Relationships Need Honesty, Not Rules
Outside the conference room, curled on a couch painted in the soft pastel hues that hotel chains and conference centers so dearly love, sat a girl with the most beautiful red hair reading a well-worn book.
She flipped her auburn curls over one shoulder, looked up from the book, out the window and sighed. She sat for a full minute like that - her soft profile young and sweet in the early afternoon light - then returned to the book.
What book, I wondered, would give someone so young so much to think on; so profound a look?
As it turned out, unfortunately, it was “The Rules,” that manipulative little tome of dating demands that mostly teaches women to lie, fake and play hard to get on their way into Prince Charming’s heart. (Although I do like Rule 34, “Love only those who love you.”)
But this isn’t a review of the book that has spawned an army of Rules Girls; heaven knows there have been enough reviews! Still, I wondered: Why was she worried about finding Mr. Right at age 15? Go out with boy friends. Have fun. Don’t grow up so fast.
Her face flushed when I asked about the book.
“You weren’t supposed to notice. No one was,” she said. She pulled a history textbook out of her backpack. “This one’s my cover if my dad comes out.”
Would her father, stuck in a conference room, deem “The Rules” unsuitable reading material?
“Probably. Who knows? He might not even know what it is. But I never talk to my father about boys.”
What she was looking for, she admitted, was some guidance about finding a boyfriend “who is nice.”
“It’s confusing at school,” she said, “because the popular boys, the cute ones, sometimes aren’t very nice, but you’re considered lucky or something if one of those boys likes you.
“There are some popular boys who are nice, too,” she added, “but not many. … They’re too caught up in making an impression on their friends; in being cool.”
While her executive dad attended conference sessions on subjects such as financing structures, marketing plans and insurance benefit restructuring, his daughter sat outside, seeking her own complex answers in the hall.
There were few.
“I think we’re looking for some guidance that you really don’t find out there for kids,” the red-haired teen said. “I get the idea no one tells the boys anything about dating; the girls know there are standards and rules, but it’s hard to be the one enforcing them all the time if the boy seems clueless.
“It’s wearing. How did we ever get that job?”
She said she hoped “The Rules” would be more about mutual respect. Instead it encourages manipulation to get what you want. A chapter of Rules for Married Women, for instance, says the appropriate answer to a husband who ruins a planned evening by staying at the office late isn’t anger but “You’ve been working hard lately. I’m so proud of you.”
Yeah, right. Follow that with: Walk all over me some more.
“I don’t want to play games,” the red-haired girl said, flipping the book shut with a snap. “I want to find someone fun and interesting who really likes me. The fake stuff is exactly what I don’t like about boy-girl stuff.”
She said she borrowed “The Rules” from a friend, who also got it from a friend. (We traced it later and that friend bought for $1 at a yard sale.) One friend, Katie, swears by it. Another, Lyndy, thinks it’s stupid.
The red-haired girl’s point is there are rules out there, but too few males and females agree on what they are.
“I want a friend, romance and a soul mate and someone who wants the same thing from me,” she said. “Doesn’t that sound corny?” No.
Her father came out of the conference room just then with a tumble of other red-eyed, gray-suited men. Held in one hand was six months’ worth of flow charts, graphs, brochures and executive summaries illustrating the rules of business; the rules of success.
“The Rules” was tucked safely in his daughter’s backpack.
“Whatcha been doing?” he asked his daughter.
“Oh, nothing,” the red-haired girl said.
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Diana Griego Erwin McCLatchy News Service