Love, Tactically

I'm not falling for this Love Tactics crap. Forget about the initial creepiness the book exudes, the first few chapters — before we get to the parts about manipulating your beloved into emotional co-dependence and then shaking their confidence and esteem by turning aloof like a dickweed — are just a collection of ridiculous, feel-good platitudes that leave me stewing in my misanthropy. "You can do it!" I feel like I've got Bela Karolyi as my dating coach, and I feel like your confidence in my dating abilities would be awesome if I wanted to date you, Love Tactics. But the flattery is more than a little perfunctory, like when my mom tells me how adorable I am — I'm twenty-five and she's still toddler-talking to me, so this might be part of the problem right here &mdash — and it might mean a little more coming from someone who didn't share half my DNA.

My favorite Love Tactic so far is number four, "Talk With Confidence." First of all, if I could talk with confidence, I wouldn't be lying on my bed reading Love Tactics. I would be out at a bar, hittin' up some honeys, which is a term I heard some dumbass on an MTV show use. He said it very confidently. I'm trying to sop up some of Love Tactics' enthusiasm and encouragement, but it all gets shot to hell by clumsy passages like this: "Starting a conversation need not be that difficult. In fact, once you get over your initial reluctance, you'll find making conversation an effective instrument to help you win the one you want." Really? Talking to her will help me win her heart? Thank you for the brilliant revelation, Love Tactics, because all this time I've been watching her through binoculars and rooting through her trash, and that hasn't gotten me anywhere!