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It’s February, the time of amore, so I thought I should read some dating and relationship books to find out why I’m not getting a cute li’l box of chocolates from Jacques Torres this year. And I learned something! A few things actually. Let’s call them the Three Most Disturbing Things about Dating Books:
1. Dating books for women are incredibly depressing.
2. Dating books for men suggest they dress like sex pirates replete with:
a. guy-liner
b. pouffy shirt and
c. the requisite skinny jeans
3. People who write and edit self-help books really like numbered lists—like this one!
 I started with Jillian Straus’s Unhooked Generation: The Truth About Why We’re Still Single. Straus, a former Oprah producer, has a few ideas about why we’re all unattached these days. Well, seven ideas, because that makes a good list. She calls these “The Seven Evil Influences.” The first one is we’re too self-centered, and then one day we realize we forgot to include anyone else in our lives. The second is that we often choose our dates from a pull-down list of options off internet dating sites. Then divorce, feminism… oy, I know. Feminism! She has a rationalization for this, but I can’t go on. Surely number seven will be cats, right? As I read this book I felt like Jillian was just trying to make me feel as badly as possible so I’d just propose to the old man down the hall and be done with it.
Exhausted and perturbed, I moved on to Steve Santagati’s The Manual, wherein, per the subtitle, a true bad boy explains how men think, date, and mate, and what women can do to come out on top. Santagati is a model, and he actually appears on the cover, looking like a cast member from MTV’s Tool Academy. Stevie believes that nice guys are never sexy. This book has a lot of important info for the ladies. Did you know that men like lingerie and not granny panties? Men don’t care about Jimmy Choos; they only care that the heels are high. Men like long hair, lip gloss, and trimmed shrubbery. They get nervous if they see too much cat food in your shopping cart—and that’s not even a metaphor. Guys! They always claim they don’t care about anything, but they care about so much! But what totes drove me over the edge was the cover blurb from Rachael Ray. She calls The Manual a “mible,” as in a bible on men. Steverino, I hope that cutifying everything is on your list of no-nos, too. By the time I put this down, half my hair was missing and I’d cried through a box of tissues. I’ll never get another date!
I then had the misfortune to peruse (OK, closely study, looking for hope) Diane Kirschner’s Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love. Kirschner advises ladies (because who else would want to find love in 90 days?) that again, numbered lists are everything. Memorize them! There are “13 Deadly Dating Patterns” (being too picky, low self-esteem) and ten “Love in 90 Days” goals, which she posts around the book like posters at an AA meeting. Mostly spouting positive affirmation mumbo jumbo, she also drops pearls like these “Red Flag Warning Signs”: If he whispers over the phone, he lies to you about his profession, or he answers questions with other questions, then you know he’s trouble. I don’t need a book to know these things; I learned them from Lifetime movies! Thankfully, there are some hilarious stories, such as the woman who was disappointed when a guy wouldn’t enter the Landmark Program (isn’t that like Amway)? Or one woman’s elation when a date gave her the DVD of The Secret. This made me feel better. Certainly I wasn’t as bad off as a woman who’s interested in The Secret, right? RIGHT?? At least “no cats” didn’t show up on any of the lists.
 You guys are not left out of the dating book horror show, but your books are a little different. Most current ones model themselves after The Game and advise you to dress like the above-mentioned sex pirates, with big hats and scarves and goggles and guy-liner. Just so you know, only silly girls are captivated by sex pirates, unless there is also a puppy involved. Luckily for you, Maria Bustillos (Dorkismo) wrote a little guide to the ladies for ya: Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman. It doesn’t make excuses for women’s behavior; it just explains very cogently what you need to do to “date” them. And what is that? I won’t tell you because it’s all true and you’re going to have to read the book. But if you’ve read David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, you already know the answer: make her believe that she’s number one. At everything. As Bustillos points out, “women are equipped with certain basic features that men can very easily learn about and exploit.” We don’t care about skinny jeans or your 72 Nova or even your bank account. You know what women care about? Ourselves. Bustillos also is kind enough to tell men how to date strippers if you really want to. Seriously! I’m so mad you guys! You have the better books and you get to date strippers, and I’m at home reading The Secret.
If I’m reading a dating book, then obviously I’m single and looking to change that. Wouldn’t that mean that all dating books are intrinsically depressing? And, of all the self-help books, most of them, especially the ones aimed at women, seem to indicate that the problem is with me, not the guys who watch Chuck and think all electronic store employees should be dating kung-fu’ing supermodels. If only I wasn’t a feminist… or I could remember these lists… or had glossy lips. Then I could date some guy in a pouffy shirt. Then again, it doesn’t sound as appealing as staying home and petting my cats. If that’s my goal, then maybe I need to reevaluate my priorities.
(February, 2010) |
