The Rules is a great book. As a feminist, I want to say that this book works for women who are tired of doing all the work. As a wife, my husband is glad that I followed the rules because he told me that he respected me more than any woman he dated before me.

The men who comment here who are against 'games' are men that we women should avoid! Run fast because this 'man' wants to be lazy, unaccountable, boring and most importantly not thoughtful.

Us women strategize about our education, our careers, and how we take care of our bodies...and that is responsible, but somehow having some guidelines and goals for our romantic lives is considered trite by many of the reviewers. Well let them bumble in the dark. I read The Rules and I worked them and they worked for me!

The most interesting thing about this book is that Ellen Fein DIVORCED after the publication of this book (in 2001, I believe). Shouldn't this be a gigantic red flag for anyone considering buying this trash?

I mean, aside from the fact that neither of them are qualified counselors, nor do they have any sort of professional background.

Of course, I may have a personal hatred for this book, seeing as my own thrice-divorced mother decided that this was an appropriate gift for me... when I was only 12.

As a man I suggest: be careful.

"Rules" behavior is "very desirable girl" behavior systematized; it's personal branding (i.e., somehwat false) to weed out (mostly) useless players and genuinely low-status males to a lesser extent (girls want to hook the highest-possible status male with "honest," long-term intent; or alternately entrance a reliable shlub and probably cheat on him). "Rules" behavior comes naturally for high-status girls because their lives are filled with people and multiple potential suitors every day, usually for a reason: because they're hot and charming, in that order. Now by the Rules, the man is supposed to intuit and codify the woman's high social status, therefore mentally exalting her as "virgin" rather than "whore," and therefore "a serious mate," which is the only man a decent girl wants, theoretically, making the Rules seem good for women out for long-term mates.

All the times I've been in love have been no-sex situations, I'm sorry to report. This mimics Pleistocine times when two people naturally grow into an item over at least a few sexless years, and everyone occupies the same tribal ground on a daily basis; anybody's status is already basically known by everyone: what they do, how useful and hot they are, and what the cultural ideals exalt. Everybody's status is a little variable, but common knowledge and regularly discussed (indeed, probably the most interesting thing to discuss, especially for women ((hence gossip mags, which fill the need with celebrity simulacrums))).

There's the rub: in Pleistocine times, as a "Rules"-ish girl, you could jabber away with your girlfriends by the girl-fire, maddeningly flirt with other males, not talk to the man for several days, driving him crazy, wait for his approach, and this would come naturally, and you'd very organically "hook" the male, who you've probably known for years, and hey, he's developed genuine love for you, however temporary. In our times, "Rules" behavior wants to convey the image of high status, which would be more organically transmitted in previous epochs. You're trying to artificially engineer, probably over a smaller space of time, how marriage-love happens. And it can work.

But as a man in this society, I don't know you, you don't know me (everybody agrees it's really, really awkward at first), which is the exact opposite of the Pleistocine. I meet you at a bar, I have a tenuous connection to you; you bail on a phone call, I still don't know you. I'm trying to figure you out, of course, so you can exploit this mystique, but your existence is barely definite to me. Your evasion might make me interested, but if I know other sexy girls who are much more definite in my mind, why bother? You potentially exclude the most happening men, who you'd be most interested in marrying, provided they weren't chronic philanderers, and their having an active social life where you're not initially important does not necessarily make them philanderers. Telegraphing your status by the Rules doesn't mean anything if nobody's listening. Men will "listen" to your protracted and indirect conveyance of status to the extent you're uncommonly attractive and charming. If you're a little unattractive, your rouse will possibly hook a desperate shlub, only, and you'll be like the guy who only dated fat girls off of Craig's List: doomed to mediocrity by the dating conditions you observe.
It's not wrong to call this strategy fundamentally just "bluffing;" in a bluff, you imagine the smoothest operator (who you want) not falling for it.

Maybe some mystery propels me at you: but likely how propelled I am is based on how attracted I am to you, how "cool" you seem on what little I know of you, and that requires substantial, if fragmentary, prior knowledge. A very gregarious, great man might barely have an IMPRESSION of who you are, even if he goes on a couple dates with you. Instead he'll find somebody who has already MADE AN IMPRESSION, due to how our society is set-up right now. Not talking, not making dates, ending phone-calls; that's only effective to the degree you've already solidified your hotness/high social status/definiteness as a reliable personality who exists in the man's mind, and "nerd"-y imagination is the best engine to create this image. So the Rules can function like nerd-bait; probably not what you want.

There's your second rub: male pick-up artists make more sense, for men, since women take 80% of status from behavioral and cognitive cues to place them in a big social picture. Men take the majority of your status-idea from your image, how hot you are. This might be an evolutionary freak. I've known conventionally "beautiful" women whose personalities utterly kill my attraction, it's rare but it happens...OVER SEVERAL MONTHS. Men's insanely easy-to-predict superficiality may be based on the fact we don't know any of you yet, but hey, our innate superficiality is five times yours, so we get obsessed with it. Still, in the long-term, ESPECIALLY with marriage, your personality DOES matter, and I don't mean lame evasion-techniques to create temporary mystique and sexual fixation. That only works on the suckers, the losers.

All men would more or less love 100 sexually-attractive girlfriends at once, so if you're too much too fast and too easy, it's easy to imagine a man codifying you as an ideal slut (your behavior indicates in itself other females could be sexual doormats). That's something to keep in mind, but being overly evasive and non-sexual, if you're not exceptionally attractive, is more dangerous for you in our times. Obviously, if your whole package is wonderful, even if you're a little "easy," you gain hand by suggesting you'll leave him. Implementing the Rules in the first months sets up a stupid game where the question is how important you are to him, and the answer is: 1)how hot you are, 2)how willing he is to jump through hoops based on nothing but hot you are (answer: as willing as he is a worthless nerd).

Avoidance when the man barely knows you traffics in partial insanity, since your social coolness is largely irrelevant to men (he knows how hot you are, based on how hot you are, and can accurately imagine how easily you can get laid). In fact, your attachment to other men ("I'm already going out on Saturday with some friends") means virtually nothing to him, because he knows other men desire you, if you're desireable. Overall such smokescreens probably have a negligable effect; when I think of other men going out with girls I've been really into, it creates jealousy (moreso if I know the male), but if I don't know the male, it induces a desire, after a while, to let the girl go. After all I can't compete with a man I can barely imagine. On the other hand, if a man is going out on Saturday, a woman's knowledge that he has other females desiring him is probably more important by a factor of three at least.

So contemporary human sexuality is virtually FUBAR, due to the evolutionarily unprecedented need for a woman to become a real person with high status, in the man's eyes, and also not be so available. A woman who wants a long-term mate should find a balance between creating familiarity and evasiveness. I guess that's what most girls try to do naturally.

Acting like a princess could systematically alienate the really great men. The Rules are probably best for girls who want to marry dorks and cheat on them.