Charles Jensen | Writer

I’m ready to talk about it finally. One of my biggest and most shameful addictions? It’s not Hilary Duff. It’s not Gossip Girl–not even the Gossip Girl novels I devour while riding the Metro. It’s this: dating & relationship advice for women.

I have to admit I’m both horrified and fascinated by it. Take Dating Tip #1 in this article:

“If you know how to date, and you’re meeting losers, get off the market and go into dating detox. Clean your energy up so those people don’t ask you out anymore.”

This is ridiculous. I might be an Arizonan at heart, but even “clean up your energy” is too New Agey for me! If you’re dating losers, why not start asking some men out? The ones who aren’t losers? She goes on to say:

“The problem is we women are very impatient. We want it now. Instant gratification! Sometimes the best single men are worth waiting for.”

Actually, I think the problem is women like her, who put rigid rules into place. I have a very hard time believing that the heterosexual world is really built on distinctions like this. But even within this article, she claims women both “want it now” and “women are Crockpots. Women heat up very slowly. They take in information; they decipher it and download it into their computer.” And then on the converse: “Men are microwaves…Men know in one second, yes or no.”

Girl, please. I can’t even tell you how wrong that is. I have known and dated so many indecisive men it’s not even funny. And although I do tend to make snap decisions or “want instant gratification” and/or “want it now,” I’m pretty sure it doesn’t create a vagina. Beau, for example, cannot order off a menu because he can’t make up his mind. When he finally decides, he wishes he’d ordered that other thing.

It scares me that women out there might be reading this and acting on the advice. It’s worse when the male columnist writes about dating. All these articles are like, “What are people of the opposite sex really thinking?”

And my question is, “Why not just ask them?”