Dating an MFA Student: Preliminary Waiver and Release

Congratulations! You’re going on a first date with an MFA student in Creative Writing. We hope you’re excited! By agreeing to this date, you officially consent to the following terms and conditions:

1. The aforesaid MFA student (hereafter “Your Date”) reserves the right to portray you (hereafter “you”) in one or more works of fiction.
2. Your Date reserves the right to describe your physical shortcomings, erroneous grammar, ill-chosen wardrobe, and sub-par erotic technique in molecular detail. Said descriptions shall be at Your Date’s sole discretion.
3. Your Date reserves the right to depict at least one explicit, remarkably protracted sexual encounter with you, the actual quality, extent, or nonexistence of your sexual contact notwithstanding. Your Date guarantees said depiction will not resemble pornography in that no imaginable reader could find it arousing.
4. Your Date consents to alter your name for fictional purposes but reserves the right to include other identifying details, not limited to your undergraduate alma mater, tattoos, hometown, distinctive vintage jacket, position as audio engineer at Barsoom Game Design, and custom-painted Mini Cooper with its Mayor Pete bumper sticker. Your Date consents to change your collection of original Joy Division LPs to a collection of Smiths LPs.
5. Your Date reserves the right to depict any and all of your exes, including one-night stands, seventh-grade crushes, and/or subjects of erotic dreams. Meeting aforesaid exes is not required. Your consent implies the consent of your exes, and likewise of your exes’ exes and their exes’ exes. Questions about propriety or ethics shall be referred to Your Date’s Number One Bestie in the MFA Program (hereafter the “Bestie”), whose authority in this matter shall be final.
6. Your Date further reserves exclusive rights to depict your college roommates, your family’s vacation cottage in Door County, and your endearingly eccentric grandmother.
7. Your Date reserves the right to make your actual and fictional names rhyme.
8. Anything funny or charming you may say is guaranteed inclusion in Your Date’s story. Your character will not say it.
9. No attempt to terminate social relations (e.g., “dumping,” “ghosting,” or “breaking up”) will void any portion of this Agreement. Neither may this Agreement may be nullified by canceling the upcoming social engagement, as Your Date has already chosen an outfit. Your contractual obligation began when you swiped right on Bumble.
10. Your Date reserves the right to incorporate your personal diary or journal into any subsequent works of fiction. Should you refuse access to your diary or journal, Your Date will recreate it through the magic of imaginative art.
11. Your Date offers, in the spirit of compromise, to make your character a composite figure who combines your physical appearance, street address, and clearly-described social media profile with the cocaine habit and disquieting sexual fetishes of Your Date’s third-most-toxic ex.
12. Your Date reserves the right to include at least one highly explicit sex scene involving one or more of your exes and/or your grandmother. Your Date advises you to skip those eleven pages if this bothers you.
13. Be advised that Your Date’s story may be published in a major national magazine.
14. Why don’t you think Your Date is talented enough to publish in a national magazine? Maybe Your Date should just call an Uber.
15. Your Date reserves the right to furnish physical and/or digital copies of the story to your employers, potential employers, and/or prospective landlord. Your Date shall be allowed entry to your workplace for this purpose.
16. Your Date further reserves the right to mail a copy of the story to your grandmother, with Post-it notes marking the relevant eleven pages.
17. Should Your Date’s story be made into a feature film, Your Date will be played by an A-lister to be named later. Your grandmother will be played by Meryl Streep. The character based on you will be an animated kielbasa.
18. In the event of any dispute, you consent to mandatory binding arbitration before a panel consisting of Your Date’s Bestie and three double margaritas.
19. You should definitely expect to pick up the check.