Mindy Kaling Gave Dudes The Most Hilarious Dating Advice In Her Commencement Speech
As much as I'd like to say graduating college is NBD and post-grad life is just smooth sailing, I can't. It's unfortunately vastly different from life in college and the transition is extremely difficult. Everything from your finances to your dating life gets totally flipped upside down. But luckily, Mindy Kaling is here to help you easily glide through this transition with some really great advice. Anyone who's read her books or ever listened to her speak knows she's an infinite well of wisdom so the fact that Mindy Kaling's dating advice in her Dartmouth commencement speech was totally on point should really come as no surprise.
The dating advice she gave was specifically directed at the straight men in the audience. “This one is just for guys: When you go on dates, act as if every woman you’re talking to is a reporter for an online publication that you are scared of,” she half-joked to the laughing crowd. “One shouldn’t need the threat of public exposure and scorn to treat women well, but if that’s what it’s gonna take, fine. Date like everyone’s watching, because we are.”
Couldn't have said it better myself. Because, I mean, if you'd rather the entire world didn't hear about the way you treated the girl you took out for drinks last night, there's a pretty high chance you weren't treating her right.
For those of you out there hoping to get married and have babies at a specific age, Mindy has some great advice for you as well. And this advice she draws from personal experience.
After explaining that she made a checklist upon entering Dartmouth as a freshman in 1997 and managed to complete everything on it by the time she graduated in 2001, she opened up about what happened when she tried the same approach out on her postgrad life.
"I graduated and I made a new checklist for my 20s," she explained. "Get married by 27, have kids at 30, win an Oscar, be the star of my own TV show, host the MTV Music Awards (this was 2001, guys, it made more sense then), and do it all while being a size two." Wow.
"Well, spoiler alert, I've only done one of those things and I'm not sure I will ever do the others," she continued. "And that is a really scary feeling. Knowing how far I have strayed from being the person I hoped that I would be when I was 21."
OK, so it's terrifying but she still has some good news! "I just want to tell you guys: don't be scared if you don't do things in the right order or if you don't do some things at all," she concluded. "I didn't think I'd have a child before I got married but, hey, it turned out that way and I wouldn't change a thing."
Even if you're not fresh out of college, I think we can all benefit from Kaling's words of wisdom. If you're a dude, date like everyone's watching and, if you're a human being on planet Earth, stop stressing about everything going according to your plan. Things probably won't turn out the way you expected them to and that's just FINE.
I told you she's, like, really, really, really wise. And that was just one small snippet of what she said! Watch the entire speech below and soak up all of her amazing advice.
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