The Rules grate on my tender nerves, because of that assumption that a guy is supposed to spend big bucks to take you out.
Please, I can understand one date where you go to dinner, by then I already know if I want the guy’s body, and it is just a matter of waiting to - ahem - get it on.
Besides, I am cheap. Some of my best times with guys are when we are together, we obviously are going to be getting it on, we cook dinner together, and then retire.
Ellen Fein seems to live in a passionless universe.
That is so pathetic.
Did you read where she said that the lucky girl is the one who marries at 22 and never has to face dating again?
As if the guy can’t divorce you, or die. Then what?
My husband and I were both dirt poor when we met. We built our lives TOGETHER, no bullshit. We went out when we could, played games together when we couldn’t afford to go out, and screwed our brains out. 7 years later we’re the happiest couple I know. These chicks have shit where their brains belong.
If I had tried doing any of those Rules things I wouldn’t hve met the love of my life, and what a loss that would have been.
Heck, I still remember fondly a lunch date with my boss, whom I wanted to get to know much better. We were so busy looking at each other, the waitress didn’t take our order for half an hour. What we were thinking was “I can’t wait to get you alone, lock the door and throw away the key.”
He was yummy, we knew we wanted each other and went for it.
God, I hope the woman he is with today knows how lucky she is.
To break with what seems to be a unanimous anti-Rules sentiment on this board, I’ll put in two cents. Much of the response seems to focus on the poster’s comparisons of Rules methods to their own personalities. “Hey! I’m not as pathetic as that”. So I suspect people are protesting just a bit too much.
So far as I can see, the basic premise underlying to Rules (confession: I’m not too familiar with the specific rules) is a true one. People do tend to value more things that they they think are more difficult to attain. Whether due to a lack of self-esteem or any other reason is irrelevant. There are products that are marked up in price for the sole reason that if they were sold for less they would be unappealing to upscale purchasers. Certainly in romantic relationships it is common knowledge that these priciples hold true. In fact, I would be shocked if many of the esteemed posters who are so indignant here have not employed some of the same techniques, if not as part of a specific formula than as part of a general sense of how to approach such situations.
It is the idea of extending this to specific Rules which presents great such opportunities for people to poke fun, and to quibble with specific applications. But there’s a reason for this as well. Many people would gain from applying these general principles, but are not socially adept enough to carry it off. Having Rules to follow makes it easier for such people. This “Rule of Thumb” type of approach is one which has has been used succesfully in many other areas of life.
One outstanding issue concerns the mortality of such dealings. Obviously these practices should not be carried to an extreme. But if kept within reason I think it would be par for the course. Everyone knows that a cxertain amount of best-foot-forward and other acting takes place in all courtships. If someone adds a little aura of mystery and unattainability it does not represent a departure from standard practice. Who would not, in a job interview, feign disinterest in order to increase their value in the eyes of their prospective employer? Most of the Rules seem to similar stratagems.
Some posters have suggested that the implication of the Rules is that a woman who follows them is desparate to get married/considers herself nothing without a man etc. I don’t see how this is the case. Marriage is a major, life changing commitment. There are better and worse potential spouses. If you can do better than you otherwise would by following some sort of guideline, more power to you.
Of course, all of the preceding applies only to regular people. Posters to this board are distinguished by being such personable, attractive, kind, and succesful people that they need no help of any sort to attract the man (or woman) of their dreams. Good luck to all.
Hell, I’ll marry him anyway. But only if he’s willing to:
Only see me once a year
Spend every spare penny on me and my silly “girly” hobbies.
Never question where I go or what I do
Let me stay married to the guy I’ve got.
On second thought…NO! I mean, how do I know this guy’s a millionaire? No man is worth marrying unless he has a phat (or is that fat?) stock portfolio. And he’d better work out at least four times a week; can’t be seen in public with a man who’s not physically worthy of being seen with my sublime self. And I’ll have to have my own, seperate house, because he can’t see me reading or working on my computer; that would imply that I have a brain, and if I allow him to see that I might be more intelligent than your average Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, he won’t want me any more. Oh, and a housecleaning service because it just wouldn’t do to let my Excellent Friends know that I’m not a spotless housekeeper. And a BMW so I can prove to the world that I Married Well even when out buying groceries. Where I will, of course, buy only pate de foie gras and brie, and an unassuming bottle of Cabernet Sauvingnon (a saucy '87, natch), so that the very CASHIERS will be impressed by my breeding and class.
MY WHITE ASS. ANYway…
A couple of people have given a “…doth protest too much…” type of response, to which I give a reasoned and well-thought-out, “What the hell ever, man.” Yeah, I protest. There ARE chicks out there who seem to think that nabbing a rich man is the Only Goal that Matters. Fine for them, actually. While they’re off banging the pool boy (a la far too many porn flicks) and getting their nails done, I’ll be ENJOYING myself. Feh. Spit.
The Rules boil down to “the man pursues the woman” and urges women not to call and ask for dates or initiate any other contact. I find this terribly short-sighted.
When I enter a social situation where there are many women, which one of them is “The Woman”? For whom am I “The Man”?
How can I tell the difference between a woman who is playing hard-to-get and one is genuinely not interested in me?
The kind of persistent pursuit The Rules tells women to expect from men comes very close to the kind of harrassment that men are repeatedly warned against.
Don’t women realize how much more complicated and intimidating it is for a man to approach a woman than vice-versa? Although both sides face availability and sexual orientation issues, women often regard unwanted attention as threatening. Looks are a factor for both sides, but just what makes a man attractive overall in a woman’s eyes is much more varied and difficult to understand. The way men judge women may be shallow, but it’s simple and straightforward.
Attitudes about dating and sex vary from woman to woman, a woman’s can vary over different periods in her life, and women’s in general have varied from historical time period to time period. Men are always hot to trot. And although many women still insist on a relationship as opposed to casual sex, some go through a period when it’s vice-versa. You call and ask for a date and they’ll assume you’re trying to establish a full-blown relationship and weasel out, even though they might have had sex with you at an opportune moment. (Of course, some women will swear off guys altogether for a time.)
When women go out at night the stay in small groups and “circle the wagons”. It’s very difficult for a guy on his own to cut one out from the herd. She’ll worry that her friends will scrutinize and giggle about her behaviour and feel guilty about leaving them in the lurch, even for a few minutes.
So this is why I have a big problem with The Rules. I’ve been waiting for women to get over this ridiculous notion that they aren’t allowed to ask for dates or anything and make things easier for everyone by taking some initiative. And now this stupid book comes along telling them to gon on sitting there as a blank wall while we bash our heads up against it.
Apparently a lot of women aren’t interested in getting involved with guys who are nice. They like “bad boys”. As one female advice columnist put a few years ago, “outlaws are sexy”. This despite all the caterwauling about sexual harrassment and domestic abuse.
Don’t women realize the long-term effect this is having on the way they’ll be treated by men? As word gets around among guys that you’re more likely to get laid by acting like a stuck-up jerk than by being nice to women then every guy will be a jerk. As Bill Maher put it recently, “If women are going to keep complaining about the way men behave, they should start showing better taste in them”.
One explanation is that women are simply responding to the age-old instinct that atracts them to men who are macho and powerful. Another theory of mine is that women think a nice guy is oh-so-sensitive and will be devastated if she ever breaks up with him, and she’ll feel guilty. So if she’s looking for short-term involvement, it’ll be with someone without any feelings she has to care about, someone who’ll give her a good reason to end the relationship so she won’t have to be the heavy. Planned obsolescense. At any rate, women sure aren’t practicing what they preach.
I’d like to hear what some of the women on this board have to say about this or some of the points I made in my previous post.
Nice guys don’t get laid. They are pathetic. I watched a guy, let’s call him James, offer dinners and flowers and freebies to any single gal, hoping he could get sex.
It was pitiful. No one wanted to hook up with him for one night.
That guy wasted so much time on delivering flowers to the offices where we worked. All it got him was an angry phone call telling him to back off.
Guys, do NOT spend a lot of money on a first date. Ever.
About $25.00 is the most one should shell out.
The only time you give flowers is on the first anniversary of your marriage, and even then a single rose is better, it seems so much more ‘romantic’ and all that cal.
Do not offer to listen to gals weep over how rotten their BFs treat them, do not offer to help them move, or lift heavy objects.
Not ALL men are like this any more than ALL women are a certain way. Certainly, patterns of male sexual behavior very from time period to time period: look at the Victorians–it was the women that had to be chaperoned and wrapped in 13 layers of restrictive clothing, because they werre thought to be more emotional–more passionate–less capable of self-control; men had more freedom because their supposed greater intelect implyed a greater ability to keep thier sexual desires in check and use socially acceptable outlets (i.e., prostitutes and lower class women.)
The real problem I have with a book like The Rules is that it perpertuates this idea we have in our society that the shape of a person’s genatalia is the single, overriding definer or their personality. Men and women vary so much that any attempt to say 'Men are blank" or “Women always blank” is going to be so prone to exceptions that you might as well ignore it. Were I a sixteen year old boy reading The Rules, i would be horribly depressed to think that women were “ALL” like that, and were I a sixteen year old girl reading it, I would be horribly depressed at the idea that this is what I was expected to be this way by all men.
The weirdest thing about those books, though, and similar ones, is they seem to assume that thier audiece lives in this super WASPy, office-job, urban, “normal” enviroment that I don’t think really even exisits outside of televison. Certainly, most peoples lives don’t fit this pattern. For example, how many people actually get to know thier mate through a series of one-on-one formal dates? I supose some people still do, but it is certainly not the pattern of an overwhelming majority of the population.
I’ll give you an answer on dating, just wait a moment.
Got to hike my skirt up, practice looking at the plate of food, the floor - anywhere but at my guy - and also practice that drunken move - letting my face drop so my hair falls over it, and then sensually sweeping my flowing locks out of my face.
Sqweels, my man, there are nice guys, and there are Nice Guys. The whole reason The Rules are such a steaming pile of natural fertilizer is that they exist solely as a means to snag a man through subterfuge, and assume said snagging, by any means necessary, is at the very top of any right-thinking woman’s lifetime To-Do list. We, operating under no such assumption, find this distasteful, and probably would not look twice at such a woman, except to point her out to our friend who runs the Living Anachronisms website.
We wouldn’t go near a woman who pulled the kind of ridiculous, transparent, pathetic crapola that can be found in The Rules. Why should we expect a woman to accept that same behavior from us? Nice Guys define themselves within the context of pursuit (“Isn’t this how women want me to act?”). They establish themselves as the opposite number of the diabolical Assholes, who always seem to get the women, even though the Nice Guys know, they know dammit, that women don’t really want Assholes, they want a Nice Guy to pamper them and be gallant and send flowers and every other thing on the “How To Sweep Her Off Her Feet” checklist. The Asshole has somehow temporarily pulled the wool over the woman’s eyes, but she’ll see, she’ll see.
Dude, she sees, all right. Screw her and leave her, or put her on a pedestal and patronize her; either way, she’s an object. As long as a person alters his or her demeanor in the name of a relationship (actual or potential), that person will not be happy, and neither will that person’s partner. Sorry this was so long; I trimmed it as much as I could.
What really disturbs me about The Rules is the following chain of assumptions:
A woman cannot complete and fulfilled until she gets married.
Therefore, women are running around throwing themselves at men, putting out on the first date, incessantly calling men they’re interested in, and generally acting obsessive and needy to the point they are on the verge of stalking the guy.
This is unattractive.
Therefore, despite the fact that you adhere to the theory of #1, above, and despite the fact that your underlying motivations and desires still match #2, above, you must cover your obsession with snagging a man to marry, because that will only drive the man you’re trying to snag away.
This leads naturally to The Rules, which encourage you to seem like you do not care that much about a man, when really, you’re every waking moment is devoted to fantasizing about your wedding day with him.
This attitude is sickening, because it encourages women to place all their self-worth in their ability to get a husband, rather than encouraging them to develop self-worth by being a worthy human being. I agree that women who hang on men like their only salvation is marriage are unattractive. My proposal is that these women should learn to find some worth in themselves and in life in general that does not solely depend on the willingness of some guy to marry them.
Ok, since you’ve told us what NOT to do, what would you suggest “Nice Guys” do? Re-objectify women as “bitches” and treat them as such? That’s the way most of the men I know who get laid a lot are. They don’t particularly like women outside of their crotches & chests.
Well, of course. Nowadays that’s called sexual harassment.
Not the traditional have-sex-with-the-boss-or-he’ll-fire-you kind of sexual harassment, mind you. That traditional kind is called “quid pro quo” sexual harassment. Since the mid 1980s, though, there’s been a second definition of sexual harassment called “hostile environment” sexual harassment, whereby anything you do that’s even remotely related to sex, and which to a “reasonable woman” (not a reasonable man, a reasonable woman – I swear I am not making this up) would create a hostile working environment, is considered harassment.
The guy delivering flowers was lucky he only got an angry call and not an angry subpoena.
IANAL, but it’s not sexual harassment unless the harasser and harassee work together. I can’t claim “hostile work environment” sexual harrassment if I can see the contruction workers across the street and they make obscene getsures at me. It could be stalking if the guy is a real obssessive, but if he’s just sending flowers I doubt he should have any worries. I agree that some companies are a bit too quick to censure people for anything that might possibly be considered sexual harassment, but it’s not quite as bad as you say.
