Three Awful Types Of Dating Books

There's plenty of bad advice out there — but the books, oh the books. Buyer beware, because there's only three types of The Dating Book, and you're going to be reading one of them.

1. Retrograde Advice

This type of advice is, of course, exemplified by The Rules, but could just as easily have been handed down by a particularly unfortunate Grandma. It generally centers around "Sex, withholding of" but also contains dictates like "wear pink," "play games" and "don't reveal your true nature." This category sometimes gets contributions from patronizing men (see: Harvey, Steve) whose "real talk" advice is suspiciously like that of said grandma, without the excuse of being one. Oh, and "acting like a French woman" is its own subset.

2. Douchebag Advice

Pioneered by The Game, refined by Tucker Max, espoused by their armies of acolytes, this brand of advice is generally for men, by men, and is designed to help them get laid. Useful to women only in that it's a shortcut on whom to avoid.

3. Faux Girl-Power Advice

HuffPo singles out Tila Tequila and JWoww in their list of bad dating books, and they're a reason: both fall firmly into the camp that mistakes making out with another chick for a guy's benefit with some kind of vague empowerment. Tila's advice ("Fuck like a porn star") and JWoww's ("cleavage") are striking in both their unhelpfulness and their conspicuous desire to attract a man who follows Douchebag Advice.

So what, you ask, is "good" dating advice? Well, the thing is, it doesn't have a formula. It involves self-respect. And it probably wouldn't sell as many copies as a book from a random celebrity that purports to have "the answer."

Books With Worst Dating Advice Ever [Huffington Post]