Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

‘You have to laugh about it,’ said Talitha. ‘Don’t let him have possession of your self-esteem. Or your sexual viability. Or anything.’


Clearly, however, something had to be done.





INTENSIVE DATING STUDY


Night after night, when the children were in bed, I studied, as if for an Open University course on how to get off with people. The children seemed to sense that a great project was in the works, and treated it with appropriate respect. Mabel, when she burst into my bedroom at midnight, clutching Saliva and saying she’d had a nasty dream, would whisper, ‘Exthcuthe me, Mummy, but a giant ant ith eatin’ my ear,’ whilst peeping respectfully from the tangle of hair, at the piles of epic tomes all over the bed. I did of course tweet as I went along, increasing my Twitter followers to a staggering 437.

Bibliography:

I started with my historical archive – the obvious classics from my thirties:

* Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

* Finding the Love You Want

* Letting Love Find You

* What Men Want

* What Men Secretly Want

* What Men Really Want

* What Men Actually Want

* How Men Think

* What Men Think About When Not Thinking About Sex

But somehow it just wasn’t enough. I went on Amazon and there were seventy-five pages of dating self-help books to choose from.

* The Single Trap: The Two-step Guide to Escaping It and Finding Lasting Love

* The Three Most Successful Online Dating Profiles Ever

* Quadruple Your Dating

* It Takes All 5: A Single Mom’s Guide to Finding the Real One

* Make Him Beg to Be Your Boyfriend in 6 Simple Steps

* 100% Love: 7 Steps to Scientifically Find the True Love of Your Life

* Fearless Love: 8 Simple Rules That Will Change the Way You Date, Mate and Relate

* The Love Laws: 9 Essential Rules for Lasting, Loving Partnership

* 10 Dating Lessons from Sex and the City

* Attraction Magnets: 12 Best Conversation Topics for Dating and Pickup

* 20 Rules of Internet Dating

* The Red Flag Rules: 50 Rules to Know Whether to Keep Him or Kiss Him Goodbye

* The 99 Rules of Online Dating

* The New Rules: The Dating Dos and Don’ts for the Digital Generation (same authors as the original Rules)

* The Old Dating Rules (different authors from the original Rules)

* The Unwritten Rules

* The Unspoken Rules

* The Spiritual Rules for Dating, Relating and Mating

* Changing the Rules

* Love Has No Rules

* Breaking the Rules

* Dating, Fornication and Romance: Who Knew There Were Rules?

* The Anti-Rules – Now That You’ve Got Him, How Do You Get Rid of Him?

* The 30-Day Dating Detox

* Zen and the Art of Falling in Love

* Geisha Secrets

* Why Men Love Bitches

* You’re Irresistible

* He’s Just Not That Into You

* The Strategy

* The Automatic 2nd Date: Everything to Say and Do on the 1st Date to Guarantee a 2nd Date

* Getting to Third Date

* Date Dream Girl: Third Date and Beyond

* Getting to Fifth Date after Fourth Date and Sex

* Now What? Getting Beyond the Fifth-Date Hurdle

* When Mars and Venus Collide

* The Art of War for Dating

* The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating

* Dating Dead Men

* Romantic Suicide

* Dating: It’s Not Complicated

It might sound confusing, but actually it wasn’t! There was more consensus than disagreement amongst the dating masters. I studied diligently, marking up the books and making notes, searching for commonalities as if between the world’s great religions and philosophical tenets, distilling them down to a molten core of key principles:

THE DATING RULES

*Do not text when drunk.

*Always be classy, never be crazy.

*Be on time.

*Use Authentic Communication.

*Do not go to the wrong place.

*Do not confuse him. Be rational, congruent and consistent.

*Do not obsess or fantasize.

*Do not obsess or fantasize when driving.

*Respond to what is actually going on, not what you wish was going on.

*On first date just go along with whatever he suggests (unless Morris dancing, dogfight, obvious booty call, etc.)

*Be sure he makes you feel happy.

Helen Fielding's books