Playing Hard To Get … how to catch and keep Mr Right, not Mr Right Now (2007 Harper Collins) Dr Cindy Pan and Bianca Dye

“ Sick of sabotaging potential relationships with desperate phone calls and text messages? Tired of obsessing over what he really means in those cryptic emails? For someone else to cherish you, you’ve got to cherish yourself – but that doesn’t mean behaving like an ice princess or a diva! …Instead of trying harder, you might simply try playing harder to get…”

This book, this book, is my favourite dating advice book for women. I loved it! I love Cindy Pan and I love Bianca Dye. I love Bianca for being perky, witty, clever, blonde and beautiful and suffering the same dating dilemmas as the rest of us! I love Cindy for her patient, calm, stern yet sensible advice. Value yourself! Don’t go there .. chasing and phoning and begging back those men that really don’t want you. Stay true to yourself and keep busy, happy, bright, bubbly, interesting and beautiful. Live YOUR life, your ideal life, as best you can, go out there and do what you want to do, meet people, experience new experiences, enjoy it! And you just never know who you will meet!

Sitting and waiting and pinning your hopes or pining for some Mr Right Now (not Mr Right), settling for 2nd or 3rd or 4th or .... best is not going to make you so very happy. In fact, it may just postpone the inevitable heartache and misery, waste your time, delay you from finding a man worth dating and who really likes you (loves even!). Most importantly, it will also get in the way of you having a jolly good fun fulfilling life!

My copy of this book is dog eared, tagged, and read and re-read. It is one of those books that I won’t lend out for fear of it’s not making it’s way home. It is precious to me, and it’s markings make it very personal. It has been a part of my journey and my growth to find myself a healthy loving strong respectful relationship. It is a book that I want my girls to read and love as much as me - when their time is right.

One of the best messages in the book is you’re playing hard to get because you ARE hard to get! Don’t settle! Don’t put up with the crap and the excuses and the maltreatment because you are desperate and think this is your last chance. “Don’t just to get – be hard to get; be special; be you!”

This book contains so much I can’t even begin to unpack it here but in essence this is a book “for new age women who are a little bit old fashioned” and believe you me, when I stated dating after my marriage ended I assume that men had moved into the 21st century. Beep. Um no.. their values where pretty much still in the last century. Sure, they would happily try and sweep a woman off to the bedroom, or keep dating her until they could, or someone better came along, but once conquered there was no need to keep circling that castle. Waiting for the right guy, seeing what his game plan is, holding out, testing what he wants from you .. a game, yes, but there are many many men who will not respect or value a woman that sleeps with him too soon, who calls him and doesn’t wait for him to chase her, who lays all her cards out on the table too early and denies him the mystery, the thrill of the chase. And admit it ladies, who doesn’t get a thrill from some good old fashioned chivalry?!

I’m very against games for games sake, playing with people’s hearts and self esteem, but I do believe in being hard to get, being special, being you ….