So, I’ve had a second email, and first date (according to my method of counting for the purposes of this blog: 1 new person + at least 1 date = 1 of the 20 dates). But I’ll get to that later.

First, the question that’s been on my mind this week:

At what point in a relationship is it OK, or at least not weird, to help a guy out when he’s sick?

I’ve been out with this guy, let’s call him P., three times. We totally hit it off. After our second date, he came down with a cold that has had him absolutely knocked out for almost a week now. Still, when he was feeling better one evening, we went out for dinner. That was, apparently, but a brief respite. By the end of the evening, he was heading home, tissue in hand and Halls cough drops and Sudafed ready to be popped into his mouth probably as soon as he heard me lock the deadbolt.

So my question is, do I bring over chicken soup and orange juice? On the one hand, it could be a sweet thing to do (if I was sick for a week, I’d really appreciate a small, thoughtful gesture like that), but on the other hand, we’ve only been hanging out for a week — it’s almost to early to call it dating. There’s something that seems a little weird about it. It seems strange not to do anything, but I also realize that in relationships, I tend to bend over backwards trying to help guys when it’s ambiguous whether they actually want to be helped or not. After all, many guys have trouble accepting help, so it could be really uncomfortable to force assistance on him this early in the game.

My friend Prentice bought me a copy of “The Rules,” which she’s giving to me tomorrow. I’d imagine that book would say no to the chicken soup. I’ll probably do no chicken soup.