Not Your Mother's Rules: The New Secrets for Dating (16 page)

The key is that you have to do
The Rules
not only on him but also on his friends and family—he and anyone in his world must make the first move, online and off. You get to keep your own life, friends, and interests, and are able to avoid losing yourself in his. Don’t message his seventeen-year-old sister on Facebook, “Text me if you want someone to go shopping with for a prom dress.” She has her brother’s ear and will tell him if she thinks it’s weird! Instead, you should be hitting the mall with your own girlfriends on the weekend. Give time and attention to the important people in
your
world, not his!

This kind of aggressive behavior doesn’t always involve friends and family, though. Some women always conveniently have extra hockey tickets and think nothing of wanting to ask the guy they are dating to join them for the game. Has he invited you anywhere like that yet? If he’s taken you out only to drinks or to dinner, then the answer is no. Inviting a guy to a concert, sporting event, or family/work event is taking the relationship to the next level, not to mention asking him out.
An overture of this kind is not
The Rules
. Take a friend or coworker—anybody but him!

If you are going to a wedding, you might want to invite the guy you are seeing as your plus one. Has he ever invited you as his date to an event? If not, take anybody but him! The same goes for holiday dinners with your family, fund-raisers, work functions, or formal events. Even if your social calendar is fuller than his—more of your friends are getting married or throwing parties or your job involves attending black-tie events—you can’t invite him first to an event without being the pursuer. Above all else, it’s asking him out! A guy will feel like you are planning your future together if you bring him into your world before he brings you into his, even if he seems initially flattered and excited to accompany you. He must set the tone for making introductions and bringing you into his work events, his Super Bowl shindigs, his parents’ house, his world.

Kyle, twenty-nine, invited her thirty-two-year-old boyfriend of three months, Adam, to be her date for a black-tie business dinner. Kyle was dreading going alone and also wanted to show Adam off to her coworkers, who she had been gushing to about him in anticipation of their meeting. Adam seemed thrilled to join her when he agreed to go, but then two weeks before the event, he said work was really crazy for him and he wasn’t sure he would be able to make it. Needless to say, she was annoyed and anxious. She called us in a tizzy, wanting to know how much she should push the issue because the calligrapher needed his name for the seating card. “Calligrapher”??? That’s a
wedding
word—was she trying to scare him away? All a new guy has to see is his name etched next to hers on a seating card and he will think things are getting way too serious way too fast. We told her
to invite a
friend
, male or female, to the event, and just have the calligrapher write “guest.” Even if she did take Adam to any events in the future, he should still be listed as “guest.” She asked if she should tell her boyfriend that he didn’t have to go after all. We said not to bother—he probably forgot and would be relieved if she didn’t mention it. Sure enough, she didn’t bring it up and neither did he.

Carly invited a guy she had been dating for a month to her twenty-fifth-birthday party, thrown by her friends and family at her favorite restaurant. It was a casual event, but in a matter of hours, a guy who spoke to her first at a bar and had three Saturday night dates with her met her parents, her siblings, and closest friends from college and work. Carly called us a few weeks later to tell us that he’d told her he wasn’t looking for anything serious. He hadn’t asked her out in two weeks—since the party! After we did some digging, Carly added that one of her friends had asked the guy if he was her boyfriend and he had said, “We’re just friends.” She wanted to ask him what he meant by that considering she had slept with him on the last date—but we told her not to! Had he invited her to his birthday or to meet his friends or family? No, his birthday was six months away. Clearly, it had been a mistake to invite him to her party—he felt overwhelmed by meeting everyone she knew so quickly and all at once.

If your birthday comes before his, it’s a tricky situation. If you are dating a guy for just a month or two and your birthday is coming up and your friends are talking about having a big bash, tell them you want to go low-key this year. The last thing you want is to be in the position of inviting him or not inviting him. If you do invite him, you run the risk of having him meet everyone in your life including your mother and thinking it’s getting way too serious. If you don’t include him,
he might be insulted. Do yourself a favor and just celebrate your birthday with a few girlfriends over dinner.

Now, what if he asks if he can attend or asks if he is invited to an upcoming event? If it’s a more formal event like a wedding or work function, say you’re so sorry, you would like to, but you can’t bring anyone—and go alone. Zoey, twenty-five, was invited to a wedding and hoped to bring Andy, her boyfriend of two months, as her date, but the bride said that she could not bring anyone because she had too many guests. Zoey asked us if she should beg her friend to make an exception,
but we told her no. Not only would have that been impolite, but it also wasn’t
The Rules
, since he had not invited her to anything comparable. So when Andy asked her to go out that Saturday night, she told him she couldn’t see him because she had other plans. He asked what the plans were and she said, “My friend’s wedding.” Puzzled as to why Zoey didn’t invite him but too well mannered to say anything, he simply asked her to meet for brunch and a movie the next day. Sunday at 11 a.m., Andy showed up at her apartment, demanding to know who she took and who she danced with. Zoey told him the truth, as
Rules
Girls don’t lie, that she had had only one invitation to the wedding and she danced with her girlfriends. Andy was relieved to hear the good news, but had clearly been shaken, wondering all night who her plus one was. This curiosity made Andy like Zoey even more!
The Rules
worked—they are married now.

If you are thinking about initiating the move into each other’s worlds, think again. Let him take the lead with this concept, as with everything else. Let him suggest your meeting his friends and his meeting your friends—and act nonchalant about it when he does. The problem today is that women are introducing men to everyone and inviting them to everything. Big mistake! Think long term. Do you want a date for a wedding or a permanent plus one?

S
OME SINGLE WOMEN
have a problem with online dating. They either think it’s not for them and refuse to do it, or they do it the wrong way. We feel that there are only two mistakes you can make with online dating. The first is not to try it. (We will get to the second in a minute.) If you are afraid or embarrassed to try online dating, we are here to tell you that it’s a safe and viable way to meet guys. When women complain to us that they can’t meet anyone, we suggest that, in addition to speed-dating and other singles events, they join a dating website. You would think we were telling them to pose for
Playboy
! They feel that it’s too public—what will their boss or neighbor say?—or insist that they have tried it before and it doesn’t work.

Here are some of the reactions we get to the idea of online dating—and our responses:

• “I’m too shy.”
  There is no social interaction involved in signing up! You just put together a profile with some photos, and let guys do the work!
  
• “I would die if people at work or church saw it.”
  Hello, that means they’re on the site, too! Nothing to be ashamed of.
  
• “I tried it and didn’t meet anyone good.”
  You probably didn’t give it enough time. Also, your profile is not exactly
  Rules
  -y!
  
• “Only losers go online.”
  Our clients who met their husbands online would beg to differ! The guys on these dating sites are a microcosm of
  all
  single guys: some are cute and normal, others are not. What else is new?
  
• “Most online guys are married!”
  Sure, some are, but most aren’t.
  The Rules
  screen out married guys anyway because they don’t ask you out consistently on Saturday nights or on holidays!
  
• “I don’t have a good or recent photo.”
  That’s easy to fix—just ask a friend to take one, or you can even use a professional photographer!
  

No matter how many other ways you are trying dating, getting online will only increase your chances of meeting a great guy. It’s a legitimate social outlet—thousands of women have met their husbands online, probably including someone you know—and it’s not dangerous if done the right way. Trying to meet someone at bars and singles events is time-consuming and not always possible if you have a job with busy hours or young children. Furthermore, the kind of guy you want may not be hanging out there anyway. Online dating is easy
and
convenient.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to try it is that as you get older, the dating pool gets smaller. More of your friends become engaged or married and have no one to introduce you to or aren’t eager to play your wing woman. After college, you won’t necessarily meet guys easily or by accident like you
did on campus. Getting online is just another way to meet people—there’s nothing weird or scary about it! Sure, you might meet some frogs before you meet your prince, but that will happen offline, too!

Once you get past your resistance to online dating, it’s time to focus on putting together your profile. The first step is to create your user name. Many women are tempted to use something generic that makes them difficult to identify, like their initials and birth date, but that is a mistake. Inventing what is essentially a nickname for yourself on a dating website is an opportunity for creativity in making the right impression. Why not take advantage of it? We like to figure out what popular actress or model a girl resembles because celebrity look-alikes always catch attention. Another option is to capitalize on your favorite traits. “BlakeLivelyGal” and “BlueEyedLawyer32” are good examples of user names. Sometimes clients ask, “But isn’t it conceited to say I look like a movie star?” No—it’s fun and shows great self-esteem! More importantly, it will catch a guy’s attention. Besides, who wouldn’t want to feel like he is dating a celebrity? Emma, thirty-three, wrote that she was a Kim Kardashian look-alike and got a message that said, “I hope
our
marriage lasts longer than three months!”

Since men are attracted to a certain look/type, the photo you choose to put on your profile is extremely important—just as your appearance would be offline. We see too many photos in which the woman is posing with her niece or wearing a tawdry Halloween costume; she is squinting or her hair is a mess; her boobs are popping out of her bikini top or the arm of a man who has been cropped out hangs over her shoulder. Have someone take new photos specifically for use on your dating profile. Smile and face the camera—no
brooding or overly artistic pictures. Ideally, you’ll have one head shot and one or two body shots so that you can show men the whole package.

In terms of the actual content of the profile, we think it’s best to keep it short and sweet. Focus on surface items, like your profession, hobbies, and favorite shows, movies, foods, sports, and travel spots. Here is one example of a
Rules
-y profile:

PrettyPublicist32

Blake Lively Look-alike

I went to Georgetown U. and work as a beauty product publicist in NYC. When I am not working, I like to go running, biking, swimming, and to the movies. My favorite movie is
Titanic
and my favorite TV show is
Law & Order
. I like sushi and Italian food. I like going out to LA once a year. Looking for someone smart and athletic, with a good sense of humor.