Not Your Mother's Rules: The New Secrets for Dating (6 page)
Read Not Your Mother's Rules: The New Secrets for Dating Online
Authors: Ellen Fein,Sherrie Schneider
Tags: #Family & Relationships, #Love & Romance
Perhaps you’re thinking, “Of course I would never speak to a guy first like Abby did—or even call a guy because that seems aggressive—but texting is different. Everyone texts these days.” We get it and you can totally text a guy back, as you’ll see in
Rule #3
, but you cannot text a guy
first.
Sure, you
think
you won’t text a guy, but when you’re feeling lonely on a Friday night and there’s a Katherine Heigl rom-com playing on TBS, we know the temptation can be a little too much to resist. To fight the urge you get every time you scroll past his number in your contacts list, we suggest a simple fix: change his name. It might be hard to stop yourself from sending a flirty message to “Jake” or “Ethan,” but it’s much easier to bypass “DON’T DO IT!” or “HE’LL THINK YOU’RE CLINGY!” If this tactic still doesn’t do the trick—which it might not on those nights when you’re feeling especially eager—then delete his number from your phone. The temptation will be gone altogether, and your cool and casual reputation will remain intact. Another option is to find something positive to keep you busy and distract you. Go to the gym, give yourself a mani/pedi, or call up a friend and get out of the house! Sometimes just sitting around gives you too much time to think, too much time to stare at your phone, and too much time to “accidentally” press send. You will never regret
not
texting him, but there’s a big chance you will regret it if you do.
—Rules Daughters
Now let’s go over the second texting intention we mentioned earlier. What if a guy spoke to you first, called you
first, and took you out on a date, but then you didn’t hear from him again? Would it be okay to shoot him a quick text, “Hey, I had a fun time with u. How are u? What happened with your promotion?” No, it would not. Such a message would make it obvious that you are looking to make contact and waiting for him to ask you out again. Be honest with yourself and
don’t text him first after a date
!
Like it or not, after a date, you have to wait for a guy to reach out and ask you out again. You cannot remind him that you exist. If you text him without hearing from him first, you will prolong a relationship that may actually be over. If he doesn’t call or text you after the date, it’s not because he is too busy at work, his dog is sick, he is relocating, or he’s visiting his cousin in the hospital—he’s just not interested. Hence, no text.
Women might argue, “But how will he know I like him if I don’t text him to follow up after a date?” He will know you like him because you went on the date with him and you will return
his
text. To text first is to initiate contact. He may feel flattered for a minute, but then he will feel bored and move on to the next girl he really wanted and texted first.
Women who have a crush become positively ingenious when it comes to finding reasons to text a guy first. They want to thank him for drinks or dinner. They want to invite him to hear their friend’s band play at a club. They conveniently have two courtside tickets to his favorite basketball team or to a Broadway show he casually mentioned. They are going to be in his neighborhood or near his office and want to stop by. They are thinking about joining his gym and wanted to get a quick tour. Their friends are throwing them a thirtieth-birthday party and they want to send him an
Evite. They want to wish him a safe trip to California. The list goes on and on. The bottom line is you have to restrain yourself from texting a guy first for
any
reason. It is pursuing, it doesn’t work, and it is a waste of time.
Mandy, a twenty-six-year-old nurse, e-mailed us asking if she could text a guy who she had been on and off with for a year (a scenario no
Rules
Girl would put up with!) to say their favorite group was playing in Atlantic City. “I won’t call him, but can I just shoot him a quick text? Would that be so bad? New Year’s Eve is coming up and I really want a date.” We went over the whole relationship. They were introduced at a party and talked for three hours that night. He told her he had just ended a relationship and was “not looking for anything serious.” They hooked up about eight times after that, all last-minute dinners and booty calls. The last time she heard from him had been two months earlier when he needed to vent about his ex. After he vented, they had sex.
Of course she shouldn’t contact him! A text would inevitably lead to a flurry of friendly messages and last-minute dates—and if she wanted a serious relationship, this wasn’t it. It would be obvious that the text was just an excuse to contact him because New Year’s Eve was two weeks away and she didn’t have a date. Furthermore, we explained that if she texted him and he wrote back, she would be getting the false impression that he was interested. Then her fantasy relationship would continue, preventing her from meeting guys who were truly interested in her and asking her out every week. Mandy agreed but then asked if she could at least send him one last text saying the relationship wasn’t working for her and to never contact her again.
Still
no! Closure is yet another excuse women use to get in touch with a guy and is not
The Rules
. Believe it or not, you actually have to wait until a guy texts you to turn him down or dump him so you can get your closure. Mandy fought a good fight but finally agreed that her motive should be to play hard to get. Obviously, though, you can’t play hard to get with a guy who is not trying to get you. After e-mailing us and
not
texting her fantasy guy, Mandy joined a gym and signed up for an online dating site. Ultimately, not texting him was liberating: she gave up a bad habit and made room for better things.
Closure is one of the biggest
fake
reasons women give for making contact with a guy they never had a serious relationship with. They have been on only a few dates and then have not heard from him in weeks or months—he is probably dating someone else—but they need their closure anyway. (In our first book and in
Rule #6
, we explain when a call or text for closure
is
appropriate.) Closure for a guy is never calling or texting or seeing a girl again. A guy doesn’t need a final conversation or text chat. In his mind, it’s just over—that’s good enough for him. But for many women, a relationship is not technically over until they have gotten everything off their chest. One woman we know texted a guy who ended their one-month relationship, saying that she felt used and accusing him of stringing her along, even though he never said they were exclusive or told her he loved her. She felt she couldn’t move on without saying those things to him. We would have told her to write it but never hit the send button.
When you finally stop making excuses to text a guy first, you will be on your way to becoming a
Rules
Girl. At first you may feel empty, the way you feel when you start sticking
to your diet and skip dessert, but when you don’t give in to the temptation, you will feel empowered and free. You may be able to bluff yourself and well-meaning friends with reasons to text a guy, but no
Rules
Girl would buy into it. It’s so much better getting a text from a guy than sending one!
____________
Don’t Ask Guys Out by Text, Facebook, Gchat, or Any Other Way
T
HIS
RULE
CAN
be difficult because we are essentially telling you to be passive about dating, while you are powerful in so many other areas of your life. You may have a master’s degree and an expense account. You may be president of your sorority. You may have your own blog and hundreds of Twitter followers. You may sit on the board of your condo association. You may fly business class to Europe for sales meetings.
But here, we are telling you that you cannot even suggest having coffee with a guy. Remember, the premise of
The Rules
is that men and women are not the same romantically. Men love a challenge and the feeling of pursuing. A woman can be as smart or smarter than a man; she can make the same money as a man or even more money than him; she can get a job doing whatever she wants—but when it comes to dating, she cannot be the aggressor without eventually regretting it. Just like texting or talking to a guy first, asking them out destroys the chase and rarely works out, as men know exactly what their type/look is and go after it. If you ask a guy out, he may say yes to be polite, for sex, or out of boredom, but eventually he will drop you for the girl he really likes.
Most women agree that it would be unfeminine and potentially embarrassing to ask a guy out on a formal Saturday night date, but they rationalize asking guys out on other nights of the week and on dates that might not be so obvious. A girl might text a guy and his group of friends, “Hey, why don’t you all come to the pre-game at my apartment?” and not think she is asking him out. She may secretly be hosting this pre-game or throwing her BFF a thirtieth-birthday party just so she can invite her crush and think nothing of it. She might e-mail that cute guy from English Lit class and say, “Hey, do you want to go over our essays together?” Or if she knows he likes a particular sports team, she might say, “We’re all watching the Giants game at Maggie’s later—want to come hang out?” Sure, it’s not formal, it’s for a specific reason, and it’s in a group setting, but none of these details change the fact that you
are
asking him out.
Women come up with all kinds of excuses to see guys they like. They are having a Super Bowl party, even though they’ve never watched a football game in their life. They are having an Oscar party in their apartment or a fund-raiser for some rare disease. Their power is out and they are frightened. Would he mind coming over? Their computer is down and they can’t get their printer set up. Could he take a quick look? These are all subtle ways of getting a guy to be with them; they may not be blatant as suggesting getting together for drinks or dinner, but they still don’t work. Some women spend hours on the phone with their girlfriends concocting the perfect reason to reach out to a guy!
Women asking guys out under the guise of being cool and casual is all too common. Amber, thirty, met Jeremy, thirty-three, at a party. Jeremy spoke to her first, got her number,
and texted her to meet for drinks later in the week. He also friended her on Facebook. They met for drinks and then she never heard from him again. Amber really liked him and desperately wanted to figure out a way to contact him again that wasn’t too obvious. She knew she couldn’t ask him out on a date, but she thought it wouldn’t be so bad to message him on Facebook about her BFF’s upcoming Christmas party, which they had schemed to throw for the sole purpose of seeing him again. She wrote, “Thanks for drinks. Not sure what you are doing Friday night, but my friend is having a big party. Let me know if you want to join me—no pressure!” Amber spent half an hour crafting the perfect Facebook message with her friend so she did not sound like she was asking him out! Two minutes later Jeremy wrote back, “Cool, would love to come.” He showed up and they had a great time—but she still never heard from him again after that.
That’s when Amber e-mailed us for help. We explained that the relationship was over when she didn’t hear from him after drinks. Facebook messaging him an invitation to the party was asking him out and was against
The Rules
. Just because it was via the internet and not for a Saturday night dinner date does not mean it was okay. If it’s not his idea to hang out with you, then you’re asking him out. Most importantly, you’re forcing the relationship to carry on longer than it should.
Let’s be honest here! If you have to figure out ways to make a guy be with you, the relationship won’t hold up long term. Amber later found out—through Facebook—that Jeremy and his ex-girlfriend were back together and
that
was why he never asked her out again. There is always a reason, which is why
Rules
Girls don’t try to make anything happen!
If we’ve learned anything from the romantic-comedy genre, it’s that most guys don’t like girls who play games. These days, there may be a lot more games to choose from, but the same
Rule
still applies. You might think it’s harmless to start a round of Draw Something with that cutie from chemistry. Maybe you’re curious just how big his, um, vocabulary is and decide that a few rounds of Words with Friends might be the best test. But as you already know, a girl should never make the first move—even if that move involves a computerized letter tile. Just as with flirting and texting, it’s always best to wait for him to show you that he’s interested, and you should never initiate a mobile game. In fact, the best advice we can give here is to avoid playing games altogether—that is, phone games. A
Rules
Girl doesn’t waste time with Scramble—she’s too busy with her life away from her phone and making dates with the guys who are actually asking! If a guy wants to get your attention, he can call you, text you, or ask you out.
—Rules Daughters