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"1. Dating someone because he&amp;#039;s convenient.  &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re dating because our dorms are next door to each other&amp;#039;s and it&amp;#039;s sooo easy&amp;quot; feels really good when you can creep out the door in last night&amp;#039;s dress at 4 a.m. and be in your sweatpants by 4:15. After college, you deserve a better justification than &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s soooo easy&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;because sweatpants.&amp;quot; Trust me, sweatpants feel even better when you&amp;#039;ve commuted an hour and a half for them, so be willing to look beyond a four-foot radius! (This is especially important if you hate your neighbors.) 2. Accepting a miserable party experience as a date.  You may recall this visual from college: A guy is naked and sucking down an ice luge filled with Keystone Light while four girls dressed in a style that they call &amp;quot;no-pants office chic&amp;quot; are holding him in place. That&amp;#039;s not a date. There might not be many ice luge stripper parties in adult life, but if you&amp;#039;re at a party with a guy you&amp;#039;re allegedly &amp;quot;dating,&amp;quot; and you&amp;#039;re not getting the attention you want because he&amp;#039;s busy staring at other girls&amp;#039; asses, don&amp;#039;t call it a &amp;quot;date.&amp;quot;  3. On that note, &amp;quot;hanging out&amp;quot; is not a date either. Only dates are dates.  There&amp;#039;s no need to accept noncommittal gray-area bullshit after college if you don&amp;#039;t want it.  4. Not knowing what drink to order on dates besides the beer-piss he&amp;#039;s drinking or &amp;quot;whatever&amp;#039;s there.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Whatever&amp;#039;s there&amp;quot; is probably jungle juice, which, if I can recall correctly, is some funky amalgam of urine, Hawaiian punch, and rubbing alcohol. *~*YuM*~*. Seriously \u2014 learn what you like and order that, whether it&amp;#039;s whiskey, wine, orange juice with a splash of club soda, or the salt of your own tears. My personal choice is wine out of a box, which is a classy combination of wine and tears. 5. Not being prepared with condoms because &amp;quot;the free health clinic gives free ones!&amp;quot;  It&amp;#039;s hard to run to the free health clinic for free condoms when there isn&amp;#039;t a free health clinic anymore. In fact, nothing is free anymore! *Weeps openly*. But seriously: condoms. Have them. Dropping $13.76 at CVS &amp;amp;gt; STDs/unwanted pregnancies.  6. Desperately needing validation in the form of your Facebook relationship status. Contrary to popular belief in college, it still is a relationship even if it&amp;#039;s not on Facebook. George Washington and Martha Washington were totally married and served the nation, and they didn&amp;#039;t have even Facebook, so you&amp;#039;ll definitely be OK. 7. Saying &amp;quot;Sure&amp;quot; to plans when you really mean &amp;quot;Hell no.&amp;quot;  Stop saying things like, &amp;quot;Sure, I&amp;#039;d love to sit here and join you in your Michael Bay marathon.&amp;quot; Don&amp;#039;t lie. Say no. Or, if you want to compromise, you can always say, &amp;quot;We are watching a marathon of Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock and/or Say Yes to the Dress after the Michael Bay marathon.&amp;quot; 8. Only dating people in your major or tiny circle who quote the same things as you. You won&amp;#039;t have a major after college, unless you&amp;#039;re the sort of person who says things like, &amp;quot;I major in life,&amp;quot; in which case, here is my humble hat tip to your optimism. In college, it&amp;#039;s easy to only date people who have the exact same interests as you and who talk about the exact same things all of the time. In life, you might want to expand beyond your mental carbon copies. Dating someone who&amp;#039;s different from you can be really rewarding, since you can learn stuff from each other, grow, and have new things to quote, like House of Cards. Take it from someone who has a degree in English and theater, aka Hopes and Dreams. There is only so much Les Miserables a girl can take. 9. Making out with every single guy who takes you out on a date.  Or as I like to call it, &amp;quot;This Is How You Mono.&amp;quot; You don&amp;#039;t owe anyone your saliva, and a peck on the lips or a hug good night never killed anybody \u2014 in fact, it probably saved some people from some pretty sloppy kisses (and like I said, mono). 10. Dating people you&amp;#039;re &amp;quot;meh&amp;quot; about because they buy you booze. Actually, stop dating people you&amp;#039;re &amp;quot;meh&amp;quot; about in general. Also, you may find that you experience tremendous amount of pride and joy when you walk into a liquor store, pick up a box of Franzia Sunset Blush, slam it down on the cashier&amp;#039;s table, and proclaim, &amp;quot;Holiday for ONE!&amp;quot; 11. Doing long distance if you can&amp;#039;t stand it. If you didn&amp;#039;t enjoy that LDR with your so-far-away boyfriend in college and it ended on a really sour note, then it&amp;#039;s probably not the wisest idea to take up another one. If you&amp;#039;ve decided that you hate communicating strictly by video chat and you&amp;#039;re not too keen on Skype sex, then just say &amp;quot;No&amp;quot; before investing in another relationship that requires that. Yes, Skype sex can be hot, but awkward Skype sex can be very awkward. Also, if you were just in it for the Skype sex, then remember this: You can still have Skype sex with someone even if he&amp;#039;s not 40,000 miles away from you. You can just be in separate rooms! Ah, the magic of an Internet connection. 12. Half-assing relationships because &amp;quot;it probably isn&amp;#039;t going anywhere.&amp;quot; Look, no one&amp;#039;s telling you to baby-proof your home for tomorrow, but you don&amp;#039;t always need to play it cool and pretend you don&amp;#039;t give a shit. You can give a shit, and an adult relationship takes two people, not just one person sending lots of texts, contrary to popular collegiate belief. The guy you&amp;#039;re dating right now may also be the guy who&amp;#039;s calming you down five years from now while you have a mini panic attack in Ikea. If braving Ikea together isn&amp;#039;t proof that a relationship &amp;quot;went somewhere,&amp;quot; then I&amp;#039;m not sure what is. Maybe a trip to Home Depot? 13. Having zero expectations because &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s just a guy, whatever.&amp;quot; He may be &amp;quot;just a guy,&amp;quot; but you are a Woman (yes, with a capital W), and you are allowed to expect the guy you&amp;#039;re dating to change his underwear, have more interests than whatever flavor of Doritos he&amp;#039;s eating, and to treat you with respect and invest time in the relationship. If you aspire for more than the bullshit from dudes that you tolerated in college, then you&amp;#039;ll be a hell of a lot happier.  Follow Mallory on Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a29473/dating-habits-to-retire-after-college/>