The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right [Mass Market Paperback]

Ellen Fein (Author), Sherrie Schneider (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1996

You are a creature unlike any other (Rule #1)--that's why you need . . . The Rules. A simple set of dos and don'ts, The Rules will lead you to where you want to be: in a healthy, committed relationship. Unlike today's haphazard dating customs, The Rules recognizes certain facts of life. That men know what they want. That a man is either attracted to you--or not! That men want a challenge, not an instant or easy victory. When you follow these commonsense guidelines, you treat yourself with respect and dignity--and demand that men do likewise. Although they sound old-fashioned ("Don't see him more than once or twice a week"), they encourage you to lead a full, satisfying, busy life--outside of romance. Although they seem tough ("Don't talk to a man first"), they will teach you how to accept occasional defeat and move on. And although they require discipline ("No more than casual kissing on the first date"), they will bring out the best in you and in the men you date. The goal? Marriage, in the shortest time possible, to a man you love, who loves you even more than you love him.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An unexpected bestseller, this self-help book for women who want to hook a man seems to have struck a chord with desperate American women. Fein and Schneider, whose main credentials seem to be that they are married, lay out the rules to be followed for successfully snagging a dream hunk. And these rules are hard as cast-iron--Rule Five: Don't Call Him and Rarely Return His Calls. The idea is to return to pre-feminist mind games, exploiting the male hunting urge by playing hard to get. The result seems unliberating--Rule Seventeen: Let Him Take the Lead--but it seems to be capturing female minds. Rules Girls are eyeing the phone with steely resolve, and Rules seminars are springing up nationwide. Curious bachelors have been observed studying The Rules, some frowning, others with the supercilious smile of the hunter. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

The Rules is not just a book; it's a movement. -- Time, Elizabeth Gleick --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (February 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446602744
• ISBN-13: 978-0446602747
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (741 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #130,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

236 of 252 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars How to catch *certain* men, but not others December 3, 2002

By A. Wilson

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I'm very glad The Rules came out.

After finding "The Rules" I gained an insight into the game that *certain* types of men expected me to play, and were themselves playing.

However as I was trying to do the Rules, I realized that "The Rules" just don't work on some people, and that doesn't make it a bad relationship or a bad situation -- it just means that these people don't follow the same male/female roles.

I agree with Dr. Tracy Cabot, and the previous reviewer who mentioned Kiersey/Myers-Briggs persoality typing, in that "The Rules" fail to take into account individual sensitivity. In short, it's a good description of some people... but not of others.

Despite its flaws, I find "The Rules" is a good guide for survival out in the dating world. I can see how this book has its merits. It is a very useful guide to how to set your own limits, and not get taken advantage of.

I don't think it has universal applicability, and I think you need to exercise some critical thinking about each rule.

The basic spirit of "The Rules" is don't get with anyone who doesn't already like *you*, don't make yourself totally available with your time, make them do their share of the work, and don't let them - too early in the game - think they've 'won you' before you've actually set up a committed relationship.

This is great advice for *anyone*. This is especially great advice for those "nice guys" out there who can't get women to like them as anything more than friends. Basically the message is... "don't let them win the race before they've actually crossed the finish line." Don't give your all to someone who hasn't given their all.

The bit about a "romantic gift" I have issue with because everyone's idea of romantic is different. I always hated it when guys got me a single red rose or something stereotyped because it showed they didn't know what I really liked. On the other hand, the most romantic gifts I've gotten were: from one, books about cats and psychology (interests of mine); from another, a stuffed Linux penguin, a computer game and a science fiction magazine.

The *letter* of The Rules however is what I had the most issue with.

It assumes all people are basically the same.

In my experience, the sweetest, most wonderful men in my life were the shy and emotionally available ones who had made themselves available for friendship, but had not approached me in a 'Dating' style format as is outlined in "The Rules". According to "The Rules" I should ditch these men because they didn't make the first move.

"Romantic" is also in the eye of the beholder. For those of you versed in Kiersey/Myers-Briggs terminology, I agree with the guy way back, who commented that "The Rules" may apply to ESFJ women trying to snare ESTJ or ESTP men - these are the extraverted, sensate, everyday people that constitute 90% of us, from construction workers to corporate lawyers. I agree there.

I'm an INTP/INFP, and also an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) and have in recent years exclusively dated people like me - i.e., my fellow geeks. Favorite meeting places for me, and the people I like to date, are generally not going to be the "meat-market" venues suggested by The Rules. Actually I tried to do that scene for years, and found I was meeting -- sensate, extraverted guys I had nothing in common with, both as a bookworm and as an introvert.

In short --
If your dating style is to go after alpa-male types, and go to meat-market venues, then yes, follow The Rules and follow ALL of them. This is an EXCELLENT guide as to how to date alpha male corporate lawyer types while avoiding the players who invariably know at least half of the rules (but will bail if you play ALL of them). A good book to pair this with would be "Men who can't love".

If you like those shy, intellectual kind of guys, or guys with a more developed feminine side, and you don't go to meat-markets --
AVOID this book. Better guides to dating would be:

"Intellectual Foreplay" by Eve Eschner Hogan and Steven Hogan

"The Highly Sensitive Person in Love" by Dr. Elaine Aron
"if The Buddha Dated" by Charlotte Kasl.
"How to love a Nice Guy" by Judy Kuriansky.

"The Rules" works for 90% of men. If that's what you go for - then by all means. I have a friend I desparately wish would read this book, because she keeps getting taken in by exactly the kind of guys who need "The Rules" done on them.

HOWEVER - if you are interested in that other 10%, generally a quieter, more sensitive and cerebral kind of person -- don't be afraid to admit that.

116 of 126 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Just finished it... July 8, 2009

By Jo Montana

Format:Mass Market Paperback

After yet ANOTHER time of starting out a potential relationship with the guy being totally infatuated with me and then ending it within a few months, I read this book.

All this time I have wondered why on Earth guys started out thinking I was this interesting, intriguing, wonderful, irreplaceable woman then did a total 180, and here this book lined it all up for me. I started out being myself--sassy, feisty, interesting me--and as I turned towards liking a guy, I'd completely lose myself in the relationship, which would cause him to lose interest in me. I wasn't me anymore, I was doormat shell of a me.

I was able to identify actual moments in this last relationship where his interest in me started slipping--and it was all stuff that I was doing that the Rules warn against.

Granted, this book does not have ALL the answers--for example, I would imagine that you can only tell someone so many times that "I have plans" or "I'm so busy" without giving a single detail as to what you're doing before they think you're a liar or a manipulative cow. The book doesn't go into what to say when they ask "Doing what?". And it doesn't cover cell phones/text messaging/social networking stuff.

But a lot of it is teaching women to be courteous to themselves and their friends. We shouldn't break plans with friends or avoid making weekend plans in the hopes that the guy will call last minute. We shouldn't sit by the phone waiting to pick up after half a ring. We SHOULD resist the temptation to find excuses to call, and the temptation to bend over backwards for him without getting the same treatment in return. We SHOULD expect romantic and thoughtful gifts--measured by effort, not by cost--from someone who loves us. We SHOULD keep our own lives, our own interests, keep ourselves feeling valued with or without a guy. We SHOULD keep our distance emotionally until after we're sure instead of turning a boyfriend into a pro bono therapist...or we turn ourselves into wrecks over a short-term relationship.

So kudos to this book. As of right now, I'm testing out the Rules (or at least my version of them--I'm not a husband hunter, I just want a fulfilling relationship if I'm going to have one) with two different prospective guys. Even if it doesn't work out with either of them, I know to avoid bad behaviors that this book pointed out I had, and I'm hoping it makes me a better potential girlfriend.

394 of 447 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Radon for the Soul July 11, 2002

By LittleDee

Format:Mass Market Paperback

"The Rules" keeps returning like a bad hot dog. I'm embarrassed to admit that, against my judgment and ethics, I can't quite seem to dismiss it altogether. It's like watching somebody pick their nose at a stoplight -- you know you *should* ignore it -- you *want* to ignore it -- but somehow, you can't help yourself.

"The Rules", for those fortunate enough to have avoided the book until now, is an instruction manual telling how women can/should trick alpha males into marriage through withdrawal and manipulation.

Besides the book's cruel, self-esteem-undermining premise -- that the reader is worthless without a man; and moreover, that it requires complete falsification of her looks, mind, personality, and spirit to make her even marginally acceptable...

Besides the paradoxical hollowness of "success" with a false self -- you lose even if you "win", because it's not *you* who succeeds, it's the façade...

Besides the likelihood that persistent coldness, while screening out the uninterested, would also screen *in* the neurotic Don Juan who wants whatever he doesn't have until the instant he gets it, or even outright stalkers and psychos...

Besides how simplistic, morally corrupt, and insulting to *both* genders the book is...

Besides how abominably, sub-literately written it is...

Why does this book provoke such extreme reactions in everyone with a shred of intelligence, integrity, and/or self-esteem? Why is it like a stone in your shoe -- irritating as all get-out, yet impossible to ignore -- rather than simply irritating as all get-out?

Is it the obnoxious, infomercial scamminess and inflated promises?

-- "Sound too good to be true? We were skeptical at first, too."

-- "Follow The Rules, and he will not just marry you, but feel crazy about you, forever!"

-- "There are many books and theories on this subject. All make wonderful promises, but The Rules actually produce results."
(Oh, the irony!)

Is it the Godawful, degrading advice?

-- "Be feminine."
-- "Always strive to look feminine."
(Can you imagine anyone advising men, "always strive to look masculine"?)

-- "Don't leave the house without makeup."

-- "Wear sheer black pantyhose and hike up your skirt."

Is it the teeth-grinding rage at men?

-- "We mistakenly tried to be 'friends' with men..."

-- "You don't make it easy for him... As he SCRAMBLES around BEGGING the coat-check girl for a pen, you stand by quietly."
(That one has not-very-well-repressed sadism rising off the page like steam, doesn't it? "You want hard to get, you S.O.B.? I'll give you hard to get!")

Is it the childish spite toward women who don't "know their place"?

-- "They think they are too educated or talented to be passive, play games..."

-- "They feel their diplomas and paychecks entitle them to do more in life than wait for the phone to ring."

-- "These women always end up heartbroken."

Is it the cheap scare tactics?

-- "It's not fun to break The Rules. You could easily end up alone."

-- "By not accepting that the man must pursue the woman, women put themselves in jeopardy of being rejected or ignored."

Granted, you're not going to attract every man you ever say Hello to. But their tales -- always ending in the implication (often, the overt statement) that rejection is *punishment for refusal to comply*, rather than chemistry or random chance -- are like the 50s-style "guide to dating" books where the making-out teenage couple gets hit by a speeding bus.

Is it the gaping holes in logic?

Every anecdote supporting the formula is dangled before the reader like bait, but anything questioning/undermining it is dismissed: "the only guys who will be turned off by this are the guys who weren't really interested in the first place". Why wouldn't that be equally true of *ignoring* the rules? Maybe I should write a job-hunting manual -- "Punch Your Interviewer in the Nose: The Two-Fisted Method for Capturing Your Dream Job" -- and claim, "The only time this won't work is with jobs you were never meant to get in the first place".

Is it the unintentional howlers?

-- "What am I supposed to do all night if no one asks me to dance? Go to the bathroom five times if you have to, reapply your lipstick... walk around the room in circles until somebody notices you..."
(Like they could miss the crazy woman wearing more lipstick than Courtney Love, walking around in circles and going to the bathroom every five minutes?)

I think the book lingers like nuclear waste because it's so *weird*. While it's plausible to suggest that one way to deal with an imbalance of power is by calculated subterfuge, the authors aren't that straightforward. Instead, we get a lot of defensive, self-justifying assertions that "The Rules" are not, repeat NOT, conniving or vicious or bitterly cynical, that men WANT to be manipulated, that men have a "biological need" to pursue (why are people still using junk science to justify the worst aspects of human behavior?).

They also urge the reader not to tell anybody -- friends, families, therapists -- about the book, as though it were a cult. This -- there's no other word for it but paranoia -- makes it clear that the authors know full well that their ideas can't withstand examination/discussion. If your positions are indefensible, why hold them?

As a result of the doublespeak, mean-spiritedness, and desperation pervading every syllable, the book has a creepy, nightmarish, *toxic* vibe, like reading a crazy person's diary. It's hard to put out of your mind even when you want to.

Relationships can be good, bad, or in-between, but reducing human interaction to a grim quest for prey won't improve matters. The authors tell the reader over and over that: 1) "The Rules" aren't REALLY manipulation, and 2) All right, they ARE really manipulation, but they work! It's too bad that they stopped short of 3) OK, they DON'T really work... but we ARE making a ton of money.