In "Women To Avoid, Part 1", we reviewed some classic types you'd only want to have a fling with, if that. Here are some (slightly caricatured) types I'd suggest you not even get started with.
On the surface, the Achiever may look like the dream woman
of the 1990s. She's bright, witty, and attractive. If you're the kind of
guy who's not put off by high-powered women, you find it flattering that
she's chosen you over all the high-powered guys she meets at work.
In the beginning, your romance with the Achiever is a rush. You enjoy the fast pace, the time-is-more-important-than- money lifestyle. You even have occasional fantasies of being a kept man, of living a life of leisure on her terrific salary.
Then her secretary calls to tell you that she's off to the airport for an out-of-town meeting and can't make the trip to Hawaii you'd been planning for six months. Or she proposes going into business together. She's got it all figured out, and she can raise the money. Soon after that, your ulcers start. If the business is a failure, your relationship falls apart. More likely, the business will be a roaring success, and you'll never see her without making an appointment with her administrative assistant.
Life with the Achiever means you come after the achievement. Whatever is going on in your relationship is trivial compared with her next presentation, merger, sale, or promotion. And you can forget a home life. For her, quality time together is a round of golf shared with some visiting businessmen. Like the famous scene in the movie "Network" with Faye Dunaway, she won't have sex unless she can reach the bedside phone, in case there's a business call.
The Achiever is hell to live with, but you won't get sympathy
from anyone. She'll claim she's doing it all "for us." Your parents will
be in awe of her and think you're a complainer, and your male friends will
say you got just what you deserve.
Fooling around with the Virgin is fun for a while, but it's
like the electric company. Once you turn on the juice, you have to keep
paying the bills. And paying and paying. Most Virgins aren't very practiced
at birth control, so they often get pregnant, and they definitely don't
believe in abortion. So you're stuck, for life -- with the Virgin, the
Virgin's parents, church choir, and a very conservative lifestyle.
Of course, it's an ego trip to think that you're the guy who finally
broke through her reserve, that only you can make Ms. Frigid act like a
sexual lunatic in bed. But the ego massage lasts only so long, and then
you realize that the only thing you saw in her was the challenge.
Man-Haters look like ordinary women when you meet them, but there
are signs of incipient man-hating. Man-Haters consistently put down men
and praise women. In the beginning, the Man-Hater pretends that you're
different from all those other men who've treated her badly, but soon she
begins to see signs that you're really not. By this time, you're in love
with her, so you try to convince her by the power of your love that you're
one of the good guys.
The trouble with a Man-Hater is that she doesn't recognize a good guy when she gets one. Even the smallest indiscretion, like leaving the toilet seat up or not being able to find something when it's right under your nose, will reveal the permanent unforgivable rotten core she sees lurking inside all men.
The Man-Hater often covers her basic dislike and mistrust of all men with feminist grievances. She's not putting down men, she's defending women.
No matter how much you love a Man-Hater, you won't be able to make up
for the wrongs suffered by her and all the other women in the world, which
she'll expect you to do. Don't even think about being the good guy who
changes her mind about men.
The Waffler hates making dates in advance. "Call me Friday and we'll
talk about Saturday night." Or "I won't know until I talk to my veterinarian
to see how my sick cat is doing." Greed keeps the Waffler from making any
irrevocable decisions. If she commits to going out with you too soon, well,
something better may just come along and then where will she be?
The Waffler breaks dates all the time, because something better does come along or because she simply changes her mind. The Waffler has a fantasy man in mind and a fantasy relationship. Since nobody's reality ever lives up to her fantasies, a Waffler who makes a date ahead of time begins to dread the date as it approaches. She knows you can never be as terrific as she is hoping you'll be.
One reason the Waffler isn't fun to be with is because she's never happy
in the moment. She's always yearning for someone else, someone taller,
stronger, richer, better in bed -- someone she'll never find.
Should you make the mistake of accepting the assignment, you'll
be in for an unlimited amount of crying towel duty. The Walking Wounded
will spend hours telling you how that monster did her wrong. She'll replay
her last relationship ad nauseum, and your life will be filled with stories
of what he did yesterday and today and what he's going to do tomorrow.
She spends most of her time talking, thinking, wondering, worrying about him instead of you. You'll always feel like she loves him more than she loves you even though he treated her so badly; and so you try harder to treat her even better. You bring flowers, you tell her you love her forty times a day, you buy her presents. But no matter what you do, the shadow of her broken heart hangs over your relationship.
Let some other guy be her interim relationship.
At first, it can be flattering that someone with such high expectations
and good taste has chosen you. So it's you and she, the two perfect people,
lined up against an mperfect world. But soon you start to realize the imperfections
in each other, and you turn on each other.
She realizes that your lapels are three-eighths of an inch too wide and that you're wearing last year's cuff. No sooner does she get all your clothes updated than she realizes that something is wrong with your job, or your car, or your apartment. Finding things wrong with the world is her way of life, so she can be very difficult to live with on an everyday basis.
You begin to realize that no matter what you do, no matter how much you let her run your life, it's still not perfect enough. When she realizes that you can't do anything right, she takes over living for you. Eventually, either you succumb, have a frontal lobotomy, and spend the rest of your life following her around; or you grow a beard and start wearing clothes from the Salvation Army to get her out of your life.
And remember, if you want to find happiness, try falling in love with a normal, well-adjusted woman.
What To Do If You Keep Winding Up With Crazy Ladies
Read "Spotting the Crazies" and "`Qualifying' Someone".
If you're really ready for a grown-up relationship, and you're not just using unsuitable women to avoid commitment, do the exercises in "Developing Realistic Criteria" below. Then follow the step-by-step process outlined in the rest of this Section and the next two Sections faithfully, and you'll be in a fulfilling, committed relationship within a year.