Playing Games

"Never accept a date after Wednesday...."

"Never ask a guy out first...."

"Never kiss on the first date...."

"Never phone a man until a relationship has already begun...."

"Never show interest in a man too early - men like a challenge...."

Any woman who has read The Rules or any other simlarly-targeted work of pop culture is familiar with these, and dozens of other maxims that are bandied about as if they were gospel truth by a certain class of women today.

I read The Rules too. And I read Mars and Venus. And I read He's Just Not That Into You. And I have read literally dozens of books (by Christian Carter and Dr. Phil and everyone in between) targeted to women about how to catch, marry, deal with, change, and love men.

What interest, you may ask, would a guy have in reading all these books intended for women?

I lost my wife.

And after her death and our 17-year marriage, I was dragged kicking and screaming - very much against my will - back into the dating game again. And for the first time in almost 25 years, I was confronted with attempting to understand the outrageous antics, unrealistic expectations, and political axe-grinding of the female populace.

One woman entered my home and, viewing a nicely-framed pair of ancient daguerrographs on the wall in my living room remarked, "Well, if we get married, there won't be any pictures of dead people on our walls." It was our third date.

Another woman, learning that I had a Ph.D. and was considered a specialist in a certain academic discipline, picked a fight with me on that very topic. When I told her she was wrong and explained why, she became incensed and screamed "No man can talk to me that way! I don't ever want to see you again!" A week later, she called me wanting to know why I hadn't contacted her. When I reminded her of her tirade, she said, "Well, I didn't really mean that. You were supposed to beg me not to let you go."

Another woman, after telling me she loved me, didn't call for 11 days. It had been her practice to call every other day. When we finally spoke again, she said, "I intentionally didn't call you. I wanted to see if talking to me was as important to you as talking to you is important to me."

Another woman said, "You can have your way on everything that I don't care about. But on the things I really care about, you will have to let me have my way."

Petulant. Immature. Narcissistic. Histrionic. Amoral. Dishonest. Unfaithful. These were just a few of the most apparent character traits that I found in the dozens of women that I dated over nearly two years time. The problem was not that the women possessed these character traits (we are all imperfect, after all), but that these character traits seemed to be a part of some supposedly coherent means of thinking about themselves and the relationship between men and women.

And I wondered where this odd worldview that spawned such maladaptive behavior came from.

Then I found it. It was in The Rules.

Let's leave aside the notion, first of all, that in order to learn how to please a man, one should consult two women.

But I can remember as I read The Rules for the first time I sat slack-jawed in wonder. The Rules, of course, contains some 30 rules which women are supposed to use to guide their relationships with men. Three or four of them are actually sensible. But among the 25 or so that remain, I remember thinking, "If I ever met a woman who practiced a mere one quarter of these 'rules' she would never get a second date from me."

I would be so confused, I thought, as to whether this woman liked me, whether she were a raging narcissist, or whether she were even sane, that I would be glad to get away from her.

Turn on your average daytime TV program. You will see men being raked over the coals by his spouse or lover, the TV host, and the TV audience. Invariably, someone will call him a "player" or accuse him of "playing games."

But if it is men who are guilty of "playing games," where is their "rulebook'?

Aren't a lack of transparency on the part of a woman, attempts to manipulate male behavior, verbal and emotional sleight-of-hand, and the use of trickery, dishonesty, or the retention of ulterior motives all playing games?

And isn't that exactly what this subgenre of women's literature encourages women to do? And isn't that the type of behavior glorified by our culture? And isn't that the subtext of Sex in the City?

I am a man. And I know men. And I know from hundreds of locker room conversations that men are not going to countenance the type of behavior that our culture glorifies in women. Men are opting out of committed relationships, they are opting out of marriage, and they are fleeing maladaptive, narcissistic behavior in droves.

Men are just as "into" women, marriage, commitment, and relationships as they ever were. They are NOT into the games that women are taught to employ by our culture.

If you want to find true love, it is time to put down your copy of The Rules and stop treating love as if it were a game.