Wondering how to date a man you like? According to “The Rules,” you have to leave him hanging. Lame! | Source: ShutterStock

A while ago, a book called The Rules came out, and it was basically a guide on how to date a man. A completely stupid, pointless guide that set women back about 40 years. Now, in the world of Facebook, match.com, and the like, an updated guide is available to set us back 20 more years, making that a total of 60.

The gist of it all? “If you want a guy to like you, don’t do anything. Just exist.” And I mean, fine–you’re wonderful, and that should be enough. But “The Rules” explain that how to date a man is actually to appear almost totally uninterested. You can’t approach him first, you can’t IM him first, nothing.

This is problematic for a few reasons. One, it’s pretty pointless to not go after what you want and just expect things to come to you. Two, if you act like you’re not interested, guess what? Guys may well assume you’re not interested, and they’ll move on to someone who makes no mistake that they like him back. And three? Well, it’s boring.

To be fair, some of their rules on how to date a man are fair enough: We like their “No contact after midnight” rule, because, well, those are booty call hours. If you’re looking for a hookup, by all means–but if you want him to date you, it’s probably a good idea to wait til the AM to respond.

Thankfully, a lot of us are smart enough to not buy into this nonsense. A new survey says 79 percent of us take the “why wait?” philosophy and initiate contact with dudes we dig online, whether it’s through a friend request, a tweet, or whatever. However, 71 percent of ladies agree with the book, which says to wait half an hour before texting a guy back–and 10 percent leave a dude hanging for four hours. Seems sort of hypocritical considering it drives you nuts when guys do that to you, doesn’t it?

Basically, The Rules wants you to start a relationship–or rather, wants the guy to start a relationship–based on game playing. It doesn’t sound like a really solid foundation, does it?

Our advice? Ignore all the rules on how to date a man. The real guide to how to date a man who deserves you–and the least stressful method–is to just be yourself and treat a guy the way you’d want him to treat you!

Do you think The Rules is a good guide on how to date a man? Do you think a  guy should always make the first move?  Tell us in the comments!

Hopefully your guy is a legit nice one–not one of these “nice guys!”

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