S. recently posted on “girl game,” which, some of you may be surprised to find out, is NOT an oxymoron. Both normal game and girl game are designed to improve the user’s position in the sexual marketplace, but due to the different natures of man and woman, each has different objectives. While guy game is intended to make the man attractive to women, girl game is focused on getting guys to commit in the form of long-term relationships or, Allah forbid, marriage. Unfortunately, as I wrote over at Lesenjournal, women’s dating advice is as equally useless as men’s advice, because it refuses to acknowledge the differences between the sexes.
Let’s take The Rules as an example. This little book, published in 1995, has become the veritable Talmud of man-snaring. It’s sold millions of copies, has had several sequels, been featured on Oprah, and is so popular that its writers were able to form their own Love Systems-esque dating advice firm. But what sort of attitudes does The Rules try to inculcate in women? Judging from the first few, not good ones:
Rule 1: Be a “Creature Unlike Any Other”
Rule 2: Don’t Talk to a Man First (and Don’t Ask Him to Dance)
Rule 3: Don’t Stare at Men or Talk Too Much
Rule 4: Don’t Meet Him Halfway or Go Dutch on a Date
Rule 5: Don’t Call Him & Rarely Return His Calls
Rule 6: Always End Phone Calls First
Rule 7: Don’t Accept a Saturday Night Date after Wednesday
Rule 8: Fill Up Your Time before the Date
Rule 11: Always End the Date First
Rule 12: Stop Dating Him if He Doesn’t Buy You a Romantic Gift for Your Birthday or Valentine’s Day
Rule 13: Don’t See Him More than Once or Twice a Week
Rule 14: No More than Casual Kissing on the First Date
Rule 15: Don’t Rush into Sex and Other Rules for Intimacy
Sexual politics, like all forms of politics, is about gaining the upper hand. These rules are intended to allow a woman to extract as much out of a man as possible while putting in as little as possible, which is fair enough, but they don’t work because they don’t take into account the different criteria by which men and women evaluate prospective mates.
Women ascertain a man’s sexual desirability through his social dominance, and all of the various trials they put men through, such as shit tests, spring from this reality. Game is made possible through this quirk of women’s psyche; a guy who is not naturally dominant can mold himself into a man that the ladies want by altering his behaviors.
Men ascertain a woman’s sexual desirability through her looks. If she makes your penis hard, she’s a worthy conquest. This ensures that women who aren’t wildebeests and/or hippopotamuses will have an endless stream of dudes looking to bring their battering rams crashing through her iron gates of life, but it has a downside; a woman’s options for improving her sexual market value are limited. The reason a 20-year old co-ed can play the coy coquette and a 35-year old cougar has to force herself onto guys is because the former has qualities men desire (youth and beauty) that the latter doesn’t and can never get back. An unattractive woman who prances about like she’s a 10, like The Rules says that ladies should do, isn’t going to suddenly make men think that she is a 10 – they’ll just avoid her in favor of girls who are still on the same plane of reality. Men instinctively know the difference between fool’s gold and the real deal, and no games played by girls can convince them otherwise.
Furthermore, a man’s willingness to put up with shit from a woman is inversely correlated with how good he is with them. Natural-born alphas, the guys who women want to ensnare, will not tolerate the behavior of a “Rules Girl.” Only gameless schmucks will bother with chicks who won’t pay for dates or refuse to do more “than casual kissing on the first date.” The Rules ought to have been subtitled “Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Beta.”
To be fair, The Rules does contain some good advice. Here are the ones that women should follow:
Rule 16: Don’t Tell Him What to Do
Rule 17: Let Him Take the Lead
You’ll be much happier with your man if you let him be a man.
Rule 22: Don’t Live With a Man (or Leave Your Things in His Apartment)
Cohabitation will kill your chances of getting married. When you live together, you effectively take on all of the responsibilities of being a wife with none of the benefits of having a husband.
Rule 23: Don’t Date a Married Man
Very few hitched dudes will abandon their existing families to commit to you, and even if he does, what’s stopping him from doing the same to you when another hot young thing comes along?
Rule 35: Be Easy to Live With
Do I HAVE to explain this one?
The inadequacies of The Rules can be explained with some knowledge about its writers. I couldn’t dig up anything on Sherrie Schneider, but Ellen Fein apparently divorced her husband in 2000 and only remarried last year. A woman looking for dating advice from a divorced chick is like a man looking for game advice from a 40-year old virgin. Here’s a picture of Fein and Schneider to seal the deal:
The offense rests.
Unlike The Rules, I haven’t read He’s Just Not That Into You, but a glance at its table of contents shows that I probably don’t need to to get that it’s an gigantic puddle of stupid:
He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Not Asking You Out
He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Not Calling You
He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Not Dating You
He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Not Having Sex with You
File these under “No Shit, Sherlock.”
He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Having Sex with Someone Else
Shows what you know about male sexuality. Men aren’t women. When we wander off to bang other broads, we do so because we’re:
a) Looking for sexual variety.
b) You don’t want to fuck anymore.
c) Your weight gain has transformed you into a walrus with tits.
d) b and c.
e) All of the above.
You can avoid B and C by laying off the ho-hos and keeping your legs open. As for A, it’s unavoidable if you’re dating an alpha or a greater beta. Take pride in knowing you’re his number one girl.
He’s Just Not That Into You If He Only Wants to See You When He’s Drunk
If he needs to be smashed in order to put up with you, the problem may be you.
He’s Just Not That Into You If He Doesn’t Want to Marry You
Marriage is an institution that, in its current form, exclusively benefits women. If you want him to pop the question, you better give him a damn good reason – and no, “I’m so awesome” doesn’t count.
He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Breaking Up With You
He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Disappeared on You
Again, you needed a book to tell you this?
He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Married (and Other Insane Variations of Being Unavailable)
The dick is the ultimate barometer of whether he’s into you. If it’s hard, he wants you; if it isn’t, he doesn’t. Everything else is ballast.
He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s a Selfish Jerk, a Bully, or a Really Big Freak
Explains why “selfish jerks” and “bullies” get all the pussy. And “really big freak?” As opposed to normal or little freaks?
The single best source I’ve found on girl game is the infrequently updated but always interesting LovelySexyBeauty. But then again, LSB reads both Roissy and Roosh and occasionally comments on the former’s blog. I wonder if those two facts are related? Nah…
Filed under: Culture, Game, Marriage, Sexuality, Women | Tagged: Culture, Game, He's Just Not That Into You, Ignorance, Lesenjournal, LovelySexyBeauty, Marriage, Men, Sexuality, The Rules, Women
