Suzanne Portnoy

At the moment I’m reading two books. The first, The Complete Book of Rules, is all about how to snare ‘Mr. Right’ and get the ring. My agent as food for thought gave it to me. He wondered if perhaps I should start at square one giving my predilection for breaking all the rules.

The other, given to me by my friend Ms. Robinson is, ‘The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood and Marriage - a thoughtful collection of essays told in first person. The latter is interesting in that primarily it shows that there is really no Mr. Right. Most relationships are really about compromising and coming to an understanding, constant negotiation and renegotiation and that for much of the time the men we choose fall far short of our ideal.

Between the two of them and a dating workshop I attended a few weeks ago (again for research), it’s hard to know what to believe and it’s easy to understand why we’re all confused.

The dating coach I saw the other week suggested to the women in the group that they make the first move and ask for a guy’s number if they fancy them. The Rules says never to ask for a guy’s number and the Bitch in the House would suggest that whether or not you get the guy’s number is pretty immaterial – he’ll end up disappointing you at the end of the day anyway.

The Rules says never to shag on the first date and to basically play hard to get for as long as possible until the ring is in sight. The dating coach said that basically everyone goes to a singles event to get laid anyway and the more successful ones bag a shag that night. The Bitch in the House says that the first shag is always going to be the most exciting anyway and after that it’s pretty much all downhill unless you have affairs or take other partners into the relationship or basically do stuff after a year or two to keep the fire burning.

The Rules says that pretending to be this unobtainable, desirable person is what it’s all about. It’s all about getting the ring, making dating sound just like extended foreplay until one reaches the door of Tiffanys. The dating coach said be happy with who you are and people will like you. The Bitch in the House says that very often we turn into dislikeable people when we marry, even when that is seemingly what we desire.

Just reading all the conflicting viewpoints is making me tired. It all seems so prescriptive; so try this or that and it will all work out OK. Whatever that happens to be. Meanwhile my rational brain believes that the right person comes along when the right person is meant to come along and no amount of pretending, fucking or not fucking on the first date, calling or not calling is really going to change that. Sure, I can see that a slightly unavailable woman is more attractive than the stalker who texts a hundred times a day but this is just common sense. Just as I can completely understand Valerie’s stern comment on one of my recent posts that ‘if he doesn’t ring, he’s just not interested.’

Despite all of this, I’m thinking, purely as an experiment you understand, to try The Rules thing and see what happens. Not fucking on the first date would be a novelty for me. Never picking up the phone would be a real challenge. The book suggests pretending to be someone that you are not so I could pretend to be my long lost virginal twin who has only slept with a handful of guys and doesn’t know how to give a blowjob. I could pretend that I’m not a bestselling author of erotica but a lowly publicist who, in my spare time, runs a small knitting circle with a bunch of other spinsters. Of course, in order to do this, I would have to ensure that my suitors never visit my house, see my drawer full of sex toys or any of my lingerie. Who knows, it could be fun and as my kids’ free time is almost upon me, I’ll have plenty of spare time. Taking a summer holiday from being me could be just the kind of break I need.