The 90-Day Contract by Damon Alton

This is part of the preface from my book.

THE PICKUP LINE THAT
STARTED A REVOLUTION

When I began to put together this book, this concept, this revolution of sorts, I did it out of fun and frustration. It actually started out as a joke or a gimmick to talk to girls, be funny and start a relationship. I had no idea that it would eventually lead to the biggest contract of all.

Marriage.

On January 30, 2005, I met the girl of my dreams and convinced her to enter into a 90-Day Contract with me the first night I met her. Now I had seen her before as she was a super hot bartender at a local and trendy sushi establishment. Of course I didn’t approach her at work where she gets hit on 1,000 times a day. I just remembered her and if I ever saw her out I thought I would approach her. Now of course The 90-Day Contract was still yet to be invented, and I was kind of dating I guess, mostly just continuing on weak relationships I’d had in the past. The funny thing was that all my relationships lasted only about 3 months. I wasn’t sure if it was ADD, or boredom; I just knew that I wasn’t into my “Girlfriend” at the time.

Continuing on my trend of failed dating experiences, I would find various ways of breaking up or breaking out of these relationships. Either I would get dumped, usually by implementing the 3 or 4 days without a phone call method. Then I would then call my “Girlfriend” and ask the “Are you alright?” question, which was usually followed up by the “We need to talk” talk. Those were fun.

Many times it was me ending a relationship always within the 3 month period. I once texted a girl that I thought we should stop seeing each other. Of course, all of her friends referred to me as the guy that broke up via text – “What an asshole!” I had only been out with her 3 weeks. I am sure if she made it past a month I would have written her a letter. Or not. So this became quite the theme. I would start to date a girl with all good intentions but ultimately it would end within the first three months.

So I attempted some candor and real honesty when I approached girls that I was attracted to and had conversations with. I started all conversations with these prospective “Girlfriends” like this, “Listen, things are going to probably end badly for us, but the ride down will be a lot of fun.” 99% of the time I got a laugh as the girls probably thought I was joking, but there was an absolute truth to that statement. All my relationships lasted about 90 days.

You wouldn’t believe the success. I would point blank ask girls if they we’re into getting into a 90-Day Contract and they typically responded with intrigue and disbelief, that somehow I was going to sell them something. But they were more than willing to listen. So I would just break down some of the concepts of The 90-Day dating contract like where The Contract can be voided at any time by simply not calling within a 48-72 hour period. Sex would be considered after 10 dates, phone calls count as one. There is one 45 day review date as well as a 90-Day review date. They loved the fact that you never break up with anyone; you just are no longer under contract or have decided to void The Contract. And lastly, you’ll no longer date someone for too long. These were just a few that I came up with. The girls had their ideas about what was entailed in a 90-Day trial as well.

I was amazed, I wasn’t leaving the bar with girls phone numbers, I was leaving the bar with a new girlfriend eager to try dating me right then for at least 90-Days. Most of them only lasted 2 to 3 weeks but it was wonderful. I wasn’t going to marry any of them and they weren’t going to tell their friends how much of a jerk I was for ending it.

The beauty of this approach became clear to me. Everything in this world is handled through a contract or agent, even marriage, but dating is vague and ambiguous. The fact that we could verbally come to some agreements on expectations, time and commitment had opened the lines of communication that every expert states is the key to all relationships.

So I contracted a number of girls in the first months of my new strategy. I am still friends with all of them. They don’t consider me an ex-boyfriend or even a guy they used to date. We just had a contract that didn’t work out. So of course, then I met Claudia. I remembered her from the last time I went to the sushi place where she bartends. Josh and I were actually invited to go out to a birthday party by another hot bartender who Josh was trying to convince to get into a 90-Day Contract with him. The party was a blast. I got Claudia’s attention for a few minutes and after I built some rapport I asked her if she was dating anyone, which she promptly responded “No.” Then I set up the pitch for The 90-Day Contract. ”Let’s try it,” I said and she said with reluctant exuberance, “OK.” I am not sure how Josh got home but I imagine it worked out for him as well.

So the rest is history. The 90-Day Contract went a full 90 days, and we constantly referred to adding things and subtracting things we thought should be agreed upon. We had our 45-day date, we drank and laughed. On our 90-Day date we agreed to continue our little contract until finally I sold her on a bigger contract. We were married in November 2007.

I hope that this open some doors and loosens some ideas on what relationships are and what they shouldn’t be. I know I am not the only one who’s ever uttered the words… Dating Sucks