An Introduction

What is a Summary Offence?

According to ever wonderful Wikipedia: "A summary offense, also known as a petty crime, is a criminal act in some common law jurisdictions that can be proceeded with summarily, without the right to a jury trial and/or indictment".

In most common law jurisdictions, a summary offence is one for which you will not receive jail time but typically be will ordered to pay a fine and/or partake in community service hours. We believe that if you do commit any of the dating crimes that we outline in this blog that you should be sanctioned appropriately, or at very least mocked relentlessly.

Matters of the heart are complex and everyone likes to think of herself or himself as the proverbial exception to dating etiquette, because clearly their situation is so unique and they have a very good, justifiable reason for the appalling behaviour in question. There is no magic formula to doing right in dating, but we hope that by laying out what we’ve deemed to be dating offences that we can at least impart some pointers and hilarity ridden anecdotes about how to NOT be a jerk. Somewhat inevitably, a lot of these offences will be dealing with the break-up process, which rarely can be described as a pleasant experience for either the dumper or the dumped. Of course people are allowed to break up, but a bit of tact and empathy can go a long way towards you being less of jerk, as well as minimizing long-term psychological/emotional damage for the involved parties.

Dating within itself is an often ridiculous, absurd and horrible process. This seems fairly ironic considering the aim of this activity is usually understood to be in pursuit of love, happiness, or even just fun. If we can't laugh at the silly things that people do to each other over the entire dating process then perhaps, we should all give up now because we've become completely cynical, jaded jerks.

A few things you should know about us:

• We think that these rules apply equally to all genders and sexual orientations, we’re equal opportunity ridiculers.
  
• We’re not looking to specifically name or harass any one individual for their crimes; if you see yourself in any of these dating offences, that’s just your own guilty conscience speaking.
  
• We’ve all done shitty things from time to time; apologies are sometimes useful (or necessary) but often it’s too little, too late. In these cases it is best to chalk our idiocy up to experience and let others benefit from our misadventures, so we’ll be putting our own follies in the mix as well.
  

Cheers!
-The Dating Police