117. Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man - Steve Harvey

As much as my mom and I loved Steve Harvey's last book, Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man, (she still quotes from it like it's the Bible!), I pre-ordered this book on Amazon as soon as I heard about it. I should have known that the second is never as good as the first.

The main crux of this book is to explain what motivates men - and how women can use that to get more of what they need from relationships. In my opinion, one of the better chapters was on how to minimize nagging (something that, according to my boyfriend, I could use some help with!). Something as simple as a man saying he'll do the dishes can turn into a huge argument if his woman goes into the kitchen at 10 p.m. and sees that they're not done. A lot of women would blow up - which, of course, would ruin the mood for everyone. But Harvey gives advice on how to talk to a man in a way that moves him to action - and keeps the peace. Although sometimes commonsensical, Harvey gives some advice that's good to remember: adjust your tone, let your man get to what needs to be done in his own time, choose your bottles, understand what's a priority for men, and don't take over the task - especially with an attitude.

There was also a great chapter on how showing some gratitude can go a long way. "[M]en and women are both expert on taking each other for granted. We treat the everyday efforts we make on behalf of each other as commonplace - something as unnoticeable as our own heartbeats. But just like we praise God for waking us up every morning with the blood still pumping though our veins, we could stand to look our partners in the eyes and say, 'thank you for all that you do.'" SO true!

Harvey also discusses other topics: how women need to get over the whole "men are intimidated by me because I'm successful" thing (it's more because if a woman keeps saying that she has everything and doesn't need a man - then she probably doesn't); and how if you're single and looking, "presentation is everything" (don't write it off: he makes good points).

The reason I don't rave about this book is that it seems that Harvey was just trying to publish another book while he is still hot, knowing that women (like me) who loved the first one would run to buy the second one. However, he didn't say much of anything new. It wasn't a waste of time to read it - but it was probably a waste of money to have bought it.

116. Love Your Life: Living Happy, Healthy, and Whole - Victoria Osteen

I'm a huge fan of Joel Osteen, so I figured I'd be willing to give his wife's book a shot. While it wasn't a complete waste of time or money, I have to be honest and say that Victoria definitely didn't discuss anything new or groundbreaking. This was a pretty run-of-the-mill "self-help" book for women from a Christian perspective. She gives a lot of general advice about things like well-balanced relationships, gaining confidence, and keeping the right perspective on life through various anecdotes and stories from the Bible.

I have to admit that there were a few stories that really touched me. In the chapter about living with confidence, Victoria tells the story about Miss USA competing in the Miss Universe pageant in 2007. During the evening gown competition, she fell on her "backside" in front of the entire ... well, universe! But she got right back up and finished her walk. During the final phase of the competition, a judge asked her: "If you could relive any moment in your life, what moment would you relive?" How many of us would have immediately said something like, "I'd like to relive my life about ten minutes ago in a different pair of heels?" So many times we want to relive our mistakes or our embarrassing moments. But Miss USA talked about reliving the time that she worked with orphans in South Africa. She chose instead to focus on her strengths and relive those instead of focusing on her weaknesses. What a great lesson!

Victoria also gives some great lessons about having patience and communicating well in relationships. One part that really stuck with me is when she said, "Our relationships are precious, valuable treasures from heaven, and we should handle them carefully, always looking for ways to build bridges to each other's hearts. It is so important that we choose to focus on the long-term effects of our decisions instead of the gratification of the moment."

Although this was a decent book, I think the only reason it was a New York Times Bestseller was because of the name recognition from her husband. I wouldn't recommend that anyone put it on their must-read list.

110. A Reliable Wife - Robert Goolrick

Don't be fooled by the chaste title and conservative cover of this book! Set in a small Wisconsin town in the early 1900's, A Reliable Wife tells the story of Ralph Truitt, a wealthy businessman who places an advertisement for a wife in newspapers across the country: "Country businessman seeks reliable wife. Compelled by practical not romantic reasons ..."
The woman he ends up choosing is Catherine Land - a woman who describes herself as "a simple, honest woman," though she is far from that. I don't want to give away too much, but her past is haunted by sex and lies that all tie in with her choosing to move to Wisconsin to become Ralph's wife. The crux of her plan in moving there was to slowly poison Ralph with arsenic and then to become a wealthy widow - she did not count on actually falling in love with him. But Ralph certainly harbors some twisted secrets of his own.
The plot keeps this book interesting, but the writing makes it amazing. Here is an excerpt from when Ralph is waiting for Catherine to arrive in Wisconsin at the train station:

Standing in the center of the crowd, his solitude was enormous. He felt that in all the vast and frozen space in which he lived his life- every hand needy, every heart wanting something from him- everybody had a reason to be and a place to land. Everybody but him. For him there was nothing. In all the cold and bitter world, there was not a single place for him to sit down.

And here's an example of why I said this book is not as chaste and conservative as the title and cover may make it seem:

Her blood was water. Her eyes were blind. She was not Catherine. She was not anybody. Nobody knew where she was ... She stood in the kingdom of touch, and it was ecstasy to her. They made love as if someone were watching ... She was on his bed, her clothes in ruins on the floor, and he was naked too, she lying sideways on the bed, her bones gone, he moving above and on and at her, his tongue expertly bringing her to climax so fast and so deeply that she went on rolling with warmth and pleasure as he entered her and brought himself to coming, letting out a cry as he did so, his only sound. It was his own masculinity he was making love to, which drove him as he rode inside her, rapture at his own skill, his own pleasures, the tenderness, the savagery, ripping through her as though for the first time ...

Yeah - I wasn't ready for all of that, either! I wish I could have seen my facial expressions as I was reading this book - Goolrick paints such a beautifully detailed picture of each and every scene. The only reason I'm not putting it on my top 10 list of fiction books is that many parts were too obviously written by a man. Some of the passionate scenes were beautiful, but Goolrick simply didn't capture them from a woman's perspective. If he was writing for men, then that's great - and I'd be interested to hear men's views of this book. But for me, there was only about an 80% connection. Nonetheless, if you're looking for a tasteful yet slightly edgy fiction book, this is it.

98. Memories of My Melancholy Whores - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The first line of this book shows how absolutely bizarre it is:

The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.

Wow. The unnamed protagonist has never been married or been in love, and has had a relatively sad, lonely, and unexciting life in Colombia. In fact, when he was twenty, he started keeping a record listing the name, age, place, and "a brief notation of the circumstances and style of lovemaking": by the time he was fifty, there were 514 women with whom he had been at least once. (I was amazed at how similar this was to what Florentino Ariza did in Love in the Time of Cholera by the same author). He approaches Rosa Cabarcas, the "madame" at the city's best brothel, to help him with his wish. He meets a fourteen year old girl with whom he becomes infatuated, and ultimately makes arrangements with Rosa to continue seeing her outside of the brothel.

As frightening and pedophile-ish as this all sounds, the old man really ends up seeming more like a tender voyeur than a sex-starved nonagenarian. He meets with the girl ... and watches her sleep. He says:

This was something new for me. I was ignorant of the arts of seduction and had always chosen my brides for a night at random, more for their price than their charms, and we had made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and
always in the dark, so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were ... That night I discovered the improbably pleasure of contemplating the body of a sleeping woman without the urgencies of desire or the obstacles of modesty.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is such an amazing writer. I loved this part:

I confronted my inner self for the first time as my ninetieth year went by. I discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature. I discovered that I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage, that I am punctual only to hide how little I care about people's time. I learned, in short, that love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac.

Ultimately, this seems to be a twisted story of love - and also of the old man finally finding himself at ninety years of age.

[whew. two more books to go! ...]

75. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

The main character in this book, Janie Crawford, is a middle-aged black woman who has just returned to Florida after being gone for a while. The people in the town start to gossip about her and try to speculate what happened to her most recent husband, Tea Cake, after he's found dead, and the plot of the majority of the book is framed by the story as Janie relates it to her friend Pheoby ...

Janie's life can be divided up into three time periods, during each of which she was married to three very different men. First: her marriage to Logan is unromantic and uninspired. She then runs away with Joe, who forbids her to associate with "common folk"; Joe's goal seems to be to shape Janie into what he considers to be the perfect wife through both physical and emotional abuse.

"He wanted her submission and he'd keep on fighting until he felt he had it. So gradually, [Janie] pressed her teeth together and learned to hush. The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again ... The bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in. It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired."

Joe eventually dies, and Janie seems quite relieved at finally achieving her freedom from him. She starts seeing a man who goes by the name of Tea Cake - a man twelve years younger than her. One part in the book that really shocked me is where Janie is discussing her relationship with a neighbor, Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turner refuses to have a black doctor see her; she also refuses to go into black-owned business because "colored folks don't know nothin' 'bout not business." Even worse:

"Ah ain't got no flat nose and liver lips. Ah'm uh featured woman. Ah got white folks' features in mah face. Still and all Ah got tuh be lumped in wid all de rest. It ain't fair. Even if dey don't take us in wid de whites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves."

Apparently this extended exchange with Mrs. Turner received a lot of criticism from Harlem Renaissance writers: many said that it "favored" lighter-skinned African Americans, though I didn't see it as such (I agree with some other critics in that it more "exposed" the division between light-skinned and dark-skinned African Americans).

Anyway, at the end of the story, Tea Cake gets bitten by a rabid dog and gradually gets very sick and delusional. I won't spoil the ending, though I will share one of my mom's favorite passages:

"The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courthouse came and commenced to sing a sobbing sigh out of every corner in the room; out of each and every chair and thing. Commenced to sing, commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. Then Tea Cake came prancing around her where she was and the song of the sigh flew out of the window and lit in the top of the pine trees."

My mom pointed out the alliteration in that paragraph ... true, something that I likely would not have picked up on! I really enjoyed reading this book, though it was very hard for me to get into the phonetic spelling of the dialect spoken by all of the characters. I think I finally stopped having to re-read every page maybe a third of a way through the book. But this is definitely a classic piece of American literature that I wouldn't mind re-reading some other time to try to more fully enjoy all of its symbolism and literary devices.

60. Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now - Maya Angelou

This is a beautiful collection of short, inspirational pieces by poet Maya Angelou. Angelou shares her thoughts on topics like morality, perseverance, friendship, love, and manners, and weaves in her own life experiences.
This passage epitomizes the theme throughout the book:

"...by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends."

One of my favorite pieces is called "Getups":

"If I am comfortable inside my skin, I have the ability to make other people comfortable inside their skins although their feelings are not my primary reason for making my fashion choice ... then I am so comfortable that whatever I wear looks good on me even to the external fashion arbiters .... Seek the fashion which truly fits and befits you. You will always be in fashion if you are true to yourself, and only if you are true to yourself."

Reading this book reminded me of when I took Dr. Angelou's class at Wake Forest ... and how whenever we would beg her to read to us one of her poems, she would make sure that we weren't following along in our books because she would always change the words!
This was a beautiful, quick read - a great gift idea, as well.

52. The Conversation: How Black Men and Women Can Build Loving, Trusting Relationships - Hill Harper

I was a bit apprehensive before reading this book. "Hill Harper is single - so what gives him the authority to write this?" But he in no way comes off as a know-it-all about relationships. Really, he comes off as part of "the conversation," too - learning along with his readers.

The premise behind this book is that the lack of communication between black men and women is threatening the relationships that are necessary to sustain the black family. Harper discusses a wide range of issues - finances, sex, what men want, what women want, interracial relationships, etc. - in his analysis of why only 30% of black children are being raised in two-parent households and why not enough black couples are able to hold a marriage together.

This books has elements of advice (some parts reminded me of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, but ... well, more Hill Harper and less Steve Harvey) and stories about Harper's own life ... but it's unique in the way Harper intertwines lessons that he's learned from conversations with people in his life (married/single/divorced).

Here's one part that I found particularly interesting in a passage about how finances often cause the most arguments in relationships:

"As a group, Blacks are the largest debtors in the world. Living with debt hanging over out heads causes stress. That stress affects our moods, our quality of life, and our ability to connect with others ... We as a people have indebtgestion even though we are earning more money than we ever have before. Part of the problem is that we are running through our credit at alarming rates, and the resulting debt is affecting our relationships. This indebtgestion may be the true cause of why the Black family is ill."

This was a wonderful book; to my knowledge, his first that is geared towards adults.

46. Bridges of Madison County - Robert James Waller

A beautiful "new romance classic." The story is about Francesca, a farmer's wife in Iowa, and Robert, a photographer for National Geographic. The two meet when Robert visits Iowa to take pictures of several covered bridges and happens to stop and ask Francesca for directions while her husband and two children are out of town. The two have an incredible attraction to each other and end up spending several days together and falling deeply in love. Robert wants Francesca to leave with him, but she ultimately does not because she can't bear the thought of abandoning her family. The story is told from Francesca's point of view 22 years later as she's reminiscing on her time with Robert.

It's interesting to compare this to The Awakening by Kate Chopin - both are books written from the point of view of married women with children; in both books, the women cheat on their husbands; neither can deny the attraction they have toward these men, but they both have feelings of remorse and confusion. But The Awakening was written in 1890's, Bridges in the 1990's; in The Awakening, Edna leaves her husband and then kills herself; in Bridges, Francesca stays with her husband although she never stops loving Robert; The Awakening was written by a woman; Bridges written by a man.

I'm still not sure why this book sold 50 million copies! ... but it was a wonderful story. I'd love to check out the movie.

44. The Five Love Languages: Singles Edition - Gary Chapman

I'd heard a lot about this book a few years ago - and I'm glad I finally read it. The premise behind it is that people are best able to speak and understand emotional love when it is expressed through one of five "languages": quality time; words of affirmation; receiving gifts; acts of service; or physical touch. Chapman argues that many of us may be able to speak and understand several of these, but that everyone has a primary or "native" language in which we are most comfortable expressing and receiving love. Chapman writes from a Christian perspective and I like his use of passages from the Bible in support of his arguments.

The original book is supposedly more geared towards married couples; this one (the "singles edition") explains how understanding these love languages can be helpful while dating, and also in relationships within your family, among your friends, and at work.

This book was incredibly anecdote-heavy, but the core message was great. Although Chapman doesn't talk much about gender differences, I believe that they play a huge role as well ...that's why Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus remains one of my all-time favorite books! This book has my recommendation - but skim through the anecdotes, they get mushy and all sound the same after a while.

22. 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace - Dr. Wayne Dyer

You can never go wrong with Dr. Dyer! Although Borders always classifies these books as "self-help," I'm not a fan of that term. It sounds like something is wrong with you for going to that section - like you need "help." I prefer "self-improvement," or something of the sort.
Anyway, this book talks about ten great principles for "improving" your life. Instead of listing all of them, I'll just highlight my favorite three:

There are no justified resentments. Dr. Dyer is so right when he says that "anytime you're filled with resentment, you're turning the controls of your emotional life over to others to manipulate." It takes so much more energy to be angry at people - it burdens your soul even more than you probably realize. "At the root of virtually all spiritual practices is the notion of forgiveness. This was what came out of Jesus of Nazareth while he was being tortured on a cross by a Roman soldier throwing a spear into his side. It is perhaps the most healing thing that you can do to remove the low energies of revenge and resentment from your life completely." Even though many of us try to justify why we are angry at others for what they have done to us - it ends up causing us more harm. "Resentment is like venom that continues to pour through your system, doing its poisonous damage long after being bitten by the snake. It's not the bite that kills you; it's the venom. You can remove venom by making a decision to let go of resentments."
It's a tough lesson - but one that is so true.

Treat yourself as if you already are what you'd like to be. This principle helps to keep you inspired; and that inspiration (from the words "in" and "spirit") is what guides us to work for what we want out of life. "When you become inspired and act as if what you want is already here, you'll activate those dormant forces that will collaborate to make this your reality."
I also love what he says about synchronicity and inspiration - "There are no coincidences. Anything that coincides is said to fit together powerfully ... You'll think about a particular person and that individual will 'mysteriously' appear ... these so-called mysteries will soon be viewed by you as part of the synchronicity of the universe working with you and your highly energized thoughts." I used to doubt this - until I started realizing that this is really the idea behind prayer. When we ask God to help us with something, we are sending energy to Him and toward that particular desire.

Wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you. Dr. Dyer explains that shame is the thought that makes people the weakest, followed by guilt, apathy, fear, and anger. We can switch from these low-vibration thoughts to higher-vibration thoughts (like love and forgiveness) by asking God to help us - "You'll be surprised by how quickly that higher energy of love will nullify and dissolve your fearful thoughts and empower you at the same time."

Like The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, this is a wonderful book to go to when you are going through a difficult time and you need to look at something for spiritual guidance. It's also a great gift idea!

21. Cover Girls - T.D. Jakes

I know a lot of people who have raved about T.D. Jakes books, but maybe I need to give a different one a try. I think this was his first book ... so I'm willing to give him a break. This was a so-so fiction novel about the lives of four women - Michelle, Tonya, Mrs. Judson, and Miz Ida - and the ways in which their lives are intertwined and the lessons they learn from each other. Michelle has an abusive past and is going through a rough period of separation from her husband. She also works for Tonya and hates how Tonya meddles in her life and her "holier than thou" mentality. Mrs. Judson is Michelle and Tonya's supervisor and doesn't have much patience for either woman until a traumatic experience in her own life forces her to listen; and Miz Ida is the older, wise woman who keeps Michelle in line.
The experiences that each woman goes through are very real, and the women do seem to learn some valuable lessons. It was overall a good story; just not one that I would rave about. Maybe three stars out of five.

17. The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey - Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali continuously amazes me. This was a great book - it was a combination of an autobiography and a book about spirituality. It's structured almost like a scrapbook (with complete paragraphs, of course), and has subchapters with his reflections, poetry, anecdotes, and various quotes.
In this book, Ali talks about his life and the lessons he learned along the way. It was so touching when he apologized to Joe Frazier for the things he said about him before Thrilla in Manila; and to Malcolm X for turning his back on him when Malcolm X wanted to part ways from Elijah Muhammad. [sidenote: it's interesting that he didn't apologize to his second wife, Belinda Ali, for publicly humiliating her by carrying on his affair with Veronica Porsche and bringing her to the Philippines and introducing her as his wife ... ] Ali also talks about his refusal to report for the draft during Vietnam; his nine (yes, nine) children; and his decision to become Muslim.
I liked this quote:

"The key to peace of heart and mind is approaching life not with a determination to gain wealth and fame for comfort and glory in this life, but rather with a goal of realizing spiritual development. If you keep a positive mind and an optimistic outlook on life, negativity loses its power to make you unhappy. God's love is universal. He is with us always. Let Him guide you and you will never be lost."

No matter which path we choose to worship God, some lessons are truly universal.

11. The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran

The Prophet is a simply beautiful book of poetry, written as a story about a mysterious "prophet" who is leaving a place and wishes to offer the people gifts; but instead offers them his knowledge on many different topics, including love, marriage, children, pain, and freedom. There are so many lessons to be learned from this poetry, although much of it seems very simple. When a friend is going through a hard time, this is one of those books that you can pick up and find something beautiful and supportive to share with him or her. From "On Pain":

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears."

One thing I do not understand is the selection entitled "On Marriage" ...

"You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow."

It sounds beautiful. But I was troubled when I saw the author's drawing that went with this piece.

Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong ... but why is there a naked woman in the foreground of the painting? Is she supposed to represent the "winds of the heaven"? If so - why do they have to be in the form of a naked woman? And why isn't she coming from the skies, or from heaven - why is she coming from the ground? To me, it looks like the woman is interrupting the marriage; like Gibran is saying to maintain your individuality and not be so wrapped into each other, and so it's okay if you cheat on your wife. How else could I interpret that drawing?

3. Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal - Julie Metz

An amazing story about a woman whose husband passes away, leaving her with their little girl ... a few months after he dies, she finds out about his numerous affairs during their marriage. She actually tracks the women down and talks to/emails them ... and the book chronicles her emotions and her struggle to move on with her life.

It's painful enough to deal with the infidelity of your significant other. What do you do when they're dead and you can't scream at them and tell them how much they've hurt you?

This was such a beautifully written book. I could feel Metz's pain when her husband died; when she found out about the first affair. Her husband's psychiatrist said he likely had narcissistic personality disorder ... hmm. More men I know have that than most would realize. But that's for another post. From Metz, when she found out about the first affair (which was with a close family friend and neighbor):

"A gun was too swift, too merciful. I wanted a sword to slit her end to end and then, with one hundred more cuts, dice her body into small pieces and leave the bloodied, quivering remains of skin, muscle, and soulless guts on her front lawn, arranged in a gruesome scarlett letter.
I couldn't kill Henry anymore, since he was, conveniently enough, dead."

Also, something I need to remember and pay heed to in my life:
"Forgiveness is a wonderful thing, the only truth that saves us from eating ourselves alive and causing damage to everyone we love."

2. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man - Steve Harvey

I think every Black woman in America has read this book by now! As my dear soror (and twin!) Bridgett said - it's pretty commonsensical, but a great read, nonetheless. Every girl or woman who grew up without a father in their life needs to read this book! I think I was a bit behind the times in understanding men - but this book and Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus helped get me caught up.
Even though there were some things in this book that hurt to hear (like the selection below) - I am so appreciative to have heard them. I can't believe how much I beat myself up thinking it was me when a guy stopped calling ... when, really, it was my values - and if he doesn't share the same values, what do I need with him, anyway? I'm not perfect; but I've got a lot of great qualities. I love to cook; I care a lot for the man I'm with; I'm supportive; loyal; I play the piano; speak three languages ... if a man is so focused on sex that he can't see past that to all the good qualities that I do have, then he's got some physiological condition that he needs to learn to control ...

"[W]hen a man asks for sex, and he is told no, his reaction to that no will tell you everything you need to know about him. If the phone calls cease or become infrequent, the flowers stop coming, the dating slows down, please understand that this man was just in it for the sex. If he says something stupid, such as, 'I don’t need to wait for sex—I can get it from anybody,' you tell him right back, 'Please do.' This cuts the riffraff away right away. But if your saying no doesn’t deter him, and he continues to try to get to know you better and prove to you that he’s worthy of your benefits, then he’s really, truly interested in you. Don’t get me wrong: he’s still interested in the sex. But he’s also interested in knowing how you feel and what time frame you’re working on. Then the relationship becomes about what you want—what your needs are. And that’s what you’re after, right?"

Right!!!

Comments? ... feel free ...