“When he calls, tell him you’re busy even if you’re not. Make him work for it.”
By far, the most popular relationship advice I never take.
“Don’t say ‘I love you’ first. Keep him guessing or you’ll come on too strong.”
Yup. I’ve done this zero times in my life.
“If you sleep with him tonight, he might think you’re a slut. Always leave him wanting more.”
In other words, good girls, say “No” even when you want to say “Yes”. He’ll get the idea.
The Dating Game. The Chase. Playing Hard To Get. All my life, I’ve been told that the best way to win a man’s Yes is to tell him No. Popular wisdom warns that a woman who veers from these guidelines is sure to meet a lonely doom, remembered only as “that desperate, clingy psycho who has sex on the first date.” And I’ll admit, in my loneliest moments, I’ve often wondered if my failure to follow the fold–bat my eyelashes, bow my head, and beat around the bush–was responsible for my solitude. But aloof never looked good on me. And, more importantly, it felt wrong–dishonest, inauthentic, manipulative. So I kept answering calls, saying ‘I love you’ when I damn well felt like it, and sleeping with men when I wanted to, without the whole ‘Oh my goodness! I never do this!’ apology.
Despite my adherence to the honesty policy, the dudes I dated still had trouble discerning my Nos from my Come On, Convince Mes. And the lines they crossed in theirs quests for Yes were darker because of it. When I turned to my friends, they repeated back the same advice as before, only slightly scrambled: “Well, what did you do to make him think you wanted it?”
And here’s why The Dating Game, The Chase, and Playing Hard To Get are all candy-coated pills of the same toxic poison: rape.
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