Self Help or Self Hinder

Inspired by some discussions which have emerged from previous blogs, I have lately been thinking about Self Help books and how helpful they really are. Working for a large publishing house, I am surrounded by books of this nature, such as ‘Why Mr Right Can’t Find You’ ‘How to Mend a Broken Heart’ and ‘Simply Irresistible’ each one full of advice on how to catch your perfect partner and hold on to him so he doesn’t disappear, or if this doesn’t work then how to cope and move on if he does! I must also ashamedly admit to going through a phase about this time last year, of avidly following The Rule Book. If you’ve never heard of this husband catching bible, I suggest you take a look, even if just to cast it aside and decide never to indulge in such manipulative behaviour. The Rule Book taught me never to accept a Saturday night date after Wednesday, never to be on the phone for longer than 10 minutes with a new love interest (in fact you’re even supposed to have an egg timer by the phone to prevent this terrible behaviour from occurring!) never to leave anything of yours at his house until you have a ring on your finger, and basically to never show any signs of liking him until you’re married – and even then you must still keep him on his toes by playing by the rules!!

I would never advocate following these rules to the T, but we all know that treating them mean, does to an extent certainly make them keener, just as it does when the situation is reversed. By some miscommunication between Mr Bridget and myself before we got together, I got the wrong end of the stick, leading me to believe he was gay. This in mind, I gave up any hope of trying to impress him by my cool sexy breeziness and spent all day emailing back and forth never waiting the allocated 1 hour between emails, or giving any false impressions of being the most up-beat, secure fun girl he would ever be likely to meet. By the time I realised he was actaully as hetro-sexual as they come; it was too late to start taking my cards back off the table, and we began an honest, pretence-free relationship.

I look back on previous dating disasters, however, and wish I had been a little more clued up. Drunkenly calling my university crush at 2 in the morning and screeching ‘Why don’t you like me?’ probably wasn’t the best way to win him over. I learnt the hard way that they can tell you on Saturday night that you’re the most amazing, sexy, witty and intelligent girl they’ve ever met, but a day later, not care if they never lay eyes on you again! Reading a couple of self-help books may have prevented me from committing these desperate acts at 18, but doing that has certainly ensured I’ll never do it now I’m in my 20s!! Learning the hard way can be fun, and I don’t completely regret yelling at the oh so gorgeous and popular cricket captain at university for ignoring my calls because quite honestly he damn-well deserved it! Acting all coy and disinterested, sort of allows these players to get away with it, without letting us show them that we care. Sometimes I think they deserve to have their bunnies boiled – at least they won’t be so keen to jump into bed with the next girl they meet, just in case she is also a psycho!