Timer class not working as expected.

[MuntyScruntfundle]

Hi folks.

From what I can find on how to compare dates, basically use the < and >, and how to put a class structure together, the following should work. But it doesn't. If I check more than or less than the tripped routine is always returning True. Is this because it's trying to return an object rather than a value??? And why does get dates return ,bound method customer.getsdates blah blah 0x0blahblah?

import datetime
import time


class clstimer:
    def __init__(self, interval):
        self.interval=interval
        self.startdate=datetime.datetime.now()

    def tripped():
        nowdate=datetime.datetime.now()
        checkdate=self.startdate + datetime.timedelta(seconds=self.interval)

        if nowdate>checkdate:
            self.startdate=datetime.datetime.now()
            return True
        else:
            return False

    def getdates():
        nowdate=datetime.datetime.now()
        checkdate=self.startdate + datetime.timedelta(seconds=self.interval)
        return str(nowdate), str(checkdate)
        

def main():
    tmr=clstimer(5)

    print(tmr.getdates)

    while True:
        if tmr.tripped:
            print("Tripped")
        else:
            print("Nope")
        time.sleep(1)


main()

What am I misunderstanding?

Many thanks.