HAPPY 2015! I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday season and aren't terribly hung over from last night's festivities. If you're like me, your tongue and vocal cords are still on fiyah after having taken a shot of the devil's liquor last night, which contained chile, tequila and (supposedly) chocolate. Early in the evening, T brought up the harassment she got from her family over the Christmas holiday over not yet being married. Her grandmother, very old school Indian, told her the reason she's not hitched is because she doesn't know how to keep a man (isn't family fun?). When asked how exactly one goes about keeping a man, grandma didn't have an answer. But she was still sure T was the problem and not the copious amount of men who aren't relationship material. Eventually, someone else in our party brought up a book they read about that is being pitched as a "dating guide". It's penned by several men (there's your first clue as to how stupid it'll likely be) in various states of their lives; single, engaged, married, divorced, and the aim is to tell ya'll ladies how to land a man and keep him. The book isn't out yet, there's only a website and excerpts from interviews with the authors. And it's almost all ridiculous. Not even like, "Oh wow, that's bad advice" kinda ridiculous but, "No wonder women stay single, men are idiots" ridiculous.
Where to begin? All of these fools insist that every man wants to get married and those who deny it are "lying". Um...I don't and I can assure you I'm not lying when I say as much. In fact, I know of several dudes who don't want to get hitched and are dead serious about it. I've heard this same thing before but it's usually women who are said to all want to get married, no matter how much they deny it. Marriage isn't for everybody and claiming all people secretly want it is like saying everybody on earth likes mustard. A lot of people like mustard, but if someone says they don't then they don't and that's it. You don't go in on that person and demand they confess that they secretly love mustard. Another "tip" in the book is that women should always, always cater to their men in any and every way possible because, "When he gets his ego stroked, he will be more inclined to love you more". Seriously? I was not aware that how much you love a woman was influenced by how much she stroked your ego. And I certainly wouldn't love a woman more if she was hovering over me all the damn time cooking every meal and tending to me like a child. It's absurd to suggest a woman should drop everything and give a dude whatever he needs, regardless of the affect on her, or that she should go so far out of her way to try and "keep" you. Almost everything in the preview of this book was total crap that screamed "mommy issues". These dudes want a cross between a 1950's housewife and their own mothers, a super-obedient chick who sees them as the center of the universe no matter what (I can't imagine why one of the authors is divorced!). I think dating advice books in general are crap since no one things works for everybody. You love who you love and it lasts if you work at it on a daily basis. Furthermore, the idea that women have to do all the work to keep ish afloat is laughable. Both sexes are equally capable of taking something for granted and screwing it up, or working hard at it and making it last. It takes two to make a thing go right, as they say (or as Rob Bass said in the 90's anyway). I genuinely hope no one is stupid enough to take the "advice" in this book.
