There are some hard and fast rules of dating. Women, ignore these at your peril.

Rule 1: There must be some serious making out by the third date.

If I haven't felt your tits by then, things are not about to last much longer. In fact, if you don't get back on track by the fourth date, you're done.

Rule 2: There must be orgasm by the fifth date.

No, ands, ifs, or buts. If I haven't unloaded by this time, things are intolerably slow. There will be no sixth date to give you a second chance. If you haven't delivered by now, you're done.

Rule 3: There must be sex by the second month of dating.

There are a lot of allowable exceptions to this rule, but they all involve orgasms. I'll let you slide if for unseen circumstances we haven't gotten to see each other much, and you have been providing me with some excellent orgasms in the meanwhile.

But there are no foreseeable reasons why anyone would slip into the fourth month of dating without sex. But since you do provide a certain level of sexual satisfaction, I will give a requisite talking to you to see "what's wrong." If you don't give it up the date after "the talk," you're done.

I'm not telling girls to be sluts, but there are bounds of reason. And I have no intention of going out with someone in the long run, without a reasonable amount of sex -- and these rules set the reasonable bounds. Ignore them at your peril.

Some guys are assholes, and won't go out with a girl if she gives it up too easy. I have no such inane and antiquated hang-ups. I'd much rather go out with a slut than a prude.

In the long run, how much I go out with a girl will be determined by how well I get along with her. Is she smart, fun, funny, lively, good to talk to? Sex can only eliminate you or give you some added shelf-life, but it can't do much more.

If you don't give it up within a normal period of time, you will be eliminated. If you're excellent in bed, you can extend your stay. In the end, it's always your personality. But I don't want any girls to be left with the impression that they are going to trick us men into taking them more seriously or getting attached to them more because they refuse to have sex for a long time. If a guy does react that way, he is an idiot, and you're an idiot if you go out with him. If he's a reasonable guy like me, not having sex within the right time period can only hurt you.

I might seem like an asshole for pointing this stuff out, but there is no reason to hate the messenger. These rules are out there whether you like it or not (or whether your particular boyfriend has crystallized them in his mind, every guy has an internal gauge that are roughly within these parameters), so it's better that you know. I'm trying to help. Love the messenger.