Age: 17.
Appearance: Manipulative.
Sounds like a typical teenager, apart from the stupid name. Any relation to The Edge? Er …
The Rock? The Terminator? The Right Honourable Member for Bromley and Chislehurst? The, you know, Queen? None of those, you muppet! These Rules are a list of dos and don'ts for women.
What, all of them? The ones who are looking for a husband. Or, to be strictly accurate, the ones who are looking for a husband who is happy to be treated like dirt. They first appeared in 1995, in a book by accountant Ellen Fein and journalist Sherrie Schneider.
What sort of fool buys a book by a journalist? One who can't tell the difference between a partner and a performing poodle. The philosophy of "Treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen" leads to advice such as: don't talk to a man first; don't call him and rarely return his calls; always end phone calls first; and don't go Dutch on a date.
As in wear clogs and talk about windmills? As in split the bill. Those first Rules have been followed by The Rules II, The Rules for Marriage, The Rules for Online Dating, All the Rules, and Rules Britannia: How To Snag a Guy With an England Flag in His Bedroom Window.
You made that last one up. Possibly. Fein and Schneider are definitely now working on a guide for the Facebook generation called Not Your Mother's Rules. The website Jezebel cruelly renamed this It's Been a While Since You've Given Us Your Money, Sad People!
What's changed in 17 years? Nothing, judging by the authors' interview with dating site JDate. Above all, the "guy" still has to make the first move. "A woman cannot email, or even wink at a guy's profile, without becoming the aggressor and possibly getting hurt down the line when the guy dumps her."
That sounds a tad defeatist. It does, doesn't it? On the other hand …
Spit it out. You could argue that anyone who follows this advice is asking to be chucked.
Do say: "I like a man with self-respect."
Don't say: "Now, roll over and I'll give you a chocolate drop."
• This article was amended on 30 May 2012 to correct the spelling of Chislehurst, from Chiselhurst.
