The Rules

Like many people, I wish that the Rules of dating had been explained to me in a clear and concise fashion. They could have done this presentation at the same time as the filmstrip about Becoming a Woman. Then again, I was so traumatized by the filmstrip that it's unlikely I would have absorbed much of the dating info.

Now that I am ostensibly a grownup, and have been dating for FIFTEEN years, I should have a better handle on these things. But no. One of my problems is that I'm aware of the massive self-help market, but I would never purchase one of the books. Instead, I hear one sentence from each philosophy, and it terrifies me into submission. The latest example of this came yesterday. I was poking around on MSN and found an article entitled "10 Dating Dos and Don'ts". The one don't that I was most horrified by was "don't be too sarcastic or tell too many jokes."

Lady, you're taking away my heavy artillery. Sarcasm, jokes and sports. That's what I bring to the table. Even if I stripped those things away, and tricked someone into liking the sincere, humorless me, what is the point? Am I ever allowed to act like myself under this regime? And what kind of guy are we meant to be attracting here? Someone who likes his females silent?

So, yes, I know that all the rules I've picked up over the years contradict each other, and most seem designed for a 1950s style aspiring housewife, but they still haunt me. Because what if they're right? Why am I still single if I'm such a smarty and everyone else is wrong? Blech.