Rules of engagement

Heal Your life in & days and those other bloody waste of time "you can learn to wipe your own shitty bumof a life" books could benefit from a bit more advice like this:

If you find yourself with one of your ex’s friends you must ensure that you appear totally calm and detached.

Under no circumstances should you be the first to mention your ex’s name, nor should you show any emotional weakness i.e. you can’t be seen to care, and most important of all you can’t cry or act miserable because that news will get back to your ex like wild fire and there’s nothing women hate more than a crying man.

They’re all told as they grow up that they should want sensitive men, men who are in touch with their feelings and are able to cry, but they soon realize that they don’t. A crying man is pain in the arse. A crying man is messy. A crying man is not sexy, not reliable, not solid enough. Women do the crying and men either ignore them or comfort them; they do not join in. Once they realize just how little they can expect to get from men, except in terms of disappointment, women quickly decide just how little, in return, they are going to put up with, and a man who behaves like a woman has got no chance.

Women don’t want new age men, or metro-fucking-sexuals, with more pots of moisturiser than they have and an endless ability to empathise with them and their girlfriends. They want an old fashioned man who can hammer a nail in straight, bring home a wage, comfort them when they cry and who won’t burden them with feelings of his own.

Having said all that, however, it is permissible to let just enough of a hint of pain to show from behind your big blokey screen for your ex’s friend to feel the need to reach out and pat your hand. Of course, you’ll tell her that you’re OK, and you’ll brush her hand away as you flash your big blokey smile, but if she’s persistent and all this hand touching leads to something more, well…you’re a single man now aren’t you?