Raising the Bar

I just finished reading St.eve Ha.rvey's new book, " A.ct Like a La.dy, Thi.nk Lik.e A M.an". It was a very quick read-less than 230 pages and pretty straightforward with the information, much like his comedic delivery. I have read a lot of self-help relationship books in the past so there was not a lot of new information here for me, but it was good to hear some things reinforced from a man's point of view. Evidently he appeared on El.len's show last week and the book debuted at #1 on somebodies publishing list. Now I can definitely see how there are a lot of women who can benefit from reading this book and applying the principles to their dating escapades. Much of it is just common sense. But I guess it seems that it's just not common enough ! LOL One of the recurring themes is basically that you show men how to treat you by what you are willing to accept. He states that women are the ones with the power in male female relationships but we just don't know how to use it. I thought about this and have to agree. I believe that more than anything a lot of women have lost their power in the form of a loss of self esteem. In a round about way this effects other women because it colors the way that men view women collectively and I believe affects the way that men approach women and attempt to deal with some of them in general. I say ATTEMPT because this foolishness does not always work, but it works enough for some guys to continue to try certain things. My friends and I discuss this all the time and we call it "lowering the bar". It seems that so many women have bought into this "man shortage" theory, as well as lowering their expectations in general, that the game has been changed. Men don't have a problem approaching you with nonsense, because it works or has worked for one of his boys. In the book, Steve talks about the various reasons that men cheat. He stated that the biggest reason of all is "There is always a woman out their willing to cheat with him". And this is done knowingly. He explains, "Men can cheat because there are so many women willing to give themselves to a man who doesn't belong to them. He talks about how so many relationships and marriages could be saved if more women refused to participate in these situations because they thought they deserved better. He says "Men Respect Standards-Get Some". I guess after reading this book, I kind of felt a bit of sadness, because honestly this book is targeted towards basically grown women who should have learned these concepts after a couple of heartbreaks. It is sad that we as women ( in general) have lowered the bar to the point that there is a real audience for this type of book. I don't know what the solution is, but I guess we just have to Raise the Bar one woman at a time.

Have you read this book ? What did you learn ?

Why do you think there is an audience for it ? What are your thoughts ?