Not Your Mother's Rules: The New Secrets for Dating (12 page)

Not only shouldn’t you e-mail first, but you need to wait at least four hours to e-mail him back the first time and anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours to answer subsequent ones, just like with text messages (see
Rule #6
again). The weekends (Friday 6 p.m. to Sunday 6 p.m.) are still a dead zone, as you want to give guys the impression you are
out and about, not sitting around at your computer. The only time you can respond to a weekend e-mail is if it’s a scheduling thing—for example, if you already have a date in place and he wants to pick you up at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. to take you to a karaoke bar before dinner and asks if that is okay. You can wait thirty minutes and write back something as simple as “Sure.” Remember, you can talk on the date!

With clients who do online dating we suggest that they keep their answers to guys’ e-mails brief and light and breezy. No matter that he e-mailed you his whole life story, including what happened in his last three relationships and his political and religious beliefs, because it could be a form letter he wrote to thirty other women that says nothing specific about you or anyone else. Just e-mail back, “Hi, you sound interesting.” When he asks you out, you can talk on the date about all his interests and his life story.

If a guy you met online or through a friend is trying to set up a first date, but keeps changing the date or the plans, write back very little, as you don’t want to encourage a time waster. We had one client who got an e-mail from a guy she hadn’t met yet explaining why he had to reschedule their first drink date. “Sorry to have to postpone our first date. Just got back from a business trip to LA. Again my apologies, but I am definitely going to make this happen soon.” She wanted to e-mail him back five minutes later, “Welcome back from LA. How was the weather? Totally understand. Let’s definitely get something on the calendar after Easter break.” Too much! We told her to write back three days later (not one day later because he had canceled previously): “No problem!”

The e-mail that requires the briefest response is a breakup e-mail. If a guy has the gall to end your relationship in this heartless way, just write back, “No worries!” Don’t journal
about how hurt you are and how you didn’t see it coming and what he did wrong, you did wrong, or you both did wrong. Any guy who would end a relationship by e-mail is not looking for—or deserving of—closing commentary. Next!

E-mail does have its advantages and appropriate uses. It’s less personal than a phone call, which can work in your favor. If a guy you are dating leaves a message on your cell, e-mail him back. We don’t encourage calling, because you might catch him at a bad time, whereas e-mail is never intrusive. Besides, it’s always a better conversation when he calls you because you know he is in the mood to talk. So we tell clients to just write, “Hey, just getting back to you. Crazy busy day!” and let him call again. Remember, you want e-mails and calls leading to dates—not to more e-mails!

A
IM, GCHAT, ICHAT,
Facebook chat—instant messaging makes doing
The Rules
so much harder. How can you make a guy wait to see you or even speak to you so he appreciates you when you’re literally available online for talking to? Instant messaging is like running into a guy in the hallway at school or on a street corner or at the water cooler at work and chatting for an hour. How hard to get are you when a guy can chat you up and know you are available that second? Don’t you have somewhere to go or something to do? Or can you pretend you do?

Even if you have nothing going on, you cannot let a guy know that by IMing him back in nanoseconds. As with any other form of communication, a guy should have to wait to hear from you. For a guy to stay intrigued, there has to be a little bit of a bungee jump for him. Don’t take that away by IMing him back right away and chatting for an hour or more!

We know that guys can be relentless when they like you and want to know everything about you. They like to catch you online and get in your face. They fire away questions as if you were on
Jeopardy
,
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
, or some other quiz show. It’s like a rapid-fire interrogation: “Hey,
what’s up? How was your weekend?” Then, ten minutes later when you say you have to run: “Why do you have to get off now? Where are you going? What’s the rush? I thought your trainer was at 3 p.m. It’s only 2. What else is going on? I don’t see you on Gchat anymore. Are you blocking me? What’s going on? You’re so hard to reach…” Giving a guy online time doesn’t always lead to dates. Women are catching on to this poor excuse for a date: Lynnie, twenty-five, a software sales rep, told us she is tired of chatting with a guy online for an hour or more, feeling close, and then nothing coming of it. Sometimes you get lucky and the guy asks you out, but he also tries to monopolize your time with constant IMs, making it hard to follow the don’t-talk-to-him-24/7
Rule
. But if you let him get too much too soon from you electronically, he might eventually get bored.

The problem is that we are all available all the time—but you can’t let him catch you online all the time! If you answer every chat, you will no longer be the mysterious, hard-to-get girl who is busy dating other guys, but instead the girl who is glued to her computer. But how can you avoid letting him know you’re available when in reality you
are
sitting at your desk or on your laptop in class all day or doing research online in the evening?

One way to do so is to make yourself appear “invisible.” That way, you won’t show up on his chat list—or on anyone else’s. If you see someone you want to chat with (like your mom or your BFF), you can initiate the IM without anyone bothering you. Another option is to set your status to “busy” or “unavailable.” This will show up on his chat list and it will discourage him from contacting you, or give you an automatic reason not to respond at all if he does. But don’t be too obvious by changing your status once he has already sent you an IM! In some forms of IM, you can also block a guy by going into your privacy settings. But be aware that he can ask someone else to check if you are online or even create
another screen name and find out you are purposely hiding from him—use this method with caution!

If you know you are someone who can’t resist temptation, then you should just sign out of chat. Exit the program, or turn off Gchat or Facebook chat. You can be on these websites without everyone knowing it and without being so readily available. If he tries to chat when you are offline (or at least
appear
offline), the IM will turn into a message or e-mail, which you can just answer later according to
The Rules
timetable.

But if you don’t want to or can’t do one of the above, then you need to get out of there. You can learn how to end IM chats quickly—in ten minutes or less. When we tell women to do this, they are shocked. They argue that it’s rude and that they are way too nice to cut off a chat in ten minutes. What if the guy is in the middle of saying something important? We invariably find that such women are people-pleasers who also have a hard time getting off the phone with chatterbox friends or just saying no in general. We tell them “nice” is giving to charity or helping out at a shelter, but that it’s people-pleasing and being a doormat to stay on an IM chat for an hour—it’s better to get off abruptly than let a guy chat you up and not ask you out!

Here are some good conversation enders to prevent long IMs:

“I have to run!”
Then log off before the guy has a chance to ask where you are going and what you are doing. It’s none of his business. If he wants to know all about you, let him e-mail or text or call you for a date. An IM chat is not a date!

“My Pilates class starts soon—have to go get ready.”

“So sorry, I have to hop on this call…”

“I’m meeting a friend for coffee… and I’m already late!”

“My internet is acting funny.”

“The program keeps signing me out!”

“My boss needs me…”

You get the idea! Say whatever you have to and just shut it down. Remember, you have a life—school, work, friends, hobbies, the gym, and hopefully dates—so you really don’t have more than ten minutes to chat. Set a timer if you have to. If a guy has so much to say and so much to ask you, he can do it on a date!

W
OMEN ARE OFTEN
insulted when we tell them not to spill too much on the first few dates or in texts or in general. They argue, “But how will he get to know me? How will he find out how smart or funny I am? More importantly, how will we get close?” And with all the latest technology at their disposal, they have even more ways to talk to guys and break
The Rules
than ever before! Our answer is always:
slowly!
In the first week, a new guy should know only a few facts about you, like where you go to school or work and what you like to do for fun. As the relationship progresses, you can tell him a little bit more about yourself, like tidbits about your family and friends. He should be asking you a lot of questions to get you to talk, not getting bored by long stories. Giving him too much information shows that you are eager or nervous—and perhaps have not been on many dates lately!

If you want to bond with a guy, talk and text less and laugh and listen more. The less you talk, the more he will open up and the more he will wonder what you are thinking about. Everyone loves a good listener. Besides, guys are used to having their ears chewed off by women! He’ll be pleasantly surprised if you are not a chatterbox or a marathon texter or Facebook junkie… at any age!

The best way to make sure you don’t overshare is to keep the dates short—see
Rule #7
. If you are going on marathon dates (drinks, more drinks at another bar, dinner, dessert, movie, party, club), you are more likely to tell your whole life story. Another way to avoid talking too much is not to drink or to have only one alcoholic beverage. When you have two or more drinks or start to get tipsy, you will often say (and do) more than you want to and even embarrass yourself, but we’ll get to that in
Rule #21
.

You might think we are asking you to be superficial, but anything is better than baring your soul. Many women make the mistake of telling way too much way too soon, as if the date were a therapy session, thinking they will bond over these revelations. But in the beginning, a guy isn’t even your friend yet. Until you have been seeing each other for a few months and he has said he likes you a lot and you are exclusive, your childhood and innermost feelings are none of his business. Even then, keep diary-type stuff to yourself or to your girlfriends!

When you do interact, whether by text, on a date, or otherwise, there is much to stay away from, too. Do not bring up words like “love,” “marriage,” “engagement,” “wedding,” or “babies.” Don’t tell him that you just watched
The Notebook
for the fifteenth time. Do not tell or text him that your twin sister is getting married and you are looking for a date to the wedding. Do not text him that your other sister is pregnant with a girl and you can’t wait to have a niece. Do not message him on Facebook that your younger brother is in rehab, so you are busy next weekend with family visiting day. Do not tell or text him that your parents got divorced when you were five and you do not really talk to or see that much of your dad, who left your mom for a younger woman. Do not tell or
text him that you are still paying off your college loans and are just making ends meet and that’s why you can’t split the check. Besides, the reason you don’t split the check is because you are a
Rules
Girl and it is his pleasure to take you out and pay! More on that later. Dating is not an open forum! Ditto for using information from his Facebook page to make conversation on dates. Doing so will put you in the category of social networking stalker, as we said in
Rule #9
.