WE REVISIT THE RULES FOR DATING : DO WE LOVE AND HATE THE BOOK?

Yes, we're going to go without a Mistress of the Month a couple times this 2012 because I want to devote some time to the question of mistresses and marriage.

Ellen Fein and Sherri Synder: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD OF THEM?

OK, maybe you were too young to have heard of them.

Their web site linked here.

The web site is seriously in need of updating as it appears they haven't taken down the ad for a 2008 trip to the U.K.

I got the Rules Books to read. I got them when they came out and I got them since, and at first what they're saying makes a lot of sense.

But then. Some people think that these two women authors (and dating consultants) have taken women back to the 1950's and are anti-feminist.

Others think that Ellen and Sherri's dating philosophy is good for women because women were chasing and getting dumped by men, wasting time - wasting life, because the real goal in dating is MARRIAGE. Maybe it is most of the time, but not all the time.

One of the Rules is to NEVER DATE A MARRIED MAN.

Dating a married man is considered wrong and bad because a man who cheats is supposed to be a man who will always cheat. (Could it be that a woman who is willing to be a mistress will always be a mistress? We've seen that's simply not true!)

Dating a married man is supposed to loose you girlfriends and give you a bad reputation - even in New York City where these two authors run a consulting business.

Kate, now the Duchess of Cambridge since her marriage to Prince William, heir to the throne in Great Britain, supposedly followed the Rules. I wonder how that could be so when she disobeyed the big rule about NOT LIVING WITH HIM UNTIL THERE IS AT LEAST A PLAN FOR THE WEDDING!

Missy