FEATURE: 'The Rules' of dating and for better relationships
Monday: Rule #1 advises girls to be a “creature unlike any other”. A CUAO “gets attention by not trying to get attention” and “has too much self-esteem to chase guys”. With so many Irish women single, I’m not convinced about elusiveness. In a bid to be a CUAO though, I go to the beauty salon.
Tuesday: Armed with a list of dos and don’ts, I go online. Friends have had success on Plentymorefish.com, so I sign up for free. There are good-looking guys with promising profiles, but according to the New Rules, I’m not allowed to ‘message’, ‘favourite’ or ‘wink’ at them. Given that a “wink” initiate contacts, this could get tricky.
Wednesday: Finding internet dating infuriatingly limited, I’m thinking about texting a hot guy I swapped numbers with at the pub last weekend. But it’s against the rules: “Talking to, or texting, a guy first may make you feel cool, but is creating a relationship that may never have happened otherwise”. I compose a flirty text and am about to press ‘send’ — when I remember the authors’ advice.
Thursday: With ‘like’, ‘poke’ and ‘gift’ buttons, Facebook seems perfect to find romance. To remain a CUAO, you’re not supposed to ‘friend request’ a guy you like. When a former colleague I’ve a thing for pops up on a ‘mutual friends’ list, I click on his profile. Without ‘friending’ him, I’m unable to find out if he’s coupled up. Aargh!
Friday: Success! I get a text from the guy I met last weekend, asking me out to the cinema. As a ‘Rules girl’, I have to wait between 30 minutes and four hours to reply. Disaster strikes. While waiting to text him back, I get sidetracked by a deadline and forget to respond. He probably thinks I’ve ignored his text. Authors Fein and Schneider would be proud of me for playing hard to get.
Saturday: It’s girls’ night out and I’m looking forward to breaking all the rules. All this romantic inactivity is exhausting. So when a group of good looking guys sits next to us, I strike up a conversation. It flies in the face of Rule #2: “Don’t talk to a man first (and don’t ask him to dance)”. In the end, it’s ‘sisters before misters’ as we hit the dance floor, instead.
Sunday: After getting up late, I check my emails over coffee. One is from a former flame with whom I’ve recently reconnected. According to the rules: “If a guy doesn’t ask you out within four emails, next.” Scrolling back through our email history, I see that this is his third email — so all is not lost. In the meantime, there’s no fear of me breaking the rule that says: “Wait as long as you can before having sex.”
In an era of over-sharing, we could all do with pulling back a bit. When it comes to romance however, there’s playing hard to get — and then there’s playing dead. The Rules were outdated when they first hit bookshelves in 1995. Twenty years on, applying them to your iPhone doesn’t make any difference, in my opinion. Single women today take control of everything from their finances to their fertility. Relinquishing control of my love life for a week only left me feeling powerless. For my part, I plan to throw away the rule book — and hit on men.
As a single gay man, I think I present something of a challenge to the logic of The Rules.
In order for me, a man to use The New Rules, I’ll have to think like a woman as a man to get a man. I’m pretty sure there’s a double negative in there somewhere.
Monday: As it happens, I had got talking to a guy in a club the Saturday night just gone. He was younger than me and, in common with his generation, the first thing he did after we exchanged numbers was to add me as a Facebook friend. I still haven’t accepted his request — and it’s just as well, because Rules #9 and #10 expressly forbid me from excessive Facebook interaction.
Tuesday: Club guy has texted me to ask why I haven’t accepted him on Facebook. This is our first text exchange, and he initiated it, which is good (Rule #3).
According to Rule #6 I need to wait a minimum of four hours before replying. A few hours go by, and he sends a '?' as a follow-up. I momentarily panic. “Your text just delivered to me now,” I write. It would have been easier to just pretend the message never came in the first place.
To make it worse, I forget that my iPhone messages show the sender when their text has been delivered, so he’ll know that I got the text hours earlier. “Funny, it said it delivered,” he replies. Whoops!
Wednesday: There’s still a bit of texting back and forth but when I suggest a date and time to meet for a drink, I don’t get anything back. Time to cut him loose, as advised under Rule #6.
Thursday: There’s one guy I’ve been very flirty with on Twitter over the past few months.
Rule #4 says: “Don’t ask guys out by text, Facebook, instant messenger or any other way.”
Regardless, I send him a private message asking him out for a drink. He replies within an hour saying “not available right now”.
Friday: I’m out for a drink with some friends. Later in the night I spot a guy throwing me the glad-eye, but we’re both being very shy about it.
Rule #5 says not to “sit or stand next to a guy first or flirt with him first”. This is too “aggressive”, apparently. But guess what? Most gay men are brutal at making the first move.
So I approach him and we get talking. Half an hour later we have swapped numbers. !
Saturday: Bar guy texts — success! We agree to meet for a coffee the next week. I tell him I’ll let him get in touch with me. Still waiting, by the way — four days later.
As a general guide to dating, The New Rules does contain some wisdom. I don’t believe in being too available — it’s not attractive and it’s often such a slippery slope to neediness and desperation. I also like the idea of retaining a little mystery and not giving away everything there is to know about yourself in the first encounter.
However, if you’re a gay guy, I think the logic of not making the first move is deeply flawed. In my experience, the other guy is usually grateful you’ve done something to break the ice. If he isn’t, then he’s not interested or just not worth the effort.
Even though my being forward doesn’t seem to have worked out this time, the major thing I’m taking away from this experiment with The New Rules is to consistently break the rule about not approaching guys I’m interested in.
There was a boy I liked and I was excited to see if the rules would make a difference. But by the time the book arrived in the post, I’d broken every rule.
Monday: I set about rectifying the damage — I had told him about the rules. I did nothing. And nothing happened.
Tuesday: To look like a ‘creature unlike any other’, I dress in the ‘Rules girl’ uniform of heels and skirt. I skip the suggested hoop-earrings. I get as far as the door before kicking off the heels and reverting to flats for comfort. Now, I’m just a creature.
Quoting Mae West, the authors say, ‘There are no ugly women, only lazy ones’. Yet, this was a woman who never followed the rules.
Feeling guilty about my wardrobe malfunction, I go online. I check my profiles on Facebook and Twitter. Share as little as possible. Check. Don’t upload unflattering photos. Check. Don’t post anything overly philosophical or emotional. Check.
The Rules say: “a guy looking at your wall will be turned off by TMI (too much information) and will not find you fascinating or mysterious.”
I have my first smug moment of the day. At least in cyberspace, I comply.
Wednesday: ‘The boy’ phones. I miss the call. I consult the book for the correct procedure. I consider Rule #6: “Wait at least four hours to answer a guy’s first text and a minimum of 30 minutes thereafter.” But I revert to basic ‘Rules girl’ ethos and do nothing.
Thursday: I graciously return his call. He doesn’t answer. I begin to suspect that he has his own copy of The New Rules. At tea-time, he calls back. Twice. And leaves a message.
Would I like to go out to dinner tonight? Now, I really am confused. I know not to accept an impromptu invitation. That is against the rules, but it’s tea-time and I’m hungry. Feeling obliged to obey the rules, I decline. But discipline goes out the window, later that evening, when he calls again and we meet up for a drink. All went well and we are still seeing each other.
Friday: I’ve all but given up the rules. It seems farcical to continue this cat-and-mouse game, especially when I appear to be programmed to break rules of any kind.
The book, I feel, is a results-driven game plan to get a ring on your finger. The focus is self-control. The message is self-respect.
“Rules girls do not put up with bad behaviour,” the authors tell us. But, in practice, it will take a girl with a steely nerve to follow their advice. She’s got to make him do all the work. Set boundaries. Leave him wanting more. And she’s got to beware of girlfriends who encourage her to break the rules.
A pawn in the game of love, a ‘Rules girl’ is passive in dating, and never makes the first move. It’s more calculated and contrived than a game of chess.
According to the authors, we roguish types will be chucked back on the shelf repeatedly until we’ve endured one broken heart too many, at which point we will give in, succumb to the rules dogma and live happily ever after. Where is the romance in that?
* The New Rules: The dating dos and don'ts for the digital generation by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, published by Paitkus, €14.50.
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