By Amy Cohen

May 6, 2001 | 8:00 p.m

A few weeks ago, I

got a lesson in courtship from my father. It started when I told him that I'd been dating a man who said he liked my apartment, with its Moroccan painted-wood pieces and flea-market finds. "That's terrific," my father said. "That means he's interested ." "Because he said he liked my apartment?" "No, because he's lying," he said. "That means he likes you. But what's not to like?" This method of simultaneously boosting and deflating at once is what I like to call a "compli-insult": essentially, a compliment with an insult chaser.  Example: "You look so great -you've lost so much weight, you can hardly see your double chin anymore!" "Why wouldn't he like my apartment?" "Forget about that. Listen, when I was courting your mother, I lied all the time. I told her I liked opera, the ballet-anything to make her think I was artsy. And it worked." "So your definition of courtship is lying?" "No," he said. "Well, maybe a little." The topic of courtship was part of a larger conversation, namely my wondering how people actually manage to start-and maintain- relationships in a city I've come to think of as an anarchy of romance, a Mogadishu of the heart.   As someone who's been wading in the dating pool for a while now, I barely remember the stages of my last relationship: How many dates constituted "going forward"?  How does one know when one is in an actual "relationship"?  What do you have to go through to get to the point where you're walking hand-in-hand through Blockbuster on a Saturday night, debating between Erin Brockovich and Stripes ? For some, the first stage of dating is the "nickname stage": When talking with your friends, you refer to your new prospect by a nickname. One woman I know went out with a man she dubbed "PBS tote bag" because he was never without one. One man said he and his friends called a woman "The People's Republic" because of her pear-shaped proportions. Other nicknames people mentioned included  "Crocodile Dundee Hat," "The Health Nazi," "Bonnie-Why-The-Long-Face?" and "The Hammerhead Shark." A Web designer who speaks so quickly that he pauses for deep breaths said, "I hate nicknames because you don't know what people are calling you: You could be 'Fat Joe' or 'Small-Penis Dan'-it's definitely not 'Tall, Handsome Frank.'"  The man who dated "The People's Republic" explained the hidden significance of nicknames. "Nicknames are used to keep track," he said. "If you say, 'Last night I went out with "Acapulco Guy" or "Filler Chick,"' your friends conclude,  'That's nothing.' But if you say, 'I went out with Susan,' they think, 'Ah, that's something .' They go from someone in your tickler file to a real prospect." A decorator who said she is "securing her life in case she doesn't meet Mr. Right" opined that nicknames were a defense mechanism. "It's calling men names and feeling better about yourself," she said. "Because it's usually the guys who dump you." There are other ways besides nicknames to create a protective screen. "If they're not Jewish, I'll talk a lot about my Judaism to create distance, so I can rely on that later and use that to break up," said a male psychology student. A woman who has been married once said she tells men, "I just know I'm going to bury my second husband."                  So once you get past the nicknames and death threats, what is courtship? One woman described it as "a man not giving in to his neuroses"; another defined the courtship stage as "the first three dates when you do nice things." A dentist called courtship "a more elegant term for seducing." The decorator thought it was "the dance of deciding. Figuring out if you want to get to know each other or run for the hills-which is also a dance, just faster." When I think of courtship, I don't mean flowers with a card that says "Just Because You're You ," but instead a little time to enjoy each other before hopping in the sack. "There are two kinds of courtship now," a blonde explained from behind Ari Onassis wraparound shades. "The part to get you into bed-and then the part to see if they want to have a relationship." Some people (well, men) questioned the need for courtship at all. "We can be slovenly from the start," the psych student said, "because we can get laid anytime we want." When I asked people how they would want to be wooed, the fast-talking Web geek said, "I'd like to be left alone," while the blonde said, "I'd like to be hunted like a wild animal." A man who claimed he "looked like Jeremy Irons in college" associated wooing with money. "Many men want to woo," he said, "but they give up because they think it requires lots of cash. They see other guys who are loaded, so they think they can't compete." A singer had a simpler take. "I like details," she said. "Like if he remembers I had a doctor's appointment and asks how it was." So assuming you get through the courtship, how do you know you're in a relationship? For many people, it seemed to come down to one thing: the toothbrush. "In the same way that prospectors staked their claim during the gold rush," the divorcée said, "the toothbrush is a wedge into a relationship." "The bathroom is key," said another woman. "When he says you should leave things in the bathroom, you're in a relationship." She had another tell-tale sign: "You know you're in a relationship when a man starts to freak out." The decorator felt differently. "I think that as much as you can stash your toothbrush in his medicine chest, until he introduces you as his 'girlfriend,' you're not," she said. To my surprise, some people said that sex was the deciding factor. "Once you start sleeping with someone, you're in a relationship," the singer said. "But that just might be me." The pudgy Jeremy Irons look-alike said, "If you sleep with a woman and you're nice to her, it's assumed you're practically in a relationship. Whereas if you're a jerk, you're off the hook." Others pointed to "The Talk," in all its varieties. The psych student mentioned the "Let's Go Out With My Parents Talk." An importer mentioned the "We're Not Going to See Anyone Else Talk." "Either you've had The Talk," said the importer fatalistically, "or she's monopolized my evenings so much that there's no time to go on other dates-so you might as well just throw in the towel." In writing this, I think I was hoping that stages would provide a road map. Dating can so often feel like a trip into the Bermuda Triangle, where you either survive and enjoy a sunny vacation-or turn up on Unsolved Mysteries. I want some order in the chaos. If I added up all the time I've spent on dating-setting up the first date, choosing what to wear, meeting for drinks or dinner or coffee or brunch, coming home not sure I was into him (but wanting him to call anyway), getting the call, anticipating the second date, choosing what to wear again, going on the second date, deciding I kinda like him, going on a third date, deciding I really like him, going out a few more times, fantasizing about our bike trip to Italy, getting more serious, feeling happy to be alive, wondering if things are getting weird, wondering why things didn't work out-I could have gotten my M.D.  And written an opera. In German. Twice.