Editor’s Pick: What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Since it was the day before Valentine’s Day, I should have warmed right up to my first issue of Loving Today: The Relationship Newsletter. But I was starting to feel trapped in this relationship.

First of all, they claimed I subscribed to it. Well, I didn’t.

Then there was the content. Having been married for many years, I don’t believe intimacy can be reduced to shibboleths, but that’s what the authors, Kathryn and Gay Hendricks, had delivered in this tepid little newsletter.

Worse yet, the targeting was way off. While this e-zine seems to be written for women, you soon find that it is designed for guys, and not very bright ones.

Take the first item, “The Ten Most Dangerous Mistakes YOU probably make with Women.” This piece, although it looks like editorial in the text version I got, is an ad for a book titled, “Double Your Dating.”

Buy it and you will learn secrets that most men will never know about women, how to tell when a female is ready to be kissed and how to use secret body language to keep a woman’s attention. (Think what would happen if this knowledge fell into the wrong hands.)

But the Oprah-approved love gurus are a little late to the game. They were beaten there by ad copywriter Eric Weber, who 30 years ago wrote the definitive work on how to hit on females: “How to Pick Up Girls.” Thousands of copies of this mail order classic have been purchased by lonely guys, many of whom are probably still lonely.

But let’s move on. Next on the short article list is a bromide from Dale Carnegie, and then the “Relationship Affirmation for the Day: Friends and Feelings.” This one actually prescribes an exercise. (Uh, you do this by yourself).

“Knowing what you want is an important skill in relationships,” the authors write. “Most of us, however, have little training in discovering what we want; or how to know internally, in our bodies, what we want; or how we know what it is that we want.”

They suggest you do the following: “Think of something you know you like and want. Say, ‘I want’ as you reach out for it, then pause and notice what arises.” (Take some advice from an old-timer, son: That’s exactly where it starts to go wrong on some dates). Then think of something you dislike, and go through the same drill.

I followed their advice, and imagined something I don’t like: The “Loving Today” newsletter. Then, as they advised, I noticed my “internal body sensations.” In my case, they were nausea, clamminess and an urge to contact Spamhaus.

Please opt me out.