Getting Together or Breaking Up - The Dating Man's Guide to Understanding More About Women, or Almost Doing So

Synopsis:

Jeff Redmond, respected writer and graduate of several degrees, offers his take on the fairer sex. He covers the basics of meeting, dating, befriending and understanding women. He points out and explains the many basic errors men make with women. Most importantly - he shows how to become attractive to them.

Reviewers comments:

As an opening gambit: This was a hundred (ish) pages of the most awful, sexist, useless drivel I've ever read. As far as one sentence reviews go, that one is pretty comprehensive, but just in case you still harbored thoughts of buying this book to see why I'd come out swinging in such a way, let me tell you why I think that this book is just that awful.

First of its problems are within its publishing and presentation. There are little mistakes in grammar and spelling, such as oddly placed capital letters and so on - a simple proofread should have picked these up (and if it has been proofread, I dread to think what the first draft looked like for that many mistakes to still be present). Worst of all the very first chapter ends with:  '(Click here to input your first chapter title and/or number, if any)', which, really, doesn't have anything to do with dating at all. These things might seem petty to pick on but it hardly makes for a good reading experience and does even less for making you believe in what the author is trying to say. It makes the work look careless, sloppy and unprofessional.

Far be it from me to offer a female point of view on... well, anything... but, having read the majority of this book on a long car journey with my sister and girlfriend of the time, I can confidently say that actually taking any of this man's musings on women to heart will not only leave you more single than you were before reading the book, it'll also end up with you getting fairly loudly laughed at. Then reviled.

My biggest peeve though about the book is that it offers no actual advice to the reader. It is all about (and judging from what I was told on the aforementioned car journey, incorrect) musings on the female psyche and it's generally assumed that the reader knows what to do. And forgive yet another assumption, but if you're buying a book that offers advice on how to handle yourself around women, you're looking for assistance. One chapter, entitled 'Helpful Hints', should, you'd be excused for thinking, contain some of this sought for advice. Most of this misogynistic man's tips were laughed at by the female company I held at the time, and many of them are patently ridiculous. Flirt with her friends? They won't be 'comparing notes' after you leave, mate, they'll chalk you down as desperate and worse, as a man whore and either forget all about you, or seek revenge. Many of the tips also contradict things said earlier in the book - for example, 'let her make the moves on you', with regards to getting her into bed. But didn't you say in the very first chapter, Jeff Redmond, with quotes from apparently real women to back you up, that females are turned off by the idea of a man who is too passive and doesn't make any moves towards the bed?

Speaking of bed, don't read the chapter on sex. Just don't. Even if for some misguided reason you decide to buy the book. If I had to choose one word to describe it - I don't, but it seems fun anyway - I'd have to go with 'cringeworthy'. This man's recollections of his nerdy, white-bred, middle of the road sexploits (did she really 'throw her hands above her head'? You dirty minx, you) come across in a similar way to a middle aged father trying to explain the birds and the bees to his teenage son, occasionally lapsing into boasting about his previous conquests. Patronising, a little scary and definitely not something you want to hear. All at the same time.

It would be remiss not to mention the frankly baffling appendix, entitled 'femalespeak'. This entails 11 pages of terms used in sex and relationships, under 3 columns - 'English', 'Slang' and 'Female'. Let's play a game. Here are 3 examples of things said in the 'Female' language - 'this', 'women need to' and 'he makes me feel so secure'. So what do these things mean in normal parlance? If you guessed 'pubic hair', 'shopping' and 'being submissive', then... Well, I pity you.

Who Should Read This Book
I would recommend this 'book' (I use the term extremely loosely) to the depressingly large demographic of men who still see women as objects. Well, perhaps not objects, but certainly a part of society that only exists to keep men happy. The author's unsubstantiated and shocking assertion that 50% of women only undertake higher education as a means to meet men, or make existing boyfriends work harder to keep them, shows who this author's target audience is.

Final thoughts? Sexist and more than a little weird.