FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Column

Love is talking up the Aussie trip you never had
"What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniversaries? Mere killing would be too light."
When I first read that quip from Mark Twain, I wondered how it could have come from a man who stayed married to the same woman for 34 years.
A closet romantic, perhaps? Nope. I marked seven years with my girlfriend on Saturday night and now appreciate what Mr Twain was getting at, which is this - anniversaries never get easier.
I scrape through only by remembering five date lessons I've been forced to learn through often-brutal experiences.
How brutal?
See Date Lesson Number One: Don't Pretend to be Classy.
The scene is a Rotorua restaurant, in the summer of 2004, and my girlfriend pops off to the loo as the waiter brings the wine list. Here, reckons a clueless 19-year-old, is the chance to be a rock star.
So before she comes back, I hurriedly finger something sparkling and Italian-sounding, ignoring the fact that the only wine I'm familiar with comes in a box and smells like cat spray.
The waiter returns clutching a bottle of Bernadino, which I'm still reminded can be picked up on special for $5 at the supermarket.
Thinking about Date Lesson Number Two - Always Pick Up The Cheque - reminds me of the only classy dinner date moment I can boast of.
When the maitre d' handed us the bill presenter, I noticed the $100 total inside matched the $100 note I coincidentally had in my wallet.
So I slid that bad boy in there, handed it back, and strutted out of that place like I was Sinatra.
But getting back to the rule: if you're a guy, there's nothing more tragic than going Dutch on a dinner date or - shoot yourself - letting her pick up the cheque.
Date Lesson Number Three - Never, Ever, Bluff - was a tough one too.
At some point back in 2003, while I was still trying to score my girlfriend, I was listening to her sharing travel tales about Venice and Verona with a long-haired, half-Italian classmate whom I thought was keen on her as well.
When asked which exotic overseas destinations I'd explored - which was and still is the modest island nation of Vanuatu - I lied to compensate for my embarrassing travel deficit and declared I'd been to Australia.
Why Australia of all choices, I still don't know, but it wasn't until after 14 months of subject-changing agony that I finally came clean one night.
"I've got something really horrible to tell you ..." I announced, sending her into a tearful panic. "I've ... never ... been to Australia ..." She almost died of laughter.
But I never got the same reaction when, on what was meant to be a New Year's Eve date in 2004, I chalked up Date Lesson Number Four: Never Invite Your Mates.
At the last minute, I swapped our date plans for a mate's promise of a fun-filled evening at a beach-side Taranaki holiday resort that attracts the same noxious breed of screaming tweenie that plagues Marine Parade every December 31.
To escape the swarm we retreated to the relative sanctuary of dry sleeping bags and potato chips in our tent. As the countdown sounded over the PA system, we clinked plastic cups of Sprite and whimpered "happy New Year's ..." against the ever-romantic backdrop of a silhouetted tweenie spraying vomit all over the fly-net.
Also because of this experience, I've come to worship Date Lesson Number Five: Keep It Simple.
The more elaborate the date, the greater the risk factor.
That's why you can never go past the one-two punch combo of dinner and a movie, chocolate and flowers or, as in Saturday's charming little pas de deux, a picnic at McLaren Falls Park and margaritas at The Flying Burrito Brothers.
Yes, the keep it simple approach came up trumps on our seven-year anniversary.
But whether she approves of me telling you all this?
Maybe I'm in for lesson number six.