One last “finding love” book and I promise any following reviews will abandon the subject indefinitely because I. Give. Up. Give up, you hear. I have had enough of the hot and cold, and especially enough of the lukewarm. Recently, in despair at failing again at finding a suitable partner in love, I was told by a wise spiritual counselor to “focus on something else”. I instantly felt great relief. Off the hook! I don’t have to look for anything. So, while officially not looking for a relationship, I picked The Spiritual Rules of Engagement: How Kabbalah Can Help Your Soul Mate Find You by Yehuda Berg (director of the Kabbalah Center of Los Angeles) anyway for my July review because 1) the book is short, 2) it came highly recommended by a friend who swore it worked for her, and 3) the cover quote is by Ashton Kutcher. (Just kidding. No, it really is by him, but I’m kidding that it’s why I picked the book.)

I love this book, and not only for teaching me that, supposedly, if I maintain this not giving a sh*t feeling, I am now in the perfect frame of mind to attract my soulmate. Or not. According to the book it may take a few lifetimes. Who cares, right? The important thing is to maintain and increase our connection to the Light inside. Berg makes it sound much easier in Kabbalah than it is in yoga, which has many restrictions and practices and disciplines to help us connect with the Light. The only advice given in this book to connect with the Light is to do the things that you really like to do. Pursue your interests and give them real priority, rather than doing what other people would like you to do or what you feel you “should” do.

The first chapter of the book is fascinating. It tells the Kabbalist history of time, with the explanation of the Big Bang, the Garden of Eden, and the differences between men and women at the soul level all wrapped into one. It also tells the biblical story of the Golden Calf, at which time women actually completed their spiritual work on the physical plane, and we are ever since merely waiting for the men to catch up. The trick is, we women need to be helping men, guiding them, and we can only do that when our souls (in the shape of vessels) are used for Light. We often lose our connection to the Light, even though our Vessel is made of it, because it is the nature of the Vessel to fear being empty (of Light). And so we mistakenly look outside ourselves for happiness (Light). Women can only effectively guide men (and therefore have a successful relationship with a soul mate) when we maintain our connection to the Light and become successful managers of the Light that men channel.

The rest of the book explains the rules, which include those that are practiced on the 1% level, the lower purely physical plane, and on the 99% level, the consciousness that lies beyond. Some seem ridiculous on the 1% level, but I can usually understand their importance on the 99% (soul) level. For example, Berg advises that women change the day or time that the man suggests for a date. It sounds like a silly game, like the woman is being needlessly manipulative on the 1% level. But the importance is that on the 99% level, it is the woman that is in charge of managing the Light, and she must assert this management from the beginning. What is nice for us women is that, according to Kabbalah, we truly have the power in a relationship; we only need to know how to effectively exercise it.

There are many similarities between Kabbalah and yoga philosophy, with which I am more familiar. However, according to Kabbalah, men and women have gendered soul anatomies, while in yoga and Vedanta, genders are only associated with the different bodies that we take on to work out our karmas; in some lifetimes they are male, in others female. It bothers me that there is a discrepancy; I prefer to think there is one absolute Truth to things and that different religions and philosophies only represent the Truth slightly differently. Also, Kabbalah seems to give no basis for understanding homosexual relationships.

My favorite rule in the book is the “hire slow, fire fast” rule. Women tend to make the same mistake as companies. When a company needs to hire someone to do a job, the interview process is usually quick. Then if it is revealed in time that the person is not right for the job, the company is slow to let them go. We women need to be more careful, slow and deliberate in deciding whether to choose a particular man to share our life with.

Other good advice from the book is to choose a man whom you can support the way he channels Light into the world. For example if you don’t like the field of work he is in, you might not be able to support him and so you should let him go and choose another man that you can support. Another way to say this is, do not be with someone and then try to change them. It is also important that you share common values and a common purpose in life.

While women have the real power, the book’s rules seem old-fashioned. The man always makes the moves, etc. (You are only “choosing” a man from among the ones who ask to spend time with you.) But I am willing to entertain the possibility that that may simply be the way it works. Any breaking of these rules on our part is out of fear of being empty vessels, but really all we need to do in order to be fulfilled is to connect with the Light, and to trust that that is all we need, that we are never empty at all.

A friend of mine recently lent me Getting to “I Do”: The Secret to Doing Relationships Right! by Dr. Patricia Allen and Sandra Harmon, as she had found the book enormously helpful and enlightening. Patricia Allen is a relationship therapist and the book, published in 1994, is based on twenty years of her research with clients. (She has also written what is presumably a sequel, Staying Married and Loving It!) The book has some very interesting ideas, the basic one being that, in every relationship, one person plays a masculine role and behaves accordingly, and the other plays a feminine role. Harmony in the relationship exists when the participants act in line with the role they’ve signed up to play. At first glance it sounds terribly sexist and confining. However, Allen at least recognizes that in some heterosexual relationships (and this presumably applies to homosexual ones too, though it is not discussed) the woman actually plays the masculine role and the man the feminine role and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, provided that both parties are comfortable and that these are their preferred roles. What does not work is if both are taking the masculine role, or both the feminine.

The authors stress the importance of knowing up front which role you want to be in, before you meet the person. Because if you don’t consciously know, you may start out in a role you are not comfortable in. Relationship problems will start later when you try to switch roles. So, do you want to lead, make decisions, give more and be respected (masculine) or do you want to be given to, cared for and have your “feelings cherished” (a phrase she uses many times in describing the feminine role). Perhaps you’d like it both ways? Sorry, you are out of luck; it doesn’t work like that. If that is your desire, then you are narcissistic!

Personally, it makes me uncomfortable to think of not leading and making decisions, but a masculine man who is truly cherishing your feelings considers them carefully when making decisions, so it is not like the feminine role has no power. It almost seems like the decision is being made together, but in a very particular dynamic.

The feminine role has great power, but not the power to demand that the masculine person change. The feminine can tell the masculine how she feels about something, and that she respects his right to do or not do this “something”, and she may inform him that if he does do this “something” she will need to leave the relationship. Then it is the masculine’s decision to change in order to keep her, or to not change and lose her.

The woman (in the feminine role) also has a lot of power initially BEFORE she sleeps with a man if she is looking for a lasting relationship. Because women get much more attached (even addicted, Allen contends) to men after sex due to greater amounts of the hormone oxytocin, a woman would be smart to wait three months, and then ask for three things before commencing a sexual relationship. These are 1) continuity in the relationship, 2) longevity (does he imagine himself with the same long-term goals for a relationship, for example marriage and children) and 3) monogamy (that he not have a sexual relationship with anyone else while he’s having one with you).

The problem for most women these days, says Allen, lies in that they really want to be the feminine in the relationship, but don’t quite know how because they are used to being successful career women, and at work everyone plays a masculine role. But a problem for other women is that they initially take the feminine role, because that is the most typical way that relationships initiate (we wait for the phone call, wait for the man to ask for a date), but they really want to be the one in charge of the relationship, the masculine role, and so that comes out later. These women would best serve themselves by knowing they want this role in a relationship and then find a man more comfortable with the feminine role and ask him out. (Or ask out any man; if he doesn’t want the feminine role he probably won’t be interested; nothing lost either way.) If one suppresses her natural preference at first, it will surely emerge later, creating a power struggle with two people in the masculine role.

So you have to decide. Upon reading Allen’s descriptions of the roles, I was leaning towards wanting to play the masculine role. I want to be deciding what to do and want to be respected, and I like to give and cherish and care about my guy’s feelings. However, the book also includes a multiple-choice quiz (!) to help you figure it out, and based on that I came out feminine! Though not by a lot; I had plenty of “masculine” answers too. Maybe that’s my source of difficulties in the love department…

This one is definitely a thought-provoking book. Indeed, I’ll have to keep thinking about it…

The Technique of the Love Affair by A Gentlewoman is a modern (and by modern I mean 1928!) guidebook on love, with all the techniques to employ and pitfalls to avoid throughout the “love affair” up to and including marriage. Before reading this book, I might have said that love does not need tricks and techniques or rules. Now I say this book is a gem, because in reading it I see clearly all the mistakes I have made repeatedly in my many years of naïve singledom. Dorothy Parker said it better in her 1928 review in The New Yorker, “The Technique of the Love Affair makes, I am bitterly afraid, considerable sense. If only it had been placed in my hands years ago, maybe I could have been successful instead of just successive.”

Sure, there are more contemporary books of the sort. The Rules, Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, He’s Just Not That Into You, etc. However, until recently I had largely dismissed this entire sub-genre of self-help books, holding on at length to idealistic feminist notions that “The Rules” couldn’t possibly be the rules, that men and women are really not all that different, and that while it may not seem like he’s that into me, I’m so into him that he’s bound to come around! I probably just need to try harder!

The Technique of the Love Affair, originally written anonymously by Doris Langley Moore, came back into print in 1999 in a new edition including notes and commentary by Norrie Epstein that add historical perspective and relate literary, psychology and pop culture examples from our contemporary times back to the Victorian era preceding the book.

The book is written in a delightful faux Platonic dialogue in which expert Cypria counsels naïve Saccharissa on how to be successful in love. It is entertaining as well as informative, and convincing in its truth and relevance even today. Cypria continually reminds us why we need this book; because men are the natural pursuers, they are at so much of an advantage in the whole courtship game that we women need all the technique we can muster.

So what are some of these magic techniques? One example of Cypria’s advice is to be generous with words, but not actions, meaning that when you are with a man, you should be delightful and flattering, so he will feel that you like him, but in your actions you should not be so available that he thinks you want him badly. You can never seem more interested than he is, because it is your slight elusiveness that will make him chase. He must always have some doubt in his mind as to your interest. Therefore, never ever ask when you will see him again! Tell him you had a lovely time, but act completely unconcerned whether you will ever see him again.

Cultivating the attention of other men also helps because, as Cypria says, a man wants someone whom he sees other men want. Such attention (whether perceived or real) always increases your “prestige”, a term meaning general desirability. Cypria discusses prestige in detail, including what qualities most influence it (ex. physical beauty, no surprise there) and which are nearly irrelevant (domestic abilities, virtuous character – while he may appreciate these qualities further into your relationship, they play almost no role in your initial success).

Relating to physical beauty, a man likes when you look different from him, so you will be more successful if you wear feminine clothes and make-up. However, a man also doesn’t want to think he is shallow, so he’ll deny that these matter. Cypria’s sage advice: “All through a love affair you are in danger of believing what the average man tells you about his taste in women, and modeling yourself upon it, when it is really the very reverse of what he feels. Because he thinks he ought to like this and dislike that, he will frequently convince himself that he positively does so. But you must not believe him simply because he believes himself.

“For example, his code of ethics keeps reminding him that he ought not to fall in love with a woman merely because she is pretty, and soft, and scented, and exquisitely attired, and flattering; and that it would be nobler of him to succumb only to goodness, and common-sense, and domesticity. So he tells you that looks are nothing to him, and that what he likes is character. ‘You needn’t bother to dress up for me’ he says.”

But allowing yourself to believe him would be a tactical error, says Cypria. Epstein’s note adds evidence: “A prominent marriage counselor, writing in the late 1940s, echoed this sentiment, citing – of all things – a survey of potential car buyers taken by Chrysler Corporation after World War II. Most of them said they wanted a car that was economical, practical, and easy to park, and that appearance was inconsequential. Chrysler produced a modest-looking, smaller Plymouth. The model bombed. At the same time General Motors introduced a powerful, flashy, gas-guzzling Buick. It sold well. The conclusion of car manufacturers (and marriage counselors): People will tell you what they think they should like, not what they really want.”

Well, how about that. It reminds me of the old saying, surely applicable when it comes to men and in knowing where you stand with one, “Actions speak louder than words.” For no nonsense love advice that is historically interesting and fun to read, this book is a winner.