Feb 21, 2007 02:57 PM
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New York, 7:49 PM
Tue Feb 9
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Have you not heard? Dating Up: Dump the Schlump and Find A Quality Man, the tome to heal and inspire all gold-digging women, is finally out. Last night, we made Doree go to the book party, because she crossed us earlier. Kidding! It was really because this is the most important book of our age.
"It's all about being breezy," said 25-year-old authoress J. Courtney Sullivan, as she teetered on high-heeled open-toed sandals (she was wearing panty hose) at the book party for her new tome, Dating Up: Dump the Schlump and Find a Quality Man. Her theory is that the way to snag, and keep, a "quality man" is to perform extreme breeziness. Breeziness is a quality J. Courtney ascribes to herself, and to how she managed to have been proposed to twice (at such a tender age, already! She said no to both) and be living with a large fella named Colin eight years her senior, in an apartment in Soho.
Breeziness implies a certain amount of game-playing: not returning phone calls immediately, not accepting dates willy-nilly, and not putting out right away. But. "It's not Rules-y to the point of Stepford dating," J.-Co said, referring to the infamous dating guidebook. "But there are certain games-y things you have to do. These aren't the secrets of the sphinx, but it's important to have a strategy."
So, strategy. After she changed her feminist mind, one man at a time—as told to her employers at the New York Times!—she decided the strategy is to educate yourself on guy things. Her live-in lover is a fantasy sports man, and so women might, say, study fantasy sports. You see? Make a man happy. Her book is filled with everything from recipes (make his mom a white chocolate raspberry swirl cheesecake!) and quotes from Sex and the City to where to meet guys (department stores! On an airplane! Jazz bars!), and the overall effect is something like feeling like you've spent way too much time inside Charlotte's head.
Also there are some CliffsNotes to serious literature in case you meet a man who is literary.
The party was filled with family and friends who rushed over to congratulate her, in a manner that seemed similar to making the honor roll. "I'm so proud of you!" girl after girl squealed. "I know, it's so exciting!" J. Courtney squealed back. Lots of hugs, all around.
The party was held in the basement of the West Village restaurant Paris Commune; it was a cash bar. The setting also seemed appropriate; one could imagine that the restaurant, with its fair-to-middling bistro cuisine and trendy W. Vill. locale, would be just the type of place J. Courtney would suggest going on a date. Around her, young women milled and discussed their own upcoming nuptials.
You see, the program works! No longer need any young woman date a man without at least some cash.
"We're not engaged, but we will be soon," said one young woman, to another couple. "We can't afford June." The other couple was already engaged.
The three of them discussed wedding locations. "I can't bring my family to DUMBO!" the nearly engaged woman said, with certainty. "My grandmother grew up on the Lower East Side. I can't get married in DUMBO. She thinks it's just sweatshops over there." She said she was considering something upstate. "My mom says the food is more important than the band, but I feel the opposite. I don't want, like, Burger King, but ..."
The already-engaged woman said, "We're doing sliders, and onion rings." The other woman paused. "Oh, you're so funny. Wait, seriously? That's so... cute!"
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