Imagine my surprise when I found that, at least this excerpt, instead of being degrading, was actually quite empowering. And on top of that, the author comes to a conclusion that is very similar to the one I came to a while back after struggling with feeling entirely powerless to change the fact that my love life has always been and continues to be utterly and completely nonexistent.
I guess that the whole premise of this book is to wake females up to the fact that if a guy is interested, he will take the initiative. Thank goodness that someone finally just said it! I get so sick of girls spending hours asking me to analyze every little thing this guy or that guy said or didn't say, or did or didn't do. Heavens people!
I also get sick of people trying to explain away my shameful lack of a dating life by telling me that several guys must have been interested in me in the past, or are currently interested, but are just too intimidated by me (innocent, insecure, flabby, little me) to show their interest by asking me to dinner or some other socially acceptable form of expressing a desire to get to know a person better. Honestly folks? I'm not even stupid enough to believe that. Good thing that this book busts open that ridiculous myth.
Now I do understand that it can be frustrating, especially as a goal-setting, ambitious, used-to-working-for-what-she-gets kind of girl to not really be able to tangibly work toward improving a lack-of-love life. However, this is the conclusion from the book that I tend to agree with:
"If the men are asking you out, if the men have to get your attention, then you, in fact, are the one in control. There's no scheming and plotting. And there is something great about knowing that my only job is to be as happy as I can be about my life, and feel as good as I can about myself, and to lead as full and eventful a life as I can, so that it doesn't ever feel like I'm just waiting around for some guy to ask me out. And most importantly, it's good for us all to remember that we don't need to scheme and plot and beg to get someone to ask us out. We're fantastic."I think there is all too much scheming and plotting that goes on (the worst of which guys are completely clueless about) and it drives me absolutely batty and is quite sickening. I'll just leave it at that because I am in danger of going off on a tangent.
More importantly though is realizing that as women, we are worth being pursued (even if, like in my case, no one ever decides to pursue us). Yeah, I might not have the best skin out there (currently there is a family of zits that have decided to permanently camp out on my right cheek), I may be somewhat of a procrastinator, I may need to lose 30 pounds or so, and I may have unnatural cravings for pickles at times (like right now), but that doesn't mean that I'm not worth pursuing. I have a lot going for me in fact. And I would honestly prefer to be single for the rest of my "full and eventful" life than to feel like I need to focus on desperately finding a man that will settle for me. I'm not willing to settle for someone who feels like they need to settle for me. I'm better than that.
Now maybe you think that the premise of this book is entirely ridiculous, and that my conclusions about it are completely false, and if so, please do share. By no means do I pretend to have all the answers (or even most of them for that matter). However, this is the philosophy that I'm currently living by (and have actually been going by for a while now, it's just good to hear it from another source).
So to all of the men out there, if you're interested you're gonna have to let me know. And though it may be sad, at this point I am so unused to anyone showing interest that I'm pretty sure I'm beyond the point where subtlety is going to work. (Sometimes I actually worry about this. I think it must just be from learned behavior that I automatically go into friend mode with every guy I meet because those are the only relationships I am used to having with males, hmm...I wonder which is the cause and which is the effect...food for thought).
Alright, so I'm rambling now and not making any sense and I'm actually quite ashamed that I just wrote a whole post on a relationship book. Sorry. I hope you don't think worse of me for doing it.
p.s. Please, no pity-party comments. I despise them and that was not the point of this post.
5 comments:
kia, i do think worse of you for this post. ;) jk. when i first read this book a couple years ago, i also marveled at the wisdom. it was very applicable to a take-initiative kind of guy as myself. i thought that this book would explain to all the girls out there why i'm not taking it to the next level with them. but what i've since realized is that i think there is a 'into you' gradient. while i might not be into someone in the middle of the gradient, i can grow to like this individual more and more with time. so my conclusion is that it's not as cut and dry as the book proposes, but there is definitely an element of truth to what he says.
heyyyY! So. My sister told me to read that book, like, two years ago or something and I remember I told her "Not on your LIFE."...and then I promptly walked into the nearest Barnes and Noble and communed with that hot pink amazingness and a starbucks hot chocolate for two hours.
I nodded a lot while reading this post because I remember going through the same "THANK you" emotions.
So, I just wanted to say that yes, I agree with you. And yes, it is an empowering book. But, I do remember feeling some sort of sadness at the same time as the empoweringness because I knew that I couldn't use all those tiny "he knows my name!" daydreams to give me an extra reserve of "maybe, just MAYBE" anymore. Does that make sense?
But, yes, overall I did like this book and its straight-talk. I know that for me, personally, it made even WAAAAY more sense when I finally won the lotto (or so it felt/feels) and got a chance to BE persued. "Holy crud, THIS is the way it's supposed to be!"~just like that.
And so, yes, it's totally true. As Atticus has told me in his biology-talk, in mammalian species it is a general rule that the males make the effort and the females make the choice. And I would add: females are even cooler because we have the glands that MAKE us mammals. Am I right or am I right?
Right.
And, I agree with trent on the gradient thing as well. But, I still hold that if he REALLY was interested, then effort would come forth. I've seen the way those bird of paradises...birds of paradise...bird of paradii(?) dance for their mates. Dance away guys, we're ready to see the show!
I love it! Meredith loves that book and we read it one year for our book club. It is very empowering. So often girls read into situations so much. It seems to me like, if it is going to work out it will and we don't need to second guess ourselves as to whether or not we should text a guy. Although I need to remind myself of this often.
I am still keeping my goal though of one date a month. I missed June, but my friend and I planned a dinner party and invited people, so I am counting that as being actively social. Now I just need to go out with guys that have a career, pay their own car insurance (i met a 30 yr old whose dad still pays his car insurance) and who are interesting to talk to. Only a small miracle right? I feel like now that I am 27 this is going to be a new year of new love. :) We will see. Nothing has happened yet, but I still have 363 more days to go. Have fun at the beach! Love you, anne
pinto- "we have the glands that make us mammals"? lol. okay, i would not extend the biology analogy too far because the act of pursuing kind of sucks. i think it's gatta be a two-way effort.
trentathon-
Ok, so first of all, the fact that you've read this book kind of makes me giggle. Second, I can definitely appreciate that nothing is as simple as we'd like to make it, but it does seem like you're contradicting yourself a bit. You claim that you'd be glad if "all the girls out there" that are pining after you just clued in to the fact that you're just not that interested, and yet you want the whole pursuing thing to be a "two-way effort"? I really am sincerely interested in knowing how exactly you expect females to reconcile these conflicting expectations, because I honestly think that much of the confusion/frustration females experience in the relationship arena is due to not knowing whether they're doing too much or too little.
Pinto-
I do agree that it's kinda sad to sacrifice lovely daydreams to cold, hard reality especially when those "maybe, just MAYBE" daydreams are all that keep us believing that we aren't destined to live and die alone.
And about the whole gland thing...don't get me wrong, I'm all about promoting female coolness, but technically males have mammary glands too (they just don't have enough estrogen to fully develop them). :-)
Anne-
Good for you for keeping your goal despite the quality of men up there in SLC. You always have the funniest stories (car insurance guy, career shuttle-bus driver guy, and all those other winners). I definitely think this is going to be a great year for you though, cause you're incredible! (Plus, you're gonna come visit Dan and I in Boston right?) Good luck with your last year (?) of grad school!
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