Editorial: So You Decided to Date the Undead: Chapter 1: Vampires
So the dating world has disappointed you once more. You’ve heard that there are plenty of fish in the sea, but for some reason you keep getting the bottom feeders. This time, you’ve had enough of it and have turned your attention to a whole new batch of potential date materials, because vampires can make long commitments or one night stands work so much better. We here at SciFiFX do not support dating vampires as a general rule. None of my fellow FX’ers will stop you from making this decision, however I’ve decided that perhaps you should know a bit of what you’re getting yourself into.
First let’s look at what a vampire is. According to the Oxford Dictionaries:
Definition of vampire
noun
- a corpse supposed, in European folklore, to leave its grave at night to drink the blood of the living by biting their necks with long pointed canine teeth.
a person who preys ruthlessly on others: the protectionist vampires in the Congress
Now that we have established that you’re wanting to date the undead, I guess it was implied, but we needed to clarify it so you understand what’s really going on.  This generally means that they probably smell funny, they’ve got a rather pale appearance, and in a lot of lore they tend to look REALLY bad. What we think of Dracula in cinema is nothing like the creature that was described in Bram Stoker’s original novel.
From Wikipedia:
His appearance varies in age. He is described early in the novel as thin, with a long white mustache, pointed ears and sharp teeth. It is also noted later in the novel (Chapter 11 subsection “THE ESCAPED WOLF”) by a zookeeper that sees him that he has a hooked nose and a pointed beard with a streak of white in it. He is dressed all in black and has hair on his palms. Jonathan Harker described him as an old man; ‘cruel looking’ and giving an effect of ‘extraordinary pallor.’ When angered the Count showed his true bestial nature, his blue eyes flaming red.As the novel progresses, Dracula is described as taking on a more and more youthful appearance.
What a woman may see
What you might get to see is some sort of glamour, meaning that it’s got a very tempting disguise before it drops to reveal its true self. This can be accomplished a couple of ways. One it’s got some sort of unnatural defense, much like the sparkly ones, that will help to lure you in. Another such way is that it has some sort of mind control ability that makes it appear to you as you would find it most attractive. Some people see a lot of benefit to something like that. What it tells me, is that it’s starting out on a lie already. Let’s be honest on this point, there are some people you have likely looked at and passed on because they just didn’t fit that perfect image you were looking for. A glamour is nothing more than making yourself something that you’re not. Oh, it can look like that perfect person, but underneath it’s a hideous undead thing with one motive, to turn you into dinner.
Let’s say you can get past this as a potential dating problem. Let’s talk about things you might have
What the vampire sees
in common. Depending on your tastes, you might find that your new vampire companion is knowledgeable to a fault about a great many things. There is a good possibility that they were there at the time. That can be awesome, and a little daunting. You’ll find that commonality might come in short supply as they’re describing events in excess of hundreds of years before your great-grandparents were thought of. This can be awkward to say the least. If a vampire’s worth its salt, then it’s likely going to be very good at hiding from any potential date wreckers. It’s not going to be a very fun date for you if all of a sudden your significant other is staked or beheaded in front of you. This can lead to stained clothing, loss of appetite, possible intense interrogation, a rather brutal series of tests to determine you’re still among the living and constant nightmares from a horrific experience. Barring any of this being a problem for you, the question becomes what do you talk about? A person of this caliber is likely going to be well versed in things. That means you better be a good listener, start learning to listen, or study and hope that your research isn’t so far off the track that your date is going to have to correct you every few words. Some people say age doesn’t make a difference, when the person is living an immortal lifetime, it might!
Making dinner can be a problem too. Some vampires can eat regular food, however I’d suspect that most can’t or won’t. They’re bloodsuckers by nature (if you want to call it that.) Another faux pas will be preparing a nice chicken dinner and then finding out that your favorite pet has been sucked dry. Unless you’re willing to break into a blood bank to get dinner, you’re going to have to get certain things on tap. This is a messy proposition and can get rather expensive, and have a lot of hard questions getting asked. Animal substitutes are a good way to keep them off the human diet, but some of them just don’t want that. Human or nothing, and likely you’re not up to the task of what that means. Consider that for a second, a predatory creature wants the meal that’s best suited to it. No amount of rare steak is going to work for a Big Mac attack (meaning some poor defenseless Scotsman has just fallen, not the unnatural product produced by the hamburger conglomeration.)
You could wake up next to this!
That’s another point of contention that must be brought up. Say your date is swearing off the human blood, that’s great, you’re going to have a lot of animal problems, but at least this part is worked out. Now, in modern times we don’t have just liquor to contend with in our blood streams. A great number of people have all sorts of chemicals running around in their veins. This could be prescription or illegal stuff. Hopefully it’s legal and cheap. This could also mean that your date has become rather addicted to the taste of it. We can only hope he likes people that are addicted to Boone’s Farm wine and you can pour copious amounts into the animal before your date needs to eat. Anything else might get you watched by special interest groups, and that’s not going to be good for your personal or professional life.
There’s also the other problem of you obtaining bites. Sure, you were making out and things got a bit further than you expected. It started kissing the nape of your neck and you felt a sharp stabbing pain as it sank its teeth into your flesh. This isn’t cool, but downright dangerous! Is it going to drink you dry or possibly turn you into one of the undead? If not, the next question should be about its cleanliness. It’s undead, you figure it’s already pretty dirty to begin with.  However, we REALLY don’t know where its mouth has been. If it bit down on someone with a communicable disease, it’s not going to die from it, but it is now a carrier for such things. Fang protection is a good option if you are bound and determined to go through with this. Practicing unsafe vampire kissing can lead to more trouble than its worth!
This is but one of the creatures that people now find it chic to date. Warnings need to be put into place for such things. This is barely scratching the surface of the vampire, but it’s a start to make you consider why dating such creatures is a bad idea. Deception, disease, unbelievable dietary restrictions, and difficult to relate to is what we’ve covered. There are the unnatural powers, such as telepathy. Possibility of shape changing. The fact that their hearts don’t beat for only you. In fact, they just don’t beat at all. Mostly, you also love a creature that’s clinically considered a corpse, so anything you do at that point is probably illegal, in spite of the fact that its moving around.
One! One date! HA HA HA!!!
If you’re still looking for a hook up, then here’s what I can tell you: out of the famous vampires, most have either ended up being killed finally, or have found significant others. I have found but one that is still a free agent. The plus is that you won’t have to worry about most of the things said above. The only attack he’s ever made upon anyone was merely to make the victim count stuff. Your money will likely be watched carefully, not to mention how many times you do certain things. This too can have its disadvantages, but he means well. The downside is he’s still not counted as part of the living, and he can’t hide his condition well.
Beware your dating choices, they look good on the big screen and in books, but a real one can be a lot of trouble for the unsuspecting dater. Hopefully you will come to a good decision for you, but just in case, I will eventually talk about marrying and child birthing with vampires. It’s a sad thing, but lore and popular fiction make it sound fun. It’s anything but fun.
See you for the next installment!
