clear to start showing my controlling and possessive side by making a few sarcastic cracks about how Melanie spends too much time with her friends,” said Hastings, adding that he would be sure to do this in a joking manner so she would not be able to tell whether he was serious or not. “Just to plant the idea, you know? I figure I’ll definitely want to ease her into that one.”
Should his girlfriend eventually opt to give up the lease on her apartment and move in with him, Hastings remarked that he would then be able to “launch into a whole bunch of other stuff,” including his laziness, his tendency to be clingy, his preference to stay at home as much as possible, his cowardice, his resentment of his position in life, his fragile ego, his superficiality, and his cynicism toward most of the world around him.
“Hopefully Melanie invites me to a big family gathering at some point, maybe around our first anniversary together, because that would be the perfect time to debut my contempt for her relatives by refusing to engage in conversation and then demanding to leave early,” Hastings said. “If I’ve laid the groundwork ahead of time with a handful of snide comments about her parents, it should feel like a natural progression of the narcissism and thoughtlessness she’s already seen.”
“And by that point, I’ll have pretty much laid my entire personality out there,” he added. “Except for my tendency to bend the truth and inability to take personal responsibility for any of my problems, which I plan to keep to myself for as long as possible.”
Though Hastings has reportedly expended a great deal of effort formulating his timetable, sources confirmed he would definitely be willing to speed up the disclosure of his personal faults should Carlin start revealing hers.