Par example

Mr. Nathan provides an illustration of why rules are necessary:

The Rules women go by, pretend to go by, and wish they could go by piss me off quite a bit.

In fact... I always found it a good rule of thumb to ignore every so-called rule a particular female had.

ZTora is a bit more perceptive:

Richard is an attractive guy and very charming and thus seems to get the ladies with some regularity. That said he is not stupid and targets women who for the most part are stupid or share his enjoyment of wonton meaningless sex...I'd definitely encourage you ladies to be selective.

Pretty Lady is not particularly a fan of either wonton sex or wanton sex--Chinese food is best enjoyed after sex, in her opinion. In any case, selectivity is a must. What most gentlemen, and indeed most ladies, fail to understand is that rules are not an instrument of control; they are an instrument of filtration. Attempting to control, manipulate or change another person's behavior is both futile and pointless. If a person does not have enough sense or education to behave with common decency, we genuinely don't want them.

A very old and dear friend of Pretty Lady's sister recently married the woman of his dreams. After nearly twenty years of dating a series of physically stunning and emotionally fractious women, his chosen bride turned out to be a lady of gentle aspect and mature experience, having already raised two children to adulthood. He declared, "Why didn't anybody tell me that with the right person, it's easy?"

Let me let you in on a deep secret: All these 'rules' are, indeed, useless. They evaporate when the moment and the person is right. All they are is practice; they serve merely as a means of polishing one's social skills, so that one does not utterly humiliate oneself when the love of one's life finally appears.

Thus, when a lady or a gentleman asks, "How do I get this person to love me?" he or she is asking the wrong question. The answer is, "You can't." Love happens of its own accord. All you can do is prevent it from happening, by behaving like a narcissistic fool, treating the unique and loveable souls around you as though they were puppets in your own private theatre.

Pretty Lady finds it nothing short of tragic that many gentlemen harbor the impression that the best they can expect of life is to buy themselves a complacent and attractive young bride, once they have become financially secure. These men are selling themselves terribly short; they appear to honestly not believe that they are loveable. Indeed they are mistaken. Infinitely so.

Mr. Nelson asks, "So, what does a good date look like again?"

Oh, well, of course the world disappears, or else it becomes transformed into a place of magic and mystery. A good date may consist of trolling all the junk shops on Valencia Avenue, punctuated by a cup of indifferent coffee at Macondo. It could be a New Years' Eve party in Montpellier, where your total ignorance of the French language does not prevent you from holding soulful conversations with complete strangers, where prancing in the streets shouting "Bonne Anneé! Bonne Anneé!" seems like the most intellectually absorbing activity imaginable. It could be a twenty-four kilometer bike ride through the desert highlands of Mexico, fortified with a Coke and some greasy slop from the Taco Mobil.

Pretty Lady can give you no directions for how to get there. All she can do is tell you what to avoid, and assure you that the wait is worth it.