Become a "Challenge" For Him: Why Women Stay Single

I am utterly flummoxed by some of the unmitigated nonsense that gets pushed as "relationship advice," especially to women, these days.

Someone recently sent me a website for evaluation that simply bowled me over for its sheer wrongheadedness. Don't think I didn't notice that, for the articles that I examined on this site the comments section was closed...!

I'll comment on some of the nonsense that is being offered to fix relationship problems below. I'm not going to link to the site though, because I would hate for anyone to mistakenly actually find the site.

One of the most offensive articles that I found continues a couple of themes that are often found in books like The Rules. These themes are 1) that it is primarily women who invest in relationships, not men, and therefore it is up to women to function as the benevolent supervisor of the relationship, and 2) that a sure way to keep a man interested in you is to play hard to get.

"Most men are not the likely one in the relationship to be nurturing and keeping track of the barometer of your emotional health. That barometer is usually the woman in the relationship. Some counselors have even coined the expression that women have an innate marriage handbook that men need to learn to read."

Since 2/3 of all divorces are initiated by women in the West, we can rest assured that this "marriage handbook" has a final chapter.

This quote is among the most sexist and outrageous statements I have ever read in print (though the month is young, yet). By the very nature of engaging in the pursuit of the woman - which the article itself encourages throughout its remainder - the male is, of course, engaging in "keeping track of the... emotional health" of the relationship enough to come to this conclusion: "I haven't caught her yet." But this kind of "Yay for girls" doublespeak is typical of the fantasyland advice that have bookshelves groaning in the relationship advice section of your local bookstore.

Secondly, this quote assumes that the "emotional health" of a relationship involving two people can be determined and managed by the fiat of one. Again, this sort of solipsistic perspective, while common and adequate enough for a Harlequin Romance novel, is exactly part of the reason that relationships are unraveling left and right in the modern world. By both implication and explicit statement, women are being taught that relationships are all about them.

They aren't.

And because of that, the REAL way to gauge a relationship's "emotional health" is to sit down with your man and ask, "How's it going...?" Then listen carefully when he says things like "I like/don't like" or "I want" or "I feel like _______ is lacking." Then plan accordingly to accommodate his needs in every reasonable way.

Then express the same back to him, and note that while you'll be trying really hard to meet his needs, he should try the same for you. Where negotiation is necessary - negotiate. But keep in mind that negotiation looks far more like "splitting the difference" than it does seeing who can get their way.

Because relationships involve two people, both of whom - if the relationship is going to be long-term - need to find a way to serve, accommodate, and build up the other.

"...men don’t usually like to be doing hard labor in the relationship, but if you make him chase you, he will be doing his fair share of the work and that is where you want him to be."

Notice the rancid self-absorption that is urged here. "He doesn't want..." but you make him do it anyway and "that is where you want him to be."

Tell me again why it is that every woman who has an online dating site that she is not into game-playing? Does this seem just the slightest bit manipulative and narcissistic? And yet this article purports to draw back the curtain to allow you to explore the concept of the "emotional health of the relationship?"

"Create a sense of urgency in his eyes that he is missing out on something special if he doesn’t chase you. You need to become more interesting than other women. Develop your complexities and revel in them. Delve into your mysterious side and make him wonder about you so much that he feels compelled to follow you and find out. Become a refined woman that lives a life with confidence in her abilities and does not play with a victim mentality but is the victor in her life."

Notice the wonderful vagueness of all of this. What does it mean? Anything you want it to mean - unless it doesn't work, because then the authors will insist it means something else and void their money-back guarantee!

"Create a sense of urgency?" OK, how do I do that? "Develop your complexities?" Does that mean to behave like a spoiled brat or to start reading Proust or Nietzsche? "Delve into your mysterious side?" Is this about sex, lying, or should you just learn Italian and make him wonder where you learned it? Is this stuff really good advice?

Well, to give credit where credit is due, that last line really is good advice: work hard to "become a refined woman" who does not have or demonstrate "a victim mentality." Knowing something about art, cuisine, literature, politics, and having a bit of sophistication and worldly-wise understanding would be a good thing. And the victim mentality is a genuine relationship-killer - I tell my male clients to hit the road as soon as they see it because it is one sign of an unstable person who cannot build lasting relationships.

"Especially in the beginning of your dating seeking days and in the initial dating relationship, you need to play hard at playing hard to get.... Once you get into the relationship, keep playing hard to get, but soon there will come a time when you need to actually let him catch you. However, when he catches you, then you can start running again and let him chase you once more."

Years ago, when I first started reading relationship books, I can remember my response when I read The Rules. I thought, "If I ever met a woman who engaged in just 25% of the activity recommended in this book, I'd run screaming for the hills and never call her again. This paragraph produced that same gut instinct in me.

First, let's talk about why this is wrong - and it is not my opinion that it is wrong, it is wrong! There was likely a time when something like this was true. When society was a lot different, and there was no feminism, and sexual mores were a lot different than they are today. A guy could likely be drawn in by some combination of invitation and rebuff that looked like "playing hard to get" to a woman. But why was that?

One reason is because of the way guys communicate. Guys filter signals. They push out that which is not useful to them and embrace what they need. That is the essence of "guy-communication."

Think about some of the contexts in which guys have historically been forced to communicate with one another. Guys are running down the basketball court with defenders in their faces. He doesn't have the ball, but he is breaking for the middle. He has to find a way to integrate certain important information - the location of the ball, the location of the defender, the location of the basket, his strategy for getting open, and what kind of shot he is going to take - while excluding certain unnecessary information - the cheerleaders, the crowd, the screaming coach, the fact that he might have twisted his ankle. If he can't filter the unnecessary information from the necessary information, he is not going to reach (score) his goal.

Or here's a guy on the battlefield: there are explosions left and right, he is running through the mud, bullets are whizzing by his head, the captain is screaming, his buddy is down - but up ahead is an enemy machine-gun nest. He has to formulate his plan, maintain some modicum of safety, arm his grenade, and find a stealthy way to approach in order to get the grenade into the machine-gun nest while filtering out fear, concern for his wounded buddy, and other distractions.

Now of course, you say "my guy has never done anything like that." He probably hasn't. But remember that his communication has been formed by generation of guys who have. They have learned to filter incoming communications down to their absolute necessities, and to filter their outgoing communications to the crisp, clear, necessity that communicates everything that needs to be said in the shortest possible expression.

What does this have to do with playing hard to get?

In Victorian England or 1950s America, when sex wasn't something that could be had by simply picking up the phone, guys decided on a girl that they found desirable and they worked hard to get her. She gave him just enough of an "invitation" to let him know she was interested, but rebuffed him enough to protect her purity (and reputation). The guy, however, just filtered out the negative rebuff and focused on the positive invitations - if he worked long enough, he believed he'd achieve his goal.

But in the modern West, sex is freely available. If you want to spend your time playing the coquette, sending mixed signals in an attempt to achieve some power play like that recommended by the writers of the blog I refer to and the writers of The Rules, get very accustomed to spending Friday nights alone. Or, get very accustomed to dating someone new about every third Friday night - because while you are here saying, "Comehere/Getaway! Comehere/Getaway!", there are 15 other girls who are saying, "Come here."

Here's the second reason why this type of strategy will seldom work, and it is directly related to our basketball/warfare illustrations above: Women use communication as a means of building and solidifying relationships, with a lot of implicit, between-the-lines content. Men don't.

I have been in numerous situations in which I have been in the presence of more than one woman, all of whom were talking, yet in my mind I was screaming, "THEY AREN'T TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING!" And that might have been true....

But when women talk, they don't have to be talking about "something," because the mere act of talking is a means of building a bridge from themselves to someone else. They are therefore very attuned to implied meanings, emotional content, and content that occurs between the lines.

Men, though, use communication as a tool. Tools are chosen for their power and efficiency. The best tool is the tool that gets the job done quickly and certainly. Therefore, there is very little implied communication with men.

Numerous times in my dating life a woman has given me a list of about 1,001 things that she "feels are not going well" and has said, "I don't think this is working out." My response has, uniformly, been to stop calling her and to move to the next girl.

Dozens of times, I have eventually received a call from a woman who has said, "I don't think this is working out" and she has asked, "Why don't you call me any more?"

"You said you didn't want to go out anymore."

"Well, yeah," she replies, "but I just said that to see how much you wanted me/I just said that so you would know I wasn't happy/I just said that to see if we could work on some things/I just said that so...."

You get the idea.

When a guy hears, "I'm done," he doesn't begin to ask himself, "Well, did she really mean it?"

Because that is not the way we talk to one another. That is not the way we have been reared to communicate. How many of us would accomplish our goals if we had to read between the lines in the boardroom, on the basketball court, or on the battlefield?

So this whole "playing hard to get" makes perfect sense to women - who are accustomed to reading between the lines and fishing for "emotional content." To guys, it is just a bunch of mixed signals. And why should I listen to mixed signals from Female A when Female B is giving me something decidedly unmixed?

Is there a joy in the chase? Sure. But the chase has to end. If I go deer hunting, I don't catch the deer, then let him go so I can chase him again. I chase him, catch him, then eat him. If I had to re-chase him every time I sat down to eat, do you really think I would ever go deer hunting?

By the way, I am not a hunter. This is all just an illustration.

Why, then, would any fool say to a woman, "Let him chase you, and then let him catch you, but be sure to make him chase you again after he has caught you?"

Men have a word for this kind of woman: unstable bitch. And they run from them. And rightly so.

These two problems from this one website illustrates why long-term relationships are almost never helped by mainstream relationship handbooks. First, all mainstream relationship handbooks are written from the female perspective. They assume that the female desire is what is best for the relationship, and they teach the female to focus on her own wants and needs. This necessarily undermines any chance at a long-term relationship because a genuine love relationship is one in which both partners are committed to meeting, not their own needs, but the needs of the other. The end result is a library of books, tapes, and websites that make women feel really good about themselves, but never challenge them to get outside of the female perspective and learn how to please a man.

The second reason why mainstream relationship handbooks undermine long-term relationship health is that they assume a pattern of experience and communication that is female-friendly, but totally ignores that of the male. Because these books are largely written for females, who, understandably are the largest audience for such items, they are often written by females who have never experienced dating from a male perspective. They don't really know what men want, or what men think, or how men communicate. These female (usually) relationship "experts" have various political axes to grind, pay due homage to certain cultural assumptions, and tailor their message to sell books - not to teach new patterns of behavior and communication.

And the result is that more than 50% of all marriages in America today will end in divorce, and 67% of those divorces will be needlessly initiated by women who, when they tried to learn how to save their relationship, were told to play hard to get by people more intent on selling their books than on saving a relationship.

Book Review: Women's Infidelity

This is singularly the most important relationship book of our generation. It will never get the airplay of The Rules, He's Just Not That Into You, Mars & Venus, or any of the other intellectually slovenly attempts to stroke the egos of the modern woman because it lays responsibility for women's unhappiness and the decline of marriage and fulfilling relationships squarely on the doorsteps of those who are responsible.

The book identifies, dissects, and explicates the attitudes that are drilled into women from childhood which make it impossible for them to experience fulfilling relationships. It also shows how cultural factors, friends, and political hornswaggle negatively affect the expectations and coping abilities of women within the context of a healthy relationship.

And ultimately the book argues that the key to finding happiness within your relationship is to recognize just how unimportant happiness is....

The book could just as easily be titled How Feminism, Oprah, Harlequin Romances, and the Female Feral Cycle Destroyed Women, Families, Marriage, and Civilization Itself. OK, maybe that is a bit dramatic, but you get the idea.

See a tremendous book review at The Occidental Quarterly.

Things You Should Never Say To A Guy....

It is rumored that women are better communicators than are men. I assure you, this is merely a rumor. I have been counseling for 20 years, and while it is true that women TALK more than guys, I would deny that women often SAY more than guys.

And frankly, some of the things that they say are destructive to a relationship. Rule number one with guys: say what you mean when you say it, and always be willing to tell the brutal, honest truth. Rule number two in communicating with guys - we hear what you say, not what you meant to say.

Want more constructive patterns of communication with guys? Try the following on... and NEVER say....

1) "You never listen to me."

Of course I listen to you - I just don't understand you. At a basic level, I am listening very hard for the information that I need to know in order to make changes, solve problems, or help you in the way that you need. It has never occurred to me that you would talk to me merely as a means of establishing intimacy. I am listening hard for something concrete that you want me to know - so when you are tying to bridge the gap and share your feelings, make sure that you couch your communication to me in something that I can KNOW, ACT ON, SOLVE, or DO so that I get what it is that I am supposed to get from our conversation.

2) "Is she pretty?"

Probably, or you wouldn't have even thought of asking. Do you want me to lie or tell you the truth? You better want me to tell you the truth - don't encourage the habit of lying. I know that the foundation of any strong relationship is the truth, but if you train me to lie, I am capable of doing that. Do you want to start a fight? Fine, but remember you are training me to believe that you can't handle the truth - that truth only insults you. Are you asking me what it is that makes me want you more than her? OK, then rephrase the question: "What are some of the things that make you want to be with me?" See how constructive that can be?

3) "Which outfit do you prefer?" or "Does this make me look fat?"

When you ask this, I actually think that my opinion matters. You know, I really do believe that it is a problem that women tend to dress to impress other women rather than to attract men, so if you ask me, I am going to tell you what I really think. And let's face it - men have a different outlook on women's clothes than does "Allure" magazine. But hey - I think that is a postive - because you are never going to DATE the editors of "Allure," are you?

4) "That's not nice."

Maybe not, but it is true - that's why I said it to you. In the male ethical heirarchy, it is OK to say something unpleasant as long as it is true. Nice doesn't enter into the equation. We are accustomed to dealing with behavior that is "not nice" by saying things that are "not nice." The whole idea is to motivate better choices in the future, after all. You wanna tell me that what I said was not true? Fine, that we can talk about. But if what I said was true, then "nice" is utterly irrelevant to what I am trying to communicate to you.

5) "I just want to be friends."

Actually, what you want is for me to stop asking you out. Say so. Give me the freedom to move on to somebody that is romantically interested in me. Don't try to keep me around as a safety valve - it is fair to neither of us.

6) "Nothing is wrong between us."

Balderdash. And this is the surest signal to me that you have given up on our relationship. When people don't even care enough about each other to fight anymore or try to work out their problems, there is no hope. Be honest with me - men are born problem solvers and we live to make things right. Where there is something wrong between us, tell me what it is and let's both work on a solution together. But be sure that you actually do want a solution... I don't want to keep arguments stewing forever in some sort of twisted power play. I want peace, stability, and the freedom to grow in our relationship.

7) "Sports is not important. It is just a game."

BUZZZ! Wrong answer! Sports is important because it reminds me of all the virtues that are necessary to being a man - teamwork, devotion, perseverance, loyalty, and reaching down inside of myself and finding strength when I have every reason to give up. Trust me - when I am forced to live in the presence of men being men, it helps remind me of what it means to be the right kind of man in every area of my life, from work, to home, to love.

8) "We need to talk."

No we don't. What we need to do is "solve a problem." When you say "we need to talk," I fear an endless, meandering soliloquy on your part in which I am lost in a labyrinth of emotions and conversations and details. Tell me, "There is something that is bothering me and I want to see if you can help me solve it." Again, now you are asking for me to do what's natural, and I am already on your side. But remember, men have difficulty establishing intimacy in a merely verbal exchange - so you may turn me off from the beginning if you make me anticipate the verbal equivalent of another afternoon in the principal's office.

9) "That looks cute on you."

For God's sake - I haven't desired cute since I was four wearing that Navy outfit. I am a man - I am a protector and a fighter. I work hard, play hard, and own a pit bull, for crying out loud. The surest way to get me to hate something is to associate it with the word "cute." Tell me it's sexy, manly, or accents that certain part of my body. Show me by your own response that it turns you on. But for crying out loud - leave "cute" in the dressing room at the mall with your sisters!

10) "If you don't _______, I'm leaving."

This is the surest tipoff that you don't love me. Say it, but expect me to hear it. And when I let you go, remember that it was YOU that left. Love, after all, is eternal....

What To Do When He Is Distant....

The common wisdom, supported by countless self-help and relationship-jump-start books, is that men are afraid of commitment and therefore, just when a relationship starts going well, they have a tendency to become distant and ambiguous. When a woman notices "her man" becoming distant, she should just give him the space and time to figure out what he wants - no pressure, no chasing him, no declarations of everlasting love. Just quiet space for him to think.

Of course, the vast majority of people who push this strategy are women. Entertainingly enough, it seems a sizeable number of them are single....

Make no mistake about it - men (in general) want exactly what women say they want: a lifetime relationship to invest their lives in, a secure place to fall, a fulfilling love in which to grow and nurture both self and others. (Is it true that some men have now opted out of the relationship quest? Yes. But rest assured that they either DID want a long-term relationship before their divorce, or they WILL want it after they turn age 25....)

So if men want a settled, secure relationship, why is it that when things start going swimmingly they seem to zone out? And more importantly, what should a woman do when this happens?

Why do men become distant and ambiguous? Of course, there are a multiplicity of reasons, but following is a checklist that every woman should go through when she notices this happening:

1) Are things really going well? Or are things only going well in your mind? Women tend to emotionally respond to what they feel is a positive relationship and begin to adopt patterns of thinking about "my man" long before a man has intellectually discovered that the woman he is dating thinks she is in a relationship.

2) What has he been trying to tell you? Are you listening? It is very often the case that a man will date for a while, and though he recognizes there is great potential in the woman he is dating, there are also serious problems that he knows, if they are not dealt with, will impede the progress of the relationship. Has he been dropping hints about things that he doesn't appreciate? Are there themes that arise? Has he been focusing on problems while you have been focusing on positive feelings?

3) Is your communication ambiguous? Have you actually expressed - TO HIM - a desire to date exclusively? While dating, I have personally been astounded at the number of times that I found out that I was someone's "boyfriend" as a woman recounted her discussions about me to her friends: "So anyway, I said to Jody, 'My boyfriend always says....'"

4) Is your communication self-centered? Whether you agree with it or not, our culture for 20 years has encouraged women to think of relationships in terms of self-fulfillment. And after 20 years of seeing the broken lives, harmed children, and neurotic behavior caused by women actually adopting this type of thinking, men are reaching a point of utter exasperation. No relationship can be all about the pleasure of one of the parties. If you have come into a relationship with a long list of rules, a long list of changes, a long list of expectations, and your daily conversation is all about what I want, my kids, my marriage, my life, my rights, my feelings - then you can rest assured that no matter how much a guy may like you, you are spooking him. Most men have been in a relationship with a histrionic, narcissistic woman to whom men exist only for the pleasure that they bring to her. He probably suspects you could be like her.

So what should you do?

1) Ask yourself, if you were a man, would you date you? Or go further than that - since dating is still the prerequisite to a long-term relationship, go ahead and ask the ultimate question: "Am I the kind of woman whose stability, self-sacrifice, character, and beauty would make a man desire me as his wife?" And whatever issues you find yourself justifying ("Well, I know that men would want me to do X, but because of my kids/because of my career/because that represents an anachronistic gender role/because of whatever I won't do that...."), those are likely the very issues that are making him reconsider his involvement with you.

2) Listen to him. Men approach relationships intellectually. Whatever problems they see, they want them to be solved, or at least know that they can be solved, before they make a commitment. A long-term relationship requires that both parties find answers and make changes to suit the other person. And no, "No man is going to tell me what to do!", "I hate it when you are so controlling," and "I'm not changing for any man!" are not actually answers....

3) Communicate. Women have the reputation for being great communicators - but it is an unwarranted reputation. Women think that they are great communicators because they talk a lot to their friends. But the vast majority of the time that I talk to women about their men being distant or ambiguous, the women have not yet actually told the man that they are smitten with him, that they would like to have an exclusive dating relationship with him, or that they are in love. Men have many powers - mind reading is not one of them. If you want us to know something, you have to actually tell us.

4) Adopt a traditional view of relationships. Relationships worked from the beginning of time until 1968 because people realized that relationships are about both men and women. With the advent of feminist thinking, divorce rates skyrocketed and more and more women were left perenially single. There IS a correlation. Feminism teaches women to think in terms of rights, grievances, and power. Relationships require that both parties think in terms of self-sacrifice, the needs of the other, and loyalty. Feel free to vocally champion feminist philosophies - but don't expect men to take the risky step of attempting to build a marriage with someone who is perenially offended over minor political grievances.

5) Pursue him. This doesn't mean football tackle him. It means be transparent - let him know how you feel and what you would like to see between the two of you in the future. Let him know that you would be willing to be exclusive. Let him know that you are hearing him when he talks to you about problems. Let him know that you are willing to try to make room for him in your life. Let him know that you realize that you are imperfect and that you are still growing, but that a secure romantic relationship is the ideal place that you think that you could grow.

Men, both by biology and by acculturation, are romantic and sexual pursuers. When you see a man drop out of the role of sexual initiator, you can rest assured that there is always a reason. The reason sometimes is that he has simply decided that you are not the one for him - there isn't anything that you can do about that. But sometimes a man places distance between himself and a woman that he truly does desire because he is trying to objectively look at a problem or because he is having doubts about her.

Barring some outside distractor (job trouble, family trouble, illness, etc.) you can rest assured that it is always significant when a man who once pursued you becomes distant. If you pursue him and he tells you he has found someone else or that you are just not right for him, then you are free to get on with your life. And that is a positive thing.

And if you pursue him and he tells you that there are problems, or he is having doubts, or that he really likes you but he worries about X, Y, and Z, then you have an opportunity to show him that you are different from every other woman that he has run into. Because all those other women, when he became distant, either lashed out at him or ignored him.

But you can show that you have the actual skills necessary for building a lifetime relationship by digging in, listening, and responding positively to his doubts. And by solving whatever problem is bothering him, you begin to build a foundation - both in yourself and in the relationship - that can result in a lifetiime of love.

Making Room For Love

Our feminized culture tells women that they are fully in control of the romantic process - that they can make all the rules, "be empowered," and dictate to men the terms on which they will be available.

But it doesn't quite work that way. It seems that somebody forgot to tell the men....

Take the issue of kids. For whatever reason (right or wrong, good or bad) it seems that with astonishing regularity, women end up with primary custody of kids after a divorce. When a woman then begins to date again, many women adopt the attitude that whoever dates her is going to simply have to make a boatload of allowances for her because she has kids. After all, she is worth it, she tells herself (and her culture tells her).

But while she is thinking, "He is going to have to understand that I can't go out often because I have child care issues." Or, "He will have to come to my house every day because I have kids." Or, "He needs to understand that some of our dates will involve him going to the ballet to watch little Andrea dance." Or, "He will just have to understand that the kids are going to go on dates with us." Or, "We can have just a nice a date sitting on my couch watching TV as we could going out alone."

He is thinking, "It's not my fault that she wound up with the kids. She asked for them, after all. Why should I be alone? Why should my romantic life be turned into an extended episode of Spongebob? This is a ROMANCE, not a free babysitting service. She should be spending time getting to know ME."

Or perhaps it is career. Our culture says to a woman, "You can have it all. Bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, be a good mom and a great lover too!"

But career women, like everyone else, have only 365 days in a year, each composed of a mere 24 hours. "Well," she reasons, "he will just have to understand that I am committed to my career and my kids first. After all, I have worked hard to get to where I am."

But he is thinking, "How can I build a marriage when I am third in line? Genuine romance should be a priority, not an afterthought."

Or perhaps she is convinced that, now that she has finished school, her kids are in junior high, and her career is on track, now she is ready - at age 35 - to start dating again. But understand, of course, she only wants to have "friends."

But he is thinking, "Why should I waste time, effort, and money on a woman who is not serious about building a relationship? After all, I want to get married and maybe have kids again. Can I invest the next 4 years on a chimeral friendship that may or may not turn into the marriage and family that I want?"

Or perhaps she is willing to try to build something long-term. But everything will be separate. Her house and his house. Her money and his money. Her kids and his kids.

But he is thinking, "Why would I risk the investment of another period of years and perhaps taking nuptials again with someone who is standing so close to the escape hatch?"

Love, romance, relationships - they involve two people. And it is no accident that, as our culture has foisted the erroneous idea that the female is the center of the relationship, the center of the family, and has the right to make all the rules, that men have run from relationships, become players, or simply left the dating game altogether.

In 2006, for the first time since such statistics were kept, there were more unmarried women in the United States than married women. Men are voting with their feet about these new arrangements.

Our culture is wrong. Women do not have the right to make the rules.

Love is about two people. It is about the rights, wants, dreams, desires, and fulfillment of two people - not one. It is about sacrificing self - not about insisting that everything revolve around our every notion.\

Got love?

If not, maybe it is time to start looking at whether priorities need to be adjusted to allow someone to both love and be loved by you.

Want love?

Better make room for a lover, then....

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.

The Truth Hurts - And Helps

She was 30 years old and had four kids. She was essentially unemployed and was divorced from an abusive man - real abuse. He had put her in the hospital.

I met her when she contacted me on an internet dating site. We started dating, and her life was a complete mess. It didn't take long for our relationship to transform from dating to just friends, and what I saw made me worried for my friend.

Her house was filthy. Two of her four kids had tried to beat her up at one point or another. Another of the kids was so ill-behaved that he had to have an adult attendant follow him around at school all day just to make sure that the boy learned something and was not a danger to any of the other students. And her dating life sucked - it essentially had devolved into her offering her body to a series of men who would use her until they found someone better, and then leave her high and dry.

I started talking to her about her life - and it was traumatic. Some of it was due to her own bad decisions. Her first sexual experience had been with a teacher whom she had offered herself to in order to avoid being sent to the principal's office. Some were definitely not her fault - she had been semi-abducted and raped in the parking lot of a local mall.

But eventually I tried to show her that no matter what had happened to her, she was still in control of what she did with her life right now. We set up a system through which she delegated chores to each of the kids. Slowly, the kids began to straighten up. As soon as her home life was less daunting, I began to show her how to be the kind of woman that a man wants.

Today she is engaged to be married.

She had been in therapy for years. Everyone she had talked to had taught her how to "be empowered" or "increase her self-esteem" or to be comfortable being alone.

What she needed all along was for someone to break the cycle of her building destructive relationships and teach her what it really is that men want. She needed someone who loved her enough to confront her with uncomfortable truths. The truth hurt - nobody likes to be told that what they are doing is wrong. Nobody wants to hear that what is generally accepted as true in our culture is, in fact, maladaptive. But she swallowed hard and listened carefully.

And today she is engaged.

The truth hurt, and she cried some tears. But the truth also helped - she has revolutionized her life in almost every way.

She learned a valuable lesson - the wonderful thing about taking responsibility is that you can change whatever you are responsible for.

And today she is engaged to be married.