I had no idea what I was doing when I fell in love.
This is not uncommon - does anyone really know what will result from that first fine careless rapture? - but in my case it was the simple truth. I had not the slightest idea of what love, relationships, or sex entailed, and when I finally fell for someone, it's no surprise that what had started in joy ended eighteen years later with a juicy splat! worthy of the GIANT TURKEY PUPPET O'DOOM faceplanting onto the Washington Monument.
It's a miracle Wingding and I lasted as long as we did, truth be told. We had a great deal in common - our political views are very similar, we liked many of the same books, music, and films, we both preferred cats to dogs - but beyond that? Not so much. Our attitudes toward money, family, fidelity, religion, honest speech, and gender relations were another matter entirely, and variety may be the spice of life, too much spice when it comes to day to day existence with another person is not necessarily a good thing.
How this came about is a good question. We weren't precisely the most mature couple when we fell head over heels off the Cliff of Romance, but we weren't little naifs wandering hand-in-hand into the Slough of Marital Despond. Our respective parents' marriages had been strong and affectionate, and both his brothers are still happily married to the wives of their youth. Add in that we dated for four years before we skipped down the Aisle of Matrimony and we certainly should have had enough time to figure things out.
Perhaps it was not so much my lack of experience with men but my lack of female confidants to whom I could turn during bad patches. Mum took an instant dislike to Wingding but never quite articulated why, which put paid to long mother-daughter chats about my love life. Shoshana had moved to New York after college so she was out unless I wished to run up a truly stunning phone bill, ditto Beata and her boyfriend Tom, and my SSFFS buddies Mary and Ella. Walter and his wife Lisa lived nearby, and I dished some to her, but most of the time I was happy enough that I figured the warning signs and the occasional fight were simply growing pains, not cause for concern.
What Wingding did I have no idea. I never asked, and I doubt I would have gotten a straight answer if I had.
Regardless...it became clear that things were less than ideal a few years after our gala nuptials, which were small, cheap, and very badly planned thanks to my insistence on ignoring all the wedding manuals and the small niggling thought that maybe, just maybe, weddings are as much for the family as the happy couple. Storm clouds loomed, black as new asphalt and just as vile, and we shared less and less emotionally and physically. I withdrew into a shell, he retreated to his hobbies, and what interactions we had were increasingly tense and emotionally violent. By the time he finally walked it was almost a relief, even if the way he chose to leave was, to put it mildly, both cowardly and cruel.
We've both moved on, him with the woman who'd driven the final wedge between us, me to life as a middle aged single. I've found strength and talents that I never knew I possessed in the fifteen years since, and I can honestly say I'm happier than I've ever been. What he'd say about his current life is not my concern, although I hope he's found some measure of peace.
Whether this could all have been avoided if dating, romance, and marriage came with a guidebook is something I've wondered for a while. I was quite young when we got together, after all. Maybe a set of instructions would have led to a happier, longer lasting marriage, or at least the ability to figure out that things weren't working and end things sooner. Maybe, just maybe, I could have used a set of simple, time-tested precepts to guide me.
Maybe I could have used The Rules.
This question - whether I should seek advice and/or purchase a guidebook to Dating For Sarcastic, Middle-Aged Feminist SCAdians with a Superhero Obsession - is particularly relevant since I have been making some very tentative moves toward possibly finding male companionship of a non-platonic persuasion. I've started using makeup, upgraded my wardrobe, gotten a professional haircut that instantly lopped fifteen years off my age, and have started looking at dating sites to see what the current standards are. Some of this is easy - makeup and hairstyles are fun! - some very definitely isn't - dating sites are terrifying! - but unless a Kossack in Western Massachusetts wants to grab coffee sometime at Rao's or Haymarket, I'm probably stuck.
As for how to behave if I meet a potential Second Mr. Ellid...well, I came across this list on-line and wondered whether it might, just might be worth checking out:
1. Be a “Creature Unlike Any Other" - well, that sounds easy. I'm not a twin, I'm not a clone, and my tastes and interests aren't exactly average. Go, me!
2. Don't Talk to a Man First (and Don't Ask Him to Dance) - I'm not supposed to say hello to a nice guy who just happens to beat me to the Modesty Blaise collection? That sounds unproductive.
As for dancing...I've been told, many, many, many times, that I am the worst dancer in the history of humankind. No worries there.
3. Don't Stare at Men or Talk Too Much - staring is rude, so I'm not sure why this is necessary.
As for talking too much...how am I supposed to get to know him if we don't talk?
4. Don't Meet Him Halfway or Go Dutch on a Date - now, just a darn minute. Dad always said that one of the things that he loved best about Mum was that she didn't expect to be treated like a fragile little flower. She opened her own doors and leaned across the car to open up the driver's side instead of making Dad do both. Were my parents wrong?
5. Don't Call Him and Rarely Return His Calls - okay, I'm lost here. How is the theoretical prospective boyfriend supposed to know he is a prospective boyfriend if I never call him? How am I supposed to confirm a date? Isn't it rude to leave him hanging? Won't he find someone else with, y'know, good phone manners?
6. Always End Phone Calls First - not a problem since I prefer emails.
7. Don't Accept a Saturday Night Date after Wednesday - can someone explain this to me? Because I can understand not wanting to make a date at the last minute, but what's wrong with Thursday? It's a perfectly nice little day of the week.
8. Fill Up Your Time before the Date - I'm not sure what this is doing here. Surely I'm not supposed to spend all of Saturday sitting around with my hair in curlers staring at the clock?
9. How to Act on Dates 1, 2, and 3 - uh...I hope this doesn't mean "not talking" because I can't imagine a guy calling back for date #2 if I don't say anything, let alone if I haven't returned his phone calls.
10. How to Act on Dates 4 through Commitment Time - dear God, I hope this means "carry on a conversation" and maybe, just maybe, "having a little fun of the carnal nature."
11. Always End the Date First - how, if I'm not supposed to talk?
12. Stop Dating Him if He Doesn't Buy You a Romantic Gift for Your Birthday or Valentine's Day - FINALLY! Something that makes sense!
13. Don’t See Him More than Once or Twice a Week - ditto. Maybe this will work after all.
14. No More than Casual Kissing on the First Date - can someone tell me why a guy would want to kiss a deliberately mysterious woman who sits fluttering her lashes enigmatically at her tiramisu while never mentioning that he has spinach pasta stuck in his beard?
15. Don't Rush into Sex and Other Rules for Intimacy - another morsel of sense in the muesli of nonsense.
16. Don't Tell Him What to Do - as long as he does the same.
17. Let Him Take the Lead - in what, dancing? Politics? Daily life? When was this written, 1952?
18. Don't Expect a Man to Change or Try to Change Him - see my response to #16. Goose sauce and gander sauce, y'know.
19. Don’t Open Up Too Fast - this is just common sense. Why does it need to be codified?
20. Be Honest but Mysterious - again with this mysterious junk! What am I supposed to do, wear a noirish little veil and occasionally dab at my bright red lipstick?
21. Accentuate the Positive and Other Rules for Personal Ads - this is just common sense.
22. Don’t Live with a Man (or Leave Your Things in His Apartment) - why? I didn't live with Wingding, and look what happened.
23. Don't Date a Married Man - why in Sam Hill would I do that? Especially after what happened with Wingding and Secunda?
24. Slowly Involve Him in Your Family and Other Rules for Women with Children - this makes sense, especially if the kids are old enough to understand what's going on. Why does this need to be codified?
25. Practice, Practice, Practice! (or, Getting Good at The Rules) - most of them sound pretty horrible. Pass.
26. Even if You're Engaged or Married, You Still Need The Rules - you..you mean I STILL won't be allowed to talk even if I'm married? What the hell?
27. Do The Rules, Even when Your Friends and Parents Think It's Nuts - my friends know me better than whoever wrote this list. I think I'll listen to them.
28. Be Smart and Other Rules for Dating in High School - I'm almost 55. Not relevant.
29. Take Care of Yourself and Other Rules for Dating in College - I'm still almost 55. Not relevant.
30. Next! and Other Rules for Dealing with Rejection - this is why I have a therapist...
31. Don't Discuss The Rules with Your Therapist - ...who would probably laugh herself sick if I told her about this list.
32. Don't Break The Rules - I don't think I could keep them on a bet.
33. Do The Rules and You’ll Live Happily Ever After! - not talking, letting the man run everything, and being mysterious doesn't sound like "happily ever after" to me.
34. Love Only Those Who Love You - how is a guy supposed to know what I'm really like if I can't talk on dates, can't call him back, and am deliberately mysterious?
35. Be Easy to Live With - common sense again, even if it's completely incompatible with the rest of this silliness.
So much for a nice, logical, easy-to-follow set of rules to finding The Next Mr. Ellid. To quote the old Internet meme, "Ebay kitteh not as described," at least for me.
Then again, I'm not precisely what one would call normal. Maybe these Rules worked for someone else? Like the people who wrote them? And just where did they come from, anyway? Were they crowd-sourced, like those "Rules of the Internet" or "Rules for Being a Galactic Overlord" that were viral a few years ago? Or - could it possibly be - from a book? Maybe even one that was So Bad It's Good?
DING DING DING DING DING We have a winner! And since it's a Saturday night, why not talk about a Dating Manual So Bad It's Enough To Make You Swear A Vow of Perpetual, Lifelong Celibacy?
The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right, by Ellen Fein and Sherri Schneider - Back in the 1990's, Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider wrote a book.
Not just any book, oh no. They were hearing more and more complaints from their friends about how tough it was to meet a nice guy, get married, and have a statistically average number of children. Men, even ones who flirted or danced or bought them drinks, wouldn't return their phone calls, wouldn't go on more than one or two dates, wouldn't move in together, wouldn't take them seriously or listen to their troubles or anything else. Biological clocks were ticking, hearts were breaking – what was going on? It was the 90's, for God's sake! What was wrong with the average American male?
Ellen and Sherrie's answer was simple:
Follow “the rules” and you'll have men falling at your feet, eagerly begging to marry you.
Never mind that Sherrie wasn't married (yet), so why anyone was looking to her for advice on meeting Mr. Right was a good (and still unanswered) question. Ellen was, and she swore that the advice a friend's grandmother had come up roughly around the time of Woodrow Wilson's first inauguration would work for the modern age. She'd used them to land her own husband, after all, and wasn't she happy? Why not give it a try?
Some of their friends were skeptical. The Rules were a weird combination of common sense, dated ideas about sexuality, and that quaint old tradition called “playing hard to get,” which was, shall we say, just a little bit manipulative? Maybe even dishonest? Surely thirty years into the Sexual Revolution, forty years after the publication of The Second Sex, society had moved on? Surely women no longer had to conceal their true selves, keep their mouths shut, and passively wait for the man to do all the work?
“It worked for me,” said Ellen, or something very similar, and sat down with Sherrie to codify Friend's Grandma's precious wisdom to save the modern generation from itself.
The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right came out in 1995 to little fanfare and less than enthusiastic reviews. “A return to pre-feminist mind games,” sniffed one critic, who seemed genuinely bewildered that educated, affluent women with good jobs and plenty of disposal income were willing to behave like a prim young miss from those halcyon days when the Woman Question revolved around getting the vote, not whether to have sex on the third (or fourth, or later) date.
Even more bewildering to anyone with a brain were the sales figures. The Rules may have started slow, but soon the book had sold almost 200,000 copies and counting. Sales continued to climb, The Rules was translated into multiple languages (between eighteen and twenty-seven, depending on which website you believe), and “Rules Girls” who practiced being mysterious, not returning phone calls, and letting prospective mates do all the work (and pay for all the dinner, movies, shows, and dates, not to mention expensive gifts on appropriate holidays) with the fervor of Moonies selling flowers at airports sprang up from coast to coast. Fein and Schneider found themselves giving interviews, appearing on talk shows, and even offering consultations to desperate Rules Girls for $150 a pop.
That neither Fein nor Schneider had any training in psychology or marriage counseling did not matter. They had The Rules, and wasn't that what mattered? It had worked for Ellen (and would eventually work for Sherrie), so clearly they were on to something.
As for cries that The Rules represented a step backwards for women, Fein and Schneider shrugged them off with claims that Rules Girls had, if anything, more time to devote to their careers than non-Rules Girls. Letting men do the hunting freed up nights they might have otherwise wasted going on fruitless dates, having sex with men who believed in free milk instead of buying the cow, and fretting over being lonely on Saturday night. They had stacks of mail from bright, successful women who'd followed The Rules and were now happily married, they claimed, so what did the critics know?
That actual men were less than enthused about The Rules didn't matter. John Scalzi, then a columnist for the Fresno Bee, might have called the book “whalebone corset with pages” and stated that “If women eventually lose the war of the sexes, it won't be because men were better fighters but because turncoats in their own ranks have done too much damage already,” but what did he know? He was a newlywed, true, but he not only had allowed his bride, Krissy, to call him to set up their first date in 2003, but he'd actively requested that she do so since he'd given her his business card and asked her to get in touch. Clearly he was not the sort of man that any Rules Girl worth her salt would find worth the time, trouble, or lack of meaningful conversations.
The Rules ended up a smash bestseller, and one cannot blame Fein and Schneider's publisher for requesting a followup. Soon the bestseller lists (and remainder tables, and tag sales) were graced with The Rules II, The Rules for Marriage, and The Rules for Online Dating. There was a minor scandal when enterprising journalists discovered that Ellen Fein was in the midst of a divorce when The Rules for Marriage was published, but she brushed off accusations of “rank hypocrisy” by stating that her soon-to-be-ex had been the right man for her when they're married sixteen years earlier, and children, life, and several bestselling books and the resulting publicity tours had taken an irreparable toll on her marriage. She'd used The Rules to attract Husband #1, and as soon as she was ready to date, she'd use them again to find Husband #2.
As quaintly 90's as all this seems today, there are still plenty of people who swear by The Rules. Fein (who did indeed use The Rules to snag Husband #2, who either had somehow avoided all the fuss or actively enjoyed being manipulaed) remarried in 2008, Schneider married for the first and only time (to date), and they continued to write books about applying Edwardian dating norms to the 21st century. Their latest book, Not Your Mother's Rules: The New Secrets for Dating came out only two years ago, and includes gems for the cyber age like:
Don't answer a man's personal ad, ever. That includes winking at his profile.
Don't chase a man, ever, because men love a challenge.
You can read a man's dating profile on Match.com or another site, but don't let him know that you've done so, ever.
Wait four hours to reply to a text.
Don't write on his Facebook wall, and don't post introspective updates on your own since “it will sound like you're reading too many self-help books.”
“Dress for men, not other women,” which means skinny jeans, push-up bras, short skirts, and 3” hoop earrings.
Don't ever tweet your reaction to a romantic comedy since this will make you look man-hungry, not amused by, say, Love, Actually or What's Your Number? or Kate and Leopold.
Do not ever ask a man out. “They're only doing it to be polite, for sex, or out of boredom. Eventually he will drop you for the girl he really likes.”
Don't return his phone calls, ever, since a man who's genuinely interested will be “surprisingly resourceful” in getting in touch.
That sometimes a woman might not return phone calls because she actually isn't interested, or because he creeps her out, somehow doesn't factor into the equation. Women are supposed to be wooed and pursued, and if that means the occasional guy who needs to discouraged with a restraining order, large angry dog, or baseball bat to the face, well, thems the breaks.
For those who are interested in finding out how about these “time-tested tips” (or simply having a good laugh), their website offers a fine selection of CD's and DVD's of seminars they've given, “dating journals” intended to help Rules Girls keep track of how well they're following the program in their own love lives, notecards with the message “Love only those who love you,” gift certificates so your manless friends can receive a free consultation with Fein and Schneider themselves, and similar delights. It for worked for Ellen Fein (twice) and Sherrie Schneider (once), so surely it's worth a try?
As for me...well. As much as I'd like to date again, I don't think this is necessarily the way to go about it. I've got a decent life these days, with cats and books and a solid vibranium anti-GTPOD repeller on the roof of the Last Homely Shack. If someone wants to share it, that's cool, but if not, life will go on.
on the other hand, if any unattached males reading this wish to have coffee at Rao's, Haymarket, or Tandem Bagels any time in the near future, please message me privately before I lose my nerve....
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Did you meet your beloved using The Rules? Laugh hysterically over them? Meet your beloved ignoring them completely? Laugh hysterically when someone suggested them to you? It's a nice night to share your stories from the Dating Wars, so gather 'round and share....
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