Do you remember the book, The Rules
Ladies, some of these rules are just silly and outdated. And some of them still apply today. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
It’s a Fantasy Relationship unless a Man asks you out.
This is the rule that I disagree with, and break, the most. If I’m interested in a man and want to invite him out for coffee, drinks, or dinner… I should be encouraged to do so, not belittled. If we go out and continue a relationship afterwards, who’s to say it won’t work? Or that it’s not “real” just because I did the asking? The dating road goes both ways and I think it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to go after what she wants.
Show up to parties, dances, and social events even if you don’t feel like it.
I agree. If you don’t put yourself in social situations, it will be difficult to find anyone outside of your landlord or boss. Even people that meet online eventually have to see each other face to face.
Never accept a date fewer than 3 days away.
Basically if he calls to ask you out on Saturday, you can’t accept the date unless he calls by Wednesday. It’s the 3 day rule. I am not going to pretend like I’m busy when I’m not (especially if I really like the guy).
Don’t call him, and rarely return his calls.
What? Do women actually do this? I understand waiting for him to call first, but then not returning his call, I think that sends the wrong signal if you really like the guy.
If he doesn’t call, he is not that interested. Period.
Yes. This hasn’t changed in 17 years. As a matter of fact, the only thing that has changed is the various ways he can reach you now. If he lost your phone number, he can send you a message on Facebook. He will find a way to reach you if he’s interested.
No sex on the first, second, or third dates.
My opinion is that sex on the first date sends a bad message, especially if you’re hoping for a lasting relationship. I’m more cautious with sex, and I usually wait a few weeks before even considering going that far with a new guy. I think all women are different and you do what works for you. If you’re only looking for a booty call, well sex on the first date is okay then. But realize, that you just became a booty call as well.
Close the deal, Rules women do not date a man for more than two years.
I disagree. I know some very happy marriages that dated for much longer than two years. I am not going to throw away my soul mate because of a time frame.
Don’t Live with a Man (or Leave Your Things in His Apartment).
I don’t know. Don’t you want to be absolutely sure you can live with each other before you walk down the aisle? And not leaving things at his place? Doesn’t that just sort of “happen” after you’ve been together for some time? This one seems outdated. I don’t know many couples that don’t live together before marriage.
Be easy to live with.
Um. I thought we weren’t supposed to do that. See above.
Seventeen years later, we need to rewrite some of these dating rules!
I have a few I like to follow.
- Never let a first date pick you up at your place.
- Always meet for a first date in a busy public area.
- Never do anything you are uncomfortable with. Listen to your gut.
What are some of the rules you follow while dating? What are some rules that you think should be disregarded? Should we even have rules, or are we just playing games by establishing dating rules?
Greis (pronounced Grace) is a single, 30 something, Texas girl with an iPhone addiction. She loves her hometown Houston sports teams, Astros Baseball & Texans Football! When she’s not working as an inside sales analyst for a local manufacturing company, you can usually find her on the internet, watching trashy reality television or snuggling her niece, Audrey. In her spare time she enjoys a good chick flick, reading teenage vampire books (the sparkly kind) and dreaming about what life will be like when she finally wins the lottery. You can read more from Greis on her blog, Amazing Greis.
So much of that book is a giant load of horse puckey. I’m astounded that people still cite it as a valid reference point, since a lot of it seems like it might as well have been written in the 1950s.
I think everybody has their own rules that are based on their own personal standards. No book can establish one set of laws that apply to every relationship.
A. GREED.
I tend to throw all rules away and go with the gut. But, I’d also like to add a couple more for safety measures.
On the first date, watch your drink carefully and if you start to feel dizzy at all get someone else’s attention for help (ex. Waiter, etc). The date rape drug is so prominently used that it’s important to be cautious.
Also, do not answer your cell phone during the date, even if it’s going poorly. Ensuring that your dinner mate realizes that your undivided attention is important (this would go for non-date situations too).
I think “Be easy to live with” can be changed up to, “Be easy to be around.”
Otherwise, I think your take on “The Rules” is pretty spot on.
Or just… “be easy”. That seems to work with my husband.
Well, not for dating. We don’t need a bumch of easy women running around.
That worked with my husband too, but it took be 13 years to get to marriage, so don’t be me is probably a safe “Rule” too.
To me, the “ask for a weekend date by Wednesday” is a good one, although the language definitely needs to be changed. If a guy is interested in you, he’s not going to wait until Friday night to ask you out, for either that night OR Saturday. He’s going to make his plans early. Now, in the instance that he’s had a busy week and is not sure what his schedule is like, if he REALLY wants to see you he will have told you this and tentatively made plans. If a guy calls at the last minute and wants a date – to me that’s not much different than a booty call. He’s got nothing better going on and has decided to grace you with his presence. NOT the guy you want.
And also, I’m 39. I was married once for a very short amount of time when I was 20, but other than that have just had short-term relationships. I’ve found, in my experience, that relationships where the GUY does the pursuing and initial asking-out ALWAYS work out better than those where I do the asking first. I don’t know why that is. I really don’t, but I’ve quit asking guys out. I will make it known (by flirting and maybe a cute FB message or two – nothing too obvious though, because that’s not endearing) that I’m interested, but will let him take the lead from there. If a guy is interested he will ask you out. FOR SURE. If he’s not, he won’t.
I think the whole premise of “The Rules” is similar to “He’s Just Not That Into You”. If a guy wants to date you/call you/marry you – HE WILL. But men also like the chase. They want to feel like they have something valuable – that other men would love to have. That doesn’t mean that you have to become unavailable, but just don’t lay down on his doormat and say “take me I’m yours”. Have some self-respect!! Have a life!! Don’t want around on some man!!!
I agree with you, about asking for a date by Wednesday! If a guy wants to see you, he will make it happen. That’s not to say you can’t initiate – by all means, initiate and if he’s not interested, you’ll know soon enough. You just want to be wary of a situation in which *you* are initiating all the contact. I’ve been in situations where I was being persued, and in which I was the persuee, and the guys in the former situation were far more into me than the guys in the latter situation. I invited my now husband out for my birthday as a part of our group of friends, and the day after that, he called to ask me on our first date, a week in advance. So it’s not ironclad advice. (Disclaimer: we also dated for four years and lived together for about three before we got married, so there’s that.)
Obviously, we are soul sisters. A friend of mine gave me that book a few years ago. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I thought it was bullsh*t because she had read it and really liked it. I never read it and threw it away the last time I purged.
The only rule I believe in when it comes to dating is BE YOURSELF. I hate games, and I refuse to play them. If I want to ask a guy out, I ask him out. If a guy calls me in the morning to invite me to lunch, if I want to see him, I go. If I want to call a guy, I call him. Regardless of who called who last or how long it’s been since we last talked. If a man can’t accept who I am from the very beginning, then obviously, a relationship between us isn’t going to work anyway. So why bother trying to “catch” a man by pretending to be something I’m not???
Actually, I was wrong. I have another rule. Don’t lie to yourself. In HJNTIY, when Justin Long’s character says that if a guy wants to see you, he’ll find a way to make it happen? That’s 100% true. Do not play the lying game where you tell yourself he just hasn’t called because he lost his phone or his grandmother broke her hip or he went hiking and got trapped under a rock. If he wants to see you, he will! Don’t waste your time or energy on someone who doesn’t spend equal time and energy on you.
I also agree with your safety guidlines (as I like to call them). You have to be smart.
I’ve always thought that book was BS. Your rules are much better!
(&, Yeah, my husband & I lived together for way more than 2 years before marriage, and we’re super happy! I’m glad we waited to marry.)
The “Don’t live with a man before marriage” rule cracks me up. It seems very…50′s? Something they do in America?
I seriously know exactly one couple that didn’t live together before marriage. One, and it was out of extremely deep religious principle. I don’t know if it’s more of a European thing or just my country, but everyone here moves in together while dating. Might also have something to do with ridiculously high rents and expensive apartments. But anyway here it’s like if the relationship is any sort of serious AT ALL, you are moving in together. People that live separately have a hard time even being recognized as a couple. It’s like “what’s even going on with them, why won’t they even live together? I don’t think it’s right, that’ll never work. Why even call it a relationship when it CLEARLY is not *eyeroll*”
Also, are you still taking submissions? I keep noticing these things that look way funny from where I stand (and the other way around) , and I think everyone could really learn something.
My husband and I didn’t officially live together before getting married for religious reasons, so I guess I can sympathize with that couple a little bit. But we still did a certain amount of “living together,” in that, for the month before our wedding while I was living in our new apartment and he was staying with friends, we made all of our meals together, all our stuff was in our new apartment, we split the housework, etc. There really is no excuse for not doing some sort of living together, and it makes the transition to married life a little easier because you’re already aware of this person’s habits and living style. So even deeply religious couples ought to “live together,” in some sense.
I read the little synopsis on what this book was about and I thought, well, SURELY this was written in the 1950s! What in the heck? And people use it as a reference…today?
Anyway, I broke one of your rules. Kinda. I picked my husband up at his place for our first date (long, complicated story). But we’d been flirting, etc, at work, and were VERY interested in each other by then.
Mostly in agreement with what’s been said, with some value but a lot of silliness in those rules… my thing is – why on Earth is there a rule to not date someone longer than 2 years? I do know of cases in which people dated for less than 2 years before marrying and it worked out, but more often than not, those stories seem to end in a quick reversal and divorce. Physiologically, it takes between 6 months-2 years to transition from the brain chemistry of infatuation to long-term bonding – I would be wary of making a legal commitment before that transition has occurred. Also, life circumstances play a role – if you meet someone you really like in college you probably want to wait at least until you graduate before getting married. If anything, I would say the rule should be to date someone for AT LEAST 2 years: if it’s going to work out in the end, what does it matter if year 3 passed before or after the wedding?
That book’s all about game playing, and quality guys are not interested in playing ridiculous games with drama queens.
For the record, I’ve been married 7 years, and we dated for 3 years prior to that. I did things the way it felt right for me, and I’m sure the authors of that crap wouldn’t agree with me.
I actually agree with not living together before marriage. I think it depends on your geographic region, and the convenience, and the couple… but I’ve seen way too many situations in which one half of the couple (usually the woman) sees it as a short-term pre-engagement “trial run” while the other half (usually the man) is very content just to maintain the status quo and avoid marriage.
I do think it’s a good idea to stay over at his/her place, do household activities together (shopping, cooking, etc.), but I don’t think living together is at all necessary.
A close friend of mine swore by “the Rules” and she met her husband, following the advice of the Rules. However, he turned out to be a terrible husband, neglected her and they later divorced (after trying to work it out for 2+ yrs). He wouldn’t even consummate the marriage. Anyway, by contrast, I have my own set of rules, for example, I wait several months before sleeping with a guy, I try to get to know him on a personal level before getting sexually involved, so that I avoid getting hurt. Well, it can backfire, too. I waited 6 months to sleep with one serious boyfriend, who turned out to be abusive/violent and a cheater, and we were living together. So all that waiting and get-to-know-each-other time didn’t mean that he was going to be Mr. Wonderful. More recently, I waited 6 months to sleep with a guy I had gotten to know as a friend, and had fallen in love with him, and thought it was mutual, only to learn that he was still married (though separated, on way to divorce) and not looking for a relationship with me. So following one’s heart, going with your gut and waiting to make sure a guy is a “good guy” sometimes can backfire, too. My grandparents who were married for over 40 years told me that it’s “important to live together before marriage.” They observed many many couples divorce because they had not lived together before marriage, whereas the ones who lived together, had much healthier happier marriages, across several different generations, in and out of our family.
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