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Look, Look! A Good Relationship Book! Why You're Still Single by Evan Marc Katz and Linda Holmes
1. In the interest of full disclosure: my personal bias.
Before writing a word about this book, I wanted to be sure I could be really objective about it. I'm a Linda Holmes fan of several years standing, was aware from reading her other work that she was writing this book when she started to write it, and have been waiting since then to see what she'd have to say.
So I started out with a bias in favor of this book, by which I mean that I wanted to like it. If I hadn't, I'd have said nothing. But the fact is, I did like it very much.
2. About the Book.
The full title is Why You're Still Single: Things Your Friends Would Tell You if You Promised Not to Get Mad. Just to get out of the way the few criticisms I have, I don't think the subtitle adds a lot and in a way it is misleading. I understand why it's there, but I wish that they had come up with a better title. It doesn't exactly have the punch of He's Just Not That Into You (which is still to be found in the 'humor' section at my local corporate bookstore, so maybe that's a sufficient explanation for the avoidance of glib catchphrases). Nick, who is a writer himself, reckons that the publisher probably had a large say in the title. It's not a bad title, but I felt it didn't really capture the book's real value, unless we assume that most people have friends who are unusually insightful about relationships and have given a lot of thought to thinking about how relationships go wrong.
The title would have been more accurate if it had been something along the lines of Why I'm Still Single: Things I've Learned in the Course of Working It Out or maybe Why You're Still Single: Things You'd Do if You Were Honest Enough to Admit What You Already Know.
Neither title falls trippingly from the tongue, but either would, according to me, better express the book's real theme and its real value. That value flows from the currently-single-never-married-male/currently-single-never-married-female perspective it provides on the question of how single people manage not to 'find someone.'
You might ask yourself what qualifications two people who are currently single have to write about the faulty thinking and unexamined feelings that keep people single. Anticipating the question, the introduction explains:
[quote from introduction by Linda Holmes begins]
These are observations that hatched over beers, in e-mails to grieving friends, in pained conversations with people we want to date or are dating or have dated, or, occasionally, in the shower. We've done this stuff. We are this stuff.
So what do we know? Well, really, what does anybody know? Who is qualified to talk about the mysterious landscape of relationships between single men and single women? If it can't be single men because they don't know what it's like to be a single woman, and it can't be single women because they obviously don't know how to get a decent boyfriend, then what are you left with? People who haven't been single since Reagan was president? What if you wind up taking advice from someone whose marriage then goes belly up, or whose boyfriend you wouldn't choose over a chaste evening of Parcheesi and Diet 7-Up?...
In the end, everyone's experiences are irrelevant to you, and everyone's experiences are universal. You're not going to know whether the things Evan and I make sense because they got us dates, or laid, or married. You're going to know whether they make sense because you're going to read them for yourself, and if you're anything like us, you're going to recognize yourself and your friends.
[quote from Introduction by Linda Holmes ends]
Katz & Holmes, Why You're Still Single, xvi (Penguin Books, 2006 ed.)
In other words, it's a book by two astute, exceptionally observant single people who discuss the ways that they and other single people manage to stay single.
So one of my problems with the title is that I don't think it is the sort of advice most people would get from most of their friends. Instead, it's the sort of advice a single woman would give herself if she were able to step back and look at root causes.
It's not a "how to" book or a user's manual for finding/keeping a man a la Cosmpolitan Magazine but a thoughtful consideration of how single men and women experience the search for love (and a potential mate) and the points at which that experience coincides or diverges.
Like any book about relationships, it relies on generalizations. But that's what advice is: one person's generalizations based on that person's conclusions about a particular type of experience. As the introduction notes, you will know as you read whether the advice is good advice by how closely it chimes with your own perceptions.
In my opinion, it's a good, cold, clear-eyed analysis of the realities of dating in the U.S. (and doubtless in similar societies) here at the turn of the Millenium. Its emphasis is on behavior that will allow you to preserve your self-respect and dignity. Both are more important to your mental health and ability to survive the loss of a relationship than most people realize. Losing love is bad enough; losing love and knowing that you also lost the person's respect is a twist of the knife from which your self-esteem may take years to recover.
3. How this book is approaches the problem.
Ms. Holmes loathed He's Just Not That Into You with a fine and fiery loathing. This book is therefore at leats partly in response to the philosophy of that amusing little throwback of a relationship guide.
This book isn't a step-by-step manual to fixing your dating life, so much as a discussion of ways of thinking about dating and singleness that are likely to be obstacles to making a success of it. In other words, you're not going to find any daily affirmations along the lines of "I am a beautiful and worthy person, fully deserving of love," "Love is coming my way," or even "I do not need another person to be complete." It doesn't tell you to lose weight, have your teeth capped or bonded, or recommend botox or plastic surgery. It also doesn't tell you any easy solutions to the problems of trying to construct a relationship with another fascinating but flawed human being.
Instead it's a back and forth exchange between E. Katz and L. Holmes about common fallacies, self-sabotaging thought patterns, and destructive behaviors that sabotage relationships and prospective relationships. And my sense as I was reading the book was that the points of view accurately reflect my experience, not only in my own dating life (which wasn't all that long ago, since I was divorced at 30, remarried, subsequently widowed in my early forties, and then remarried again).
It isn't that the book will tell you something new under the sun because that's not possible. But it does shine the light on habits and assumptions and ways of being that prevent women who want to find a committed relationship with a man from doing so. And in my experience, identifying root causes is the only way that people can avoid repeating destructive conduct.
By root causes, I don't mean things like your toilet training problems or your issues with your mom---you really can't do a lot about those once they've been amalgamated into the package---but the things you tell yourself (often without much reflection and often without conscious awareness) about your experiences and what those experiences mean. If you at least begin to listen to what you're telling yourself, and comparing that tale to the real world, you begin to have a shot at making corrections that will stop you circling round and round the same (frustrating and unfulfilling) track.
This book is designed to function as a reality check. It asks you to stop and think for a minute about what you're saying to yourself about men and dating and to consider the (usually obvious) consequences of your ways of thinking and behaving. It doesn't offer any pat solutions because there aren't any.
The book is organized into parts, each of which addresses one of the reasons "Why You're Still Single." E.g., "You're Knocking Yourself Out of the Game," "You're the Patron Saint of Lost Causes," "You Fioght Like a Girl."
The epigraph at the front of the book is right on point. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." (attributed to Benjamin Franklin). Unfortunately, most people are programmed by their experiences to repeat the same conduct in the same circumstances, so most people continue to get the same results (whether or not they expect them). Only if they recognize that the program is faulty can they make the necessary changes to create change. It isn't easy and therefore there are really no quick fixes.
4. How this book would have helped me back in the day.
I've been around the block a few times at this stage of my life, and have made every mistake possible in relationships, so nothing in this book is news to me. I've had ample time to find out most of this on my own; as the authors say, their insights are the insights you gain from paying attention to what you're telling yourself and from acknowledging when your conduct isn't yielding the results you want.
The reason this book would have been helpful to me when I was in my early thirties is that I hadn't at that time made all the mistakes I was going to make later in life. While I give myself credit for learning from my mistakes, it would have been a lot less tedious and painful if I could have avoided them in the first place.
Would I have avoided them if I'd read this book? Maybe not right away; there's a time in life (before 40, when things really do change) when you earnestly believe in your power to overcome any obstacles that the universe imposes between you and the object of your desire and so you tend to see yourself as an exception to the rules that apply to other people. In other words, you still believe at some level in the magical power of your love to change the world. You still think you can will someone into falling in love with you.
Or maybe that was just me. I'll proceed on that assumption.
If I had read this book in my early 30's, I'd have found it interesting, but I wouldn't have seen it as really applying to me, at least the first couple of times I screwed up. BUT: when I did screw up, I'd have said to myself, "Hey, that's what they meant." I'd have begun paying more attention to cause and effect. And in paying attention, I'd have doubtless begun making small adjustments that might have led to change. The book would have provided me with a program for assessing my experience a bit more realistically and with less reliance on magical thinking.
The Chapter called "The Beauty Myth is Not a Myth" is an example of a chapter that sets forth a rough truth that usually makes women angry. Unfortunately, anger doesn't change the underlying fact: men in all cultures---not just some men, but even ones who are nothing to write home about themselves---overvalue beauty in women because they are pre-programmed to overvalue it (whether by the culture or by their genes really doesn't matter). Furthermore, they define beauty as the culture defines it.
This isn't news either, but what makes this rough truth slightly more palatable is the otherwise outspoken Linda's response. As she says, That really is how men are and yet....perfectly ordinary nonbeautiful women get married all the time, so obviously the program has a loophole in it somewhere.
[quote by Linda Holmes begins]
[A] smart woman doesn't stand around waiting for a man who will "forget" looks and care only about her true self, because everyone cares about looks, including women.... This is not to say that you have to...resign yourself to life alone. The average women is, by definition, average-looking, and people date her and sleep with her and fall in love with her and marry her. And some of those guys who genuinely can't cope with what natural breasts look like or how women age? These are guys you don't want to date anyway until they grow up a little. ... The point is to find a peaceful spot to settle into where you're realistic about the fact that looks are always in the mix, but you're not tying yourself into knots over every imperfection.
...There's something else, too, that shouldn't go unsaid. It's a little hackneyed to attribute subconscious motives to everything, but the women who are noisiest about having no interest in changing their appearance because they want someone to see beyond the surface and love them for what's in their hearts would be well advised to look themselves in the eye---hard, when they're really ready---and ask this question: Are you intentionally using your looks to keep men away from you? ...And if you're warming up to tell me that you refuse to sacrifice your individuality to meet some societal standard of blah blah blah...[would] you not be you anymore if you were thinner or better dressed? Because that's a problem, if that's what you think. ...
Whatever you decide to do, don't expect to escape the fact that physicality is reality. It's not all of reality, but it's a big piece. ..
[quote by Linda Holmes ends]
Katz & Holmes, Why You're Still Single, 123-24 (Penguin Books, 2006 ed.)
Wise words, ladies.
I think this point (which is something we all really do know but feel we shouldn't have to accept) is important for women to understand and accept; otherwise, you go through life being pissed off at men for being what men are. It's a hard habit to break. Consider this posting in "Why Your Wife Won't Have Sex with You," a blog reflecting the masculine view of such matters. The gist of this article is that there are things about women men find attractive and things that turn them off, that the culture tends to determine what men think is attractive, but that attraction is not something that can be changed by wishing, however much such a change might benefit both sexes. It's an interesting article because it shows sensitivity to women's painful feelings about the pressure to be beautiful in the manner dictated by society (and particularly the pressure to be thin).
In reality---as Why You're Still Single points out---every woman has a choice: [1] to flout societal standards of female attractiveness and accept that facts that she is going to have to work much harder than women who haven't to make her attractiveness felt and valued; or [2] to take whatever steps are required to make herself as attractive as she wishes to be. It's not impossible; in fact it happens all the time. But it does require you to think about how you are going to present yourself. If you're relying on your scintillating wit and personal charm, you need to find a way to get those across. You have to learn to be okay about not being the girl who turns heads and to embrace being the girl with the great personality. Guys may groan when they hear that phrase, but the fact is, many men can be swept off their feet by other qualities.
When I was young and cute, I used to worry obsessively about my looks; I never thought I was cute enough regardless of what I did. I was intensely threatened by other women. I also suffered agonies of anxiety---more anxiety than jealousy though I'm sure it 'read' as jealousy---if the men in my life showed an interest in any other woman. (Sometimes it was jealousy).
I still look back in shame on a couple of incidents when I was in my twenties and still felt threatened by any pretty woman who wandered within my husband's range of vision. I could definitely have benefited from this book's discussion on jealousy and sexual insecurity. See Katz & Holmes, Why You're Still Single, 66-70 (Penguin Books, 2006 ed.)
Other points that would have resonated with me after a few further failed attempts to ignore them are the following:
-
It's useless to try to talk to a man who doesn't want to talk. No, really. No, really. This is one of the mistakes that I still make sometimes, even though my mother told me and told me and told me and my experiences all backed this up. But who believes her mother? It would definitely have been useful if I'd identified that common fallacy in my salad days before I messed up too many relationships and humiliated myself in ways I will never, ever be able to forget.
-
As the authors say, some men will (reluctantly) talk to a woman who is pushing for instant resolution, but that sort of conversation never ends well. Fortunately, Nick's strategy is to sit silent and say absolutely nothing till I wind down, so we don't fight much about relationship issues, but I wish I'd learned that you can't make progress with a guy who doesn't want to talk. Rumcove and I fell out over that a few years ago; it was awful and I'm still embarrassed now. And he was a friend.
-
I probably need to read this again from time to time.
Katz & Holmes, Why You're Still Single, 83-87 (Penguin Books, 2006 ed.)
- It's stupid to hang around hoping that someone who is sending out great big "I'm not interested in having a relationship with you" signals is going to change his mind. In the real world, the odds are heavily against it. Compared to some women I know, I didn't waste too much time on this, but I did waste more than I should have.
Katz & Holmes, Why You're Still Single, 88-93 (Penguin Books, 2006 ed.)
- Any woman who has taken He's Just Not That Into You for a guide could benefit from reading the above section and also pages 54-58, which deals succinctly with the consequences of the sort of strategies recommended by Behrendt and Turillo (the "Someday my prince will come" approach to love).
- I personally could have benefited from the whole of Parts V ("You're the Patron Saint of Lost Causes") and Part VI, ("You Fight Like a Girl"). I definitely made a career for awhile of waiting for a man who was emotionally unavailable and treating me shabbily long after a person with any sense would have realized that the relationship had no future. I've encountered him since, and I do believe that he loved me, but the thing is, it didn't matter. That's one thing that this book emphasizes that others don't; the fact that someone loves you doesn't prove that you're making good choices about your relationships. You've also got to look at your life.
In sum, I would have benefited from reading this book (eventually, after a couple of attempts to go on acting as though there were special rules applicable only to me). I think any woman currently in the throes of singlehood who is looking to change her state could benefit from reading this book.
After all that, if you'd like to read a proper review of the book, have a look at this one here (a blog called "Smart at Love").
RELATED POSTINGS
It’s Just Not that Simple (review of He’s Just Not that Into You).
Toxic Love 101 and Sonnet 36: The Love that Dares You to Speak its Name.
Advice for Brides Planning Big Weddings: Don’t.
Love in Midlife: How to Fail at Finding it
Key West Wedding Celebration
Forget the Wedding Planner---Damozel’s Hints for a Unique and Truly Memorable Wedding.
Toxic Love 101---The Perils of Present-Giving
More Help for Singles Who Don’t Want to Be: Why You’re Still Single and Some Reflections Prior to Reading It.
The “Princess Bride” Fallacy and an Eminently Practical Approach to Wedding Etiquette
Look, Look! A good relationship book! Why You’re Still Single by Evan Katz and Linda Holmes [book review; relationships]
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