Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy(31)
Friday 2 November 2012
Possibilities of anything ever happening with male of species again 0.
11.30 a.m. Text from Leatherjacketman.
<Great but very overloaded – heading off to Zurich tomorrow, might be there for a while. Have a good Christmas.>
And that was the end of that.
‘You have to laugh about it,’ said Talitha. ‘Don’t let him have possession of your self-esteem. Or your sexual viability. Or anything.’
Clearly, however, something had to be done.
INTENSIVE DATING STUDY
Night after night, when the children were in bed, I studied, as if for an Open University course on how to get off with people. The children seemed to sense that a great project was in the works, and treated it with appropriate respect. Mabel, when she burst into my bedroom at midnight, clutching Saliva and saying she’d had a nasty dream, would whisper, ‘Exthcuthe me, Mummy, but a giant ant ith eatin’ my ear,’ whilst peeping respectfully from the tangle of hair, at the piles of epic tomes all over the bed. I did of course tweet as I went along, increasing my Twitter followers to a staggering 437.
Bibliography:
I started with my historical archive – the obvious classics from my thirties:
* Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
* Finding the Love You Want
* Letting Love Find You
* What Men Want
* What Men Secretly Want
* What Men Really Want
* What Men Actually Want
* How Men Think
* What Men Think About When Not Thinking About Sex
But somehow it just wasn’t enough. I went on Amazon and there were seventy-five pages of dating self-help books to choose from.
* The Single Trap: The Two-step Guide to Escaping It and Finding Lasting Love
* The Three Most Successful Online Dating Profiles Ever
* Quadruple Your Dating
* It Takes All 5: A Single Mom’s Guide to Finding the Real One
* Make Him Beg to Be Your Boyfriend in 6 Simple Steps
* 100% Love: 7 Steps to Scientifically Find the True Love of Your Life
* Fearless Love: 8 Simple Rules That Will Change the Way You Date, Mate and Relate
* The Love Laws: 9 Essential Rules for Lasting, Loving Partnership
* 10 Dating Lessons from Sex and the City
* Attraction Magnets: 12 Best Conversation Topics for Dating and Pickup
* 20 Rules of Internet Dating
* The Red Flag Rules: 50 Rules to Know Whether to Keep Him or Kiss Him Goodbye
* The 99 Rules of Online Dating
* The New Rules: The Dating Dos and Don’ts for the Digital Generation (same authors as the original Rules)
* The Old Dating Rules (different authors from the original Rules)
* The Unwritten Rules
* The Unspoken Rules
* The Spiritual Rules for Dating, Relating and Mating
* Changing the Rules
* Love Has No Rules
* Breaking the Rules
* Dating, Fornication and Romance: Who Knew There Were Rules?
* The Anti-Rules – Now That You’ve Got Him, How Do You Get Rid of Him?
* The 30-Day Dating Detox
* Zen and the Art of Falling in Love
* Geisha Secrets
* Why Men Love Bitches
* You’re Irresistible
* He’s Just Not That Into You
* The Strategy
* The Automatic 2nd Date: Everything to Say and Do on the 1st Date to Guarantee a 2nd Date
* Getting to Third Date
* Date Dream Girl: Third Date and Beyond
* Getting to Fifth Date after Fourth Date and Sex
* Now What? Getting Beyond the Fifth-Date Hurdle
* When Mars and Venus Collide
* The Art of War for Dating
* The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating
* Dating Dead Men
* Romantic Suicide
* Dating: It’s Not Complicated
It might sound confusing, but actually it wasn’t! There was more consensus than disagreement amongst the dating masters. I studied diligently, marking up the books and making notes, searching for commonalities as if between the world’s great religions and philosophical tenets, distilling them down to a molten core of key principles:
THE DATING RULES
*Do not text when drunk.
*Always be classy, never be crazy.
*Be on time.
*Use Authentic Communication.
*Do not go to the wrong place.
*Do not confuse him. Be rational, congruent and consistent.
*Do not obsess or fantasize.
*Do not obsess or fantasize when driving.
*Respond to what is actually going on, not what you wish was going on.
*On first date just go along with whatever he suggests (unless Morris dancing, dogfight, obvious booty call, etc.)
*Be sure he makes you feel happy.
*Try to retain some vestige of objectivity.
*When he comes we welcome, when he goes we let him go.
*Don’t get stoned or pissed out of brain.
*Be calm smiling goddess of light.
*Allow things to unfold like a petal at their own pace, e.g. do not demand to make third date in insecure panic in middle of sex on second date.
*Wear something sexy but that you feel comfortable in.
*Stay calm, confident and centred re whole thing – consider meditation, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, antipsychotic medication, etc.
*Don’t come on too obviously strong, but do do sensual things like stroking stem of wine glass up and down.