I was THIS close to heading down “The Rules” approach to dating before reading this. The Rules never felt authentic to me before but I figured maybe that’s where I went wrong. I was remembering friends and family saying to me, “well if only you played by the rules, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.” BS. I’d have been a fake as well as being heartbroken, or maybe I would have been a Stepford wife instead.

Off to follow my own goofy little star now…

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Part of the overall narrative you refer to is certainly cultural. However, if there’s something at play on a deeper psychological level, we could predict that rejecting these more fundamental rules would lead to decreased success rates.

In my experience and observations, people who verbally reject “playing the game” still consistently respond to “games”. When a conscious rejection of an idea doesn’t align with actions performed by the same person, we really only have two options. One, they consciously lied to us about their disapproval of the game. Two, their instincts (and emotions) are more powerful than their conscious minds.

The question would then become: Why do people reject playing the game? In this case, one answer might be that their culturally indoctrinated notions of what relationships should be is in conflict with their own impulses. Another answer could be that they’re not able to meaningfully attract someone they’re attracted to. Another possibility is that it expends too many resources (time, financial, energy, mental).

Now back to the ability to predict the efficacy of throwing up a middle finger at the rules versus measuring our actions to some extend… One of the underlying reasons for not keeping our emotions on our sleeve, calling all the time, or calling right away is that it can be cloying. Mitch would say that it shouldn’t and wouldn’t be cloying if the other person felt reciprocal emotions… and I’d agree. The tricky part about either adhering to this rule or rejecting it is that it precludes the possibility for change in the other person.

If we are to assume one thing, it should be that people’s feelings of attraction develop at different rates. Since that’s the case, throwing out out the rules out of defiance has the potential to cut us off from a lot.

I submit that it’s our social immersion in a romanticized fairy tale narrative that leads some of us to reject the rules you speak against. It’s this notion that assumes rapid emotional connection at the exclusion of temperance. Since you wrote a piece a few days ago about also rejecting the “fairy tale” stuff, it appears that we’re dealing with a false dichotomy in pitting the rules against the fairy tale.

I have a friend who has always felt ugly and always envied all the “beautiful” women out there. I told her, “do you realize that (1) you’re gorgeous in a way that shreds Cosmo covers, and (2) the fact that few people see this has given you an awesome bullshit filter?”

I have really sweaty hands myself, and I walk and talk “oddly.” DEFINITELY a good way to separate the wheat from the chaff, I’ll tell you that! No, I didn’t get all the girls… but I didn’t get my heart broken, either.