Some people get really eye-vessel-poppingly mad at The Rules (and its latest incarnation Not Your Mother’s Rules) but that always seemed like a massive waste of energy to me. It’s so dumb, how can you get mad? It’s like that one aunt you have on Long Island who always gives you Lord & Taylor coupons so you can buy some “you know, adult woman clothes” and looks like you just did heroin at the dinner table when you mention you’re dating a musician. In short, it is 100% too silly to take seriously. Best just to laugh and take the coupons, nahmsaying?
Anyway, I read Not Your Mother’s Rules cover to cover, and here is a short list of the few pros offered by the latest (updated for etiquette of The Internetz) tome of Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider’s Gestapo-esque heteronormative courting ritual/mind-fuck The Rules:
- Unintentional hilarity.
- A heretofore-unwritten disclaimer that the Rules applies specifically to women who choose to self-destructively pursue uninterested partners and often find themselves devastated, rather than women at large. When you look at it as a sort of “when you’ve hit rock-bottom” thing for a very niche sort of human who could emotionally benefit from it—taking away all the gender-normative crap and focusing on the idea that it could help people who come off as desperate and insecure—it’s a lot less severe. They clarify in the chapter title: “Do Whatever You Want Before You’re Ready To Do The Rules“
- A section called “Hug Your Daughter and Other Rules For Mothers that might come off a little troll-esque and puritanical but generally offers good advice on how not to be a self-obsessed, withholding shit to your daughter so that she does not go looking for self-obsessed, withholding shits for life partners.
- A helpful reminder from aforementioned daughters (who have their own nuggets of wisdom in these pages) that sometimes playing Scramble or Words With Friends with an ex is a bad idea. (In the enduring words of Dave Matthews, “I did it, GUILTY AS CHAAAARGED.”)
That’s about it for the pros. Onto the cons.
Mold self into Courtney Stodden: