This is non-writing related tirade. I’ve had a few of them this year by the way as can be seen in Feeding into Stereotypes, Does Absence Really Make the Heart Grow Fonder and Love’s Adversary :).
I was digging through my book shelf yesterday evening trying to pick a new book to read when I came across a book I bought a couple of years ago; a relationship self-help book about a woman being in control. I remember when I bought the book; I enjoyed it immensely and wished that I’d discovered it during a nasty relationship period in my life a few years ago. However, in retrospect, I don’t think books like this really help women. They talk about playing games, manipulating men, making yourself a certain way to attract a certain man, changing something about yourself to welcome the man of your dreams, what to do when a man sneezes, how to tell if he will propose by the 5th date by the way he places his hands or something, and a whole other bunch of stuff. These guides are making a fortune off gullible women who think there’s something missing somewhere, hence, the hitherto elusiveness of Mr. Right. Each guide you read is more confusing and more contradictory than the last one. By the time you are through playing all the recommended games, you are left with a woman you might not recognise and maybe a man you don’t even want, if you get a man at all.
Why isn’t the market flooded with relationship self-help books for men? I don’t even know how that would work. If you wash her hair twice a week, she’ll stay with you 40 years or lay the bed when you get out of it in the morning and she’ll be accepting a proposal within a month. I’m fairly certain a great deal of men wouldn’t buy it.
All this is to say, in the end, you don’t need a self-help guide to find The One. What’s important is to be yourself. Don’t change who you are for anyone. You are unique and there is no one else like you, so, be you. Stay true to yourself and what you want and eventually, you will find him without an instruction manual, playing games or manipulation.
Why isn’t the market flooded with relationship self-help books for men? I don’t even know how that would work. If you wash her hair twice a week, she’ll stay with you 40 years or lay the bed when you get out of it in the morning and she’ll be accepting a proposal within a month. I’m fairly certain a great deal of men wouldn’t buy it.
All this is to say, in the end, you don’t need a self-help guide to find The One. What’s important is to be yourself. Don’t change who you are for anyone. You are unique and there is no one else like you, so, be you. Stay true to yourself and what you want and eventually, you will find him without an instruction manual, playing games or manipulation.
7 comments:
I often wonder why so many of such books target women. And a lot of us are so gullible too.
The books are targeted at women because we are a gullible lot and spend too much time trying to decipher men. Someone should write a book about focusing on ourselves and forgetting men for a minute!!!
This article is too right. All men want is to sit on a couch scratching themselves while watching football. The only way they'll buy a relationship book is if it explains how to get laid 365 days a year or how to get women to let you watch sports alone in peace, or something along those lines anyway
Hmmmm, not all those books teach playing games and manipulating men.
@Myne, I think Jumoke summed it up. Women can be gullible and spend too mcuh time trying to decipher man code instead of just living their lives.
@Cathy, your comment is hilarious. I'm sure there would be a stampede for the bookshops if someone wrote a book for men about how to get laid 365 days a year. LOL!
@Anonymous, I think we'd all love to know the names of those books. However, even if they do exist, which I doubt, I still say we don't need them. A woman needs to focus on living her life and being all that she can be. Every other thing will fall in place eventually. It's all in the law of attraction.
I hear you on this. When I was younger, I was really into these books but since I hit my 30s, I'm like whatever, i can navigate a relationship without a book.
I'm a little late for the discussion but I never bought into this idea. It sounds so clinical to have a book as a guide for a relationship. I've been married for 8 years and I got my man without any book.
@Cathy, I second that. No man would every buy a relationship book unless it has to do with what you said :)
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