Back in the day (where day = middle school), I once intentionally forgot my Pink Lemonade LipSmackers lip gloss on my desk in English so I could go back and pick it up when I knew a certain boy would be in the room. Just to recap, I was twelve. But apparently you’re never too old to play that game, as this week’s Date Lab proves.

The daters seem fairly compatible, if not spectacularly suited to one another, and luckily they hit on plenty of shared interests (Chris Rock, Earth Wind & Fire, the Air Force) early in the conversation. When their bill runs over the allotted Date Lab tab, he says he has money in his jacket and he’ll pay her back for covering the extra. Surprise, he forgets to give her the cash, which is “sort of the perfect excuse…to see [her] again.” Wow, you’re a slick one.

The missing money scores him a second date, but when they meet up again he decides he’s just not that into her because she’s just not than into working out. Fortunately, she doesn’t get desperate, and they part ways amicably.

Rating: 3. A little more interesting than last week’s, but still not terribly so.

Chances of Success: 1. She seems pretty happy with herself, so it’s unlikely she’ll start exercising just to please some random blind date dude, and for him, that’s a deal-breaker.

If Date Lab were a person and that person was going on a first date, he or she would do terribly. You don’t want to show too many of your cards too soon, and in this week’s DL the Post crew lets us know right away why they set these two up.

It’s because they have identical best date stories. His: “We packed up a bottle of wine with fresh mozzarella-and-basil sandwiches, climbed a fire ladder to the roof of a campus building around midnight, and sat and told stories from our childhoods.” Hers: “He made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and we went down to the waterfront with a thermos of wine, people-watched and talked for a couple of hours.” Out of the seemingly endless list of questions on the questionnaire, why did the DL team choose the one that makes it the most obvious that this pairing was based on a fluke similarity?

Unfortunately, the matching best nights of their lives didn’t get this twosome very far, although it was mostly his fault for being too young. They parted ways with an amicable “see you around,” but she didn’t mean it. He could tell, though, so with no hard feelings on either side this was a disappointing but not painful match up. Next!

Rating: 2. It wasn’t as squirmy as any of the really bad dates, but sadly it was pretty boring, too. These kids need to work on their one-liners.

Chances of Success: 1. If she’s single when he’s in the his early 30s and she’s pushing 35, he might have a shot. But until then, hasta luego.

Sorry about last week’s absence, folks. Today’s a great day to get back in the game, though, because this week’s Date Lab raises an interesting question about the Post team’s Date Lab editing etiquette.

The daters both seem likable enough, although he’s definitely funnier than she is (his morning routine and dream date: “Watch a YouTube video of a baby panda sneezing” and “A ponytailed second-grade teacher with a political-button collection;” hers: “Check my email” and “A tall, dark and handsome diplomat.”) Nonetheless, they enjoy their evening together, chatting about Camus and mutual friends (of theirs, not the author’s.) They even grab a post-dinner drink and both rate the date a 5.

Sounds good, right? Just pleasant enough to leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling before a long Sunday of studying. But the follow-up reveals that “The two met up a few more times, but then ‘things just kind of fizzled.’” It got me wondering — do we always need that extra morning-after comment?

Any relationship is bound to fizzle eventually if you follow it long enough (I doubt many DL couples end up married), so why not cut out while you’re still ahead? Then again, this is a newspaper, and I suppose it’s a question of journalistic integrity to include all the information you’ve got. Sigh.

Rating: 4. Despite the downer ending, you don’t have to feel sorry for anyone, which is nice, and the date itself was a fun read.

Chances of Success: 2. These two both sound popular enough not to recycle if it didn’t work out the first time.

Last night, I saw He’s Just Not That Into You with three friends, all in various flavors of singleness. This morning over Leo’s brunch with one of them, we discussed which of the movie’s many predictable happy endings made us the maddest in its absolute lack of connection to real life (I know, I know, it’s our fault for seeing it.) Our verdict (SPOILER ALERT, if you’re a moron who can’t predict chick flick plots): Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long, closely followed by Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck.

This week’s Date Lab is the perfect bitter after-dinner drink to complement that sickeningly sweet dessert. She’s into it and delusional, he’s giving her the not-so-subtle brush-off. On top of that, they’re both pretty unlikable: he comes across as frighteningly shallow and self-involved, and she’s the kind of clingy that makes you want to shout at her through your newspaper or computer screen.

A few choice excerpts:

I just had a forkful of icing. She ate 98 percent. [As for the cards,] I don’t give them out to everyone.

It was about 9:30 when we left the restaurant. Bryan told me he’d walk with me over to the Metro. We discussed again that he’d call. I took his arm, actually. It was a very memorable part of the date.

Rating: 1. Come on, Post. This is just painful for everyone involved.

Chances of Success: 0. Even those of you who didn’t figure out from the first Jennifer Connelly scene that her husband would turn out to be Sack from Wedding Crashers can see where this is going, and that would be nowhere.

If you haven’t read this week’s Date Lab yet, don’t bother—it’s exactly the squirmy exercise in awkward that I’m sure you’re not looking for heading into the pre-Valentine’s Day week.

Based on the duo’s favorite movies, I wouldn’t have had high hopes anyway: Legally Blonde, Ocean’s Eleven, and Saw for her; Predator, The Matrix, and Wedding Crashers for him. (For the record, the best answer is High Fidelity, Clueless, and Annie Hall, but that’s just me.)

Their interests and senses of humor don’t really mesh, so the date itself is a little uncomfortable and not worth dwelling on, but it does raise an interesting question about phone number etiquette. He offers to give her his number, but since she’s not interested, she gives him hers instead, telling the Post that “I wouldn’t want it to be ending on a bad note if I never called him.”

A fair point, but it still seems like a risky move to give out your number and then have to either avoid calls and texts or lead someone on until you break it off. In this case, she settled the matter with a lukewarm brush-off text, but I can’t help thinking there’s a better way.

Rating: 2. He was definitely more into it than she was, and that’s never fun to read about.

Chances of Success: 1. After reading the Post’s rundown, I doubt he’ll be contacting her again.

I’m starting to think that Date Lab is biased in favor of girls who like college sports. It’s as if caring (or pretending to care) about your alma mater’s football team somehow makes you automatically down-to-earth and date-ready.

The girl in this week’s date fits the mold perfectly: “I’m a huge sports fan. I can sit down with the boys and watch football and keep up!” An exclamation point?! She must mean business.

But a shared love of SportsCenter does not a love connection make. Despite consciously shying away from jeans and choosing a sweater/leggings/boots combo instead, she’s doomed from the start: he’s looking for a “blonde in pearls and polka dots.”

Fortunately, they manage to talk football for long enough to keep the date from being awkward, although her Penn State-ophilia hurts more than it helps: Alabama fan Ben rates the date a 4.157, but says that “it could have been a 4.16 if she wasn’t such a big Penn State fan.” Unfortunately for us, that’s the funniest thing either of them says in the whole column.

Rating: 2. Post commenter ASmallBlue said it best: “B-O-R-I-N-G…individually, together, B-O-R-I-N-G.” Right on, Blue.

Chances of Success: 1. He got her number and said they’d hang out as friends, but sometimes “I’ll call you” is just one of those things you say to avoid an awkward silence, and I think this was one of those times.

With last week’s Date Lab, I liked the daters’ questionnaires but was disappointed by the date rundown itself. This week, luckily, it’s the other way around: after a lackluster intro, the Post dishes up a delightful treat.

What made me so pessimistic? It could be that the girl is channeling Hermione Granger a little too hard (desired superpower: “To be in several places at once, so it would make going to school and working much easier”) or that the guy refrains from making any sense at all (best date ever: “She suggested doing something crazy, and I booked us tickets.”) Huh?

Fortunately for us, when these two actually sit down to dinner things go much more smoothly. They bond over a love of restaurant dining and college basketball, there’s definitely some flirtation going on over their drink choices (G&T for her, vodka soda for him), and they manage to close down Local 16. And after two botched attempts at a second date, they finally meet up for dinner and drinks (oddly enough, in Baltimore). Cute!

Rating: 4. A point docked for the lame questionnaires, but other than that this one’s a crowd-pleaser.

Chances of Success: 3. Sure, it’s adorable for right now, but how long will a serious foodie (he’s a restaurant manager) tolerate a vegetarian?

Sure, there’s historical precedent for politically mismatched but romantically successful couples. I’m guessing, though, that there are many more examples of unsuccessful pairings wherein the opposites infuriate rather than attract.

The Post paired up a hardcore Obamaphile and a Republican staffer for this week’s Date Lab, and I’m honestly not sure which outcome they were hoping for. In the spirit of bipartisan hope and change and all that, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was the former, even though the latter might have provided more entertainment value.

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Even though every Date Lab includes pictures of the two daters in both the print and online versions, I’ve never commented on a couple’s appearance before. Far be it from me to judge physical attractiveness because, as they say, there’s no accounting for taste. But there’s no denying that even though both of this week’s daters are the same age (34), he looks at least 10 years younger than she does. And that to the fact that she’s already been divorced and he’s steadfastly single, and I figured she’d be running circles around him in no time.

Luckily, she didn’t disappoint. She fishes for his mean streak with a little bit of teasing about the restaurant’s girly drinks, but he refuses to take the bait, and she’s turned off by his lack of bite. Other than that, their conversation proceeds pleasantly, but she makes it clear that she’s looking for a man, not a boy: “He still lives with a roommate; he always has. I’m more used to dating guys who are like 40 and paying their mortgage. I’m looking for someone who has been in a more committed relationship.” Is it any surprise that she’s the one who drives him home?

Rating: 4. They both seem likable enough, and no one did anything embarrassing, so it’s a fun read despite the lack of a love connection.

Chances of Success: 2. As dater Jen notes, “But when it comes down to it, people are busy, and when there’s not a romantic love connection, it’s not likely that we’re gonna be like, ‘Let’s check out that art festival.’”

Asked for a notable home detail, the girl in this week’s Date Lab mentions that all four of her roommates are men. It’s an immediate red flag — not the fact that she lives with four guys, but her need to brag about it from the get-go tags her as the kind of girl who shamelessly leads guys on just to get attention.

Sure enough, she doesn’t disappoint. The date is cute enough: they have a fun chat, go to another bar afterward (he buys the drinks, natch), and there’s even an exchange of phone numbers. He has hopes for a second date. But what’s she thinking?

“There was no romantic undercurrent for me, though I’m not really surprised [he felt one]. I get that a lot, initially. He’s like a lot of guy friends I have. Then when they realize that I’m not feeling it the same, we become good friends. Most of my friends are guys.”

Um, Alison? They’re not your friends.

Rating: 3. Points for the true-to-life let’s-just-be-friends trick, but 2 docked for her obnoxiousness.

Chances of Success: 2. He seems cool enough that he won’t get hung up on pursuing her if she’s not into it, and she has plenty of other options, or at least thinks she does.