Hey, you might know me as Steve from Quietly Romantic but in my other life I’m also a private equity accountant. To qualify for this role, I had to:
- Get my bachelor’s degree in accounting
- Get a master’s degree in accounting
- Take several MBA courses
- Learn how to use an abacus
(okay, one of those is a lie)
One piece of advice they hammered into us in business school that—spoiler alert—turned out to be completely false was that you need to bring your business cards with you everywhere you go.
You’re at a networking event? Bring your business cards and hand them out to everyone. Are you in the elevator or on the airplane next to a VIP? I hope you brought your business cards!! Carry them everywhere and hand them out to everyone. Make it rain!
Since I was just getting started in my career and didn’t know any better – that’s exactly what I did. I printed out a stack of business cards and brought them everywhere. I got them laminated. I treated them like they were sacred and protected them like they were my passport.
What stupid advice that turned out to be!! I’m still salty about that years after the fact.
Can you think of another device you can use to record a business contact’s info? What could we use instead of a business card? It might be in your pocket. You might even be reading this blog post on it right now!
In hindsight, that’s dumb advice. That’s the thing about bad advice though – it’s hard to tell which advice is good and which is bad without already knowing what the good advice looks like.
And, unfortunately, the world of dating advice is overflowing with bad advice.
Here’s how I recommend sorting through it:
Does this advice appear independently in multiple places?
Advice that appears independently in multiple places is – generally – trustworthy, but of course there are exceptions (more on that in a sec).
This is especially true for dating advice that appears outside the dating realm. You’ll see other dating coaches highlight the importance of learning how to tell a good story, and I agree with this because you’ll also see this advice in literature about social skills and even in job interview books!
You might also see other dating coaches emphasize living a meaningful life by imagining what you want other people to say about you at your funeral. I used to skip over this advice (“Thanks to denial, I’m immortal” – Philip J. Fry) until I saw this repeated in other self-help books such as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey or The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman.
So, advice that appears independently in multiple places is generally trustworthy but there’s one more thing that I look for: does that advice include success stories? I’ve seen multiple dating coaches recommend the “Three-Day Rule” or waiting three days before reaching out again after a first date. I’ve also seen the “30-Day No Contact Rule” or waiting 30 days before reaching out to an ex after a breakup to maximize your chances of reconciling with her.
You know what I haven’t seen? Either of these “rules” working.
What is the background of the person giving you advice?
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman and Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray are both best-selling relationship advice books that you might have heard of before.
They’re also both books that I have a lot of contempt for.
I’m honestly torn about The Five Love Languages because it has an amazing core message: find the thing that makes the people you love feel loved, and do it.
Simple and effective, right? We’d all love to find someone who treats us that way. What’s the bad part??
Nothing if you’re looking at the surface. However, once you start reading between the lines you start to find a disturbing message.
Chapman presents his “five love languages” as if they were based off of scientific research (they’re not). His book refers to himself as “Gary Chapman, PhD” as if he’s a mental health professional (his degree is actually in Education). And the way he talks about women is…off-putting.
There are five love languages presented in Chapman’s book and one of them is “acts of service” which might include cleaning the house, running errands, or cooking a meal. He portrays these tasks as things women ought to be doing so the man feels loved. Same thing with another love language, “physical touch”.
The subtext is that this is “women’s work” that keeps getting overlooked and that’s what’s causing modern relationships to fall apart. It’s all according to his pseudoscientific “five love languages”. That’s what, (rolls eyes), “Doctor” Gary Chapman says.
But wait! Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe he genuinely meant it in an altruistic way and he just accidentally made it come off – ahem – steeped in misogyny.
I thought that way too and was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until I reached the end of the book. The book’s denouement is an entire chapter where a battered woman comes to Chapman for help and his advice to her is that she should be more sexually aggressive in her relationship to make the abuse stop.
What. The. Hell. Doc??
Well, this makes much more sense when you look at his background. Turns out the author is a homophobic Southern Baptist minister who has publicly denounced gay marriage and supports “traditional” gender roles for women.
The book’s actual message becomes clear when you view it through that lens. Like a piece of indoctrination literature, the first 10 chapters offer reasonable advice where misogyny remains a subtle subtext – drawing you further into the writing until the 11th chapter hits you over the head with a chauvinistic message so blunt it would make your head spin if the book hadn’t spent 148 pages slowly easing you in first.
When it comes to dating and relationship advice, I highly recommend researching their background. What is their reputation? What do their relationships look like? Are they the kind of person you should be taking advice from?
How are women and men portrayed?
Research overwhelmingly shows that women and men perform similarly on tests of: logic, spatial awareness, intuition, how they comfort others, how they give advice, how they respond to advice, and even empathy.
Wait…aren’t women more empathic? And aren’t men more logical? I heard that from somewhere and it has to be true right?
You wouldn’t think so if you read a lot of other popular dating advice literature. The stereotype that men are cold, logical, unemotional creatures who like to jump in and “fix” things when you ask for advice is just that – a stereotype. The idea that women are the fairer sex who are better listeners equipped with the “women’s intuition” is also just a myth.
So, why does almost every other dating coach say otherwise??
…
…
(Buries face into pillow and starts screaming)
The long answer is, umm, REALLY long. I could write 3,200 words and respond to 200 people on that same post commenting that I’m a soy-boy cuck on why those stereotypes are not true. And I have.
Ok, the short answer is that portraying women according to sexist stereotypes is a weapon used by men to justify treating women with less respect than they deserve.
They’ll argue that women are more emotional and scatterbrained so this makes it OK when women don’t get promoted over men/don’t hold positions of power/don’t get taken seriously when they speak up about their experiences/etc.
They’ll also argue that it’s OK to use PUA tactics or to psychologically manipulate the women you’re romantically involved with because they’re somehow weaker than men.
(Screams into pillow some more)
So the next time you’re looking at dating advice, ask yourself how men and women are portrayed. According to sexist stereotypes? Or as interdependent peers?
That’s a lesson I wish I had learned sooner.
Following good dating advice
Almost two decades ago, I was sitting in my university apartment while reading a copy of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray and thumbing through my few remaining business cards. Not a single person that I handed a card to ever called me back.
Turns out those cards weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. I threw them out and picked up some books on writing your Resume and presenting yourself in job interviews. That’s when the job offers finally started rolling in.
There’s a cost for following bad advice. If you follow bad advice in business school, you miss out on job opportunities. It’s a bit sad but there’s no shortage of companies in the world so it’s not really a big deal.
The cost for following bad dating advice is much greater.
I met my first love in that same business school and faithfully applied the principles from Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus because I was trying to be a good boyfriend.
One of those principles was the infamous “rubber-band theory” which says that men alternate between periods of needing intimacy and needing distance when dating. Women, on the other hand, don’t have the same needs because…umm, testosterone??
I thought it was normal to pull away from her and then return whenever I wanted and that she ought to await my return with open arms because that’s what “Doctor” John Gray said.
Well, now I know that’s pseudoscience. BS. Complete and utter crap.
And I know that today because it doesn’t live up to those three criteria I listed:
- Does this advice appear independently in multiple places?
- No – I have never seen anything resembling the “rubber-band theory” in any other reputable literature
- What is the background of the person giving you advice?
- The author was a celibate monk for nine years – one of the least qualified people imaginable to provide dating advice
- How are women and men portrayed?
- As if they were from different planets – you literally run into sexist stereotypes even before you reach Page One
But I didn’t know it back then. I hurt the woman who was my first love. And it destroyed our relationship.
The world’s bigger than my dating advice newsletter. I’m just a one-man show. There’s a lot of good dating advice out there and I encourage you to check it out on your own. I’ve sung praises of the works by John Gottman, Jeffrey Hall, David Richo, Stephen Covey, and Brene Brown to name a few.
There’s also a lot of bad advice out there that can do a lot of damage.
And I want you to understand how to scrutinize it.
Otherwise, you might end up like me.
Hurting someone you love and beating yourself up for something you can never walk back.