Five Awful Things Men Do

5 Awful Things Men Do

Oprah.com | From the April 2010 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

Anne Coyle and Ellen Rakieten, the interior designer and TV producer who lent their man-grooming expertise to O this month, discuss their new book, Undateable: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won't Be Dating or Having Sex.

O: Why did you write Undateable (Random House)?

Rakieten: I was one of the first people in my office to get married. On Mondays the single women would come in and tell me dating horror stories. I started writing them all down—that was 15 years ago.

Coyle: It became obvious to me that we needed to write this book when I went on one particular date. He was a nice guy, but he had a soul patch. I thought, "Maybe I can get over it; maybe I'm being superficial." But in the end I couldn't do it.

Rakieten: I loved what Anne told the friend who had set her up: "Sure, he could just shave, but he couldn't shave that part of his brain that thought it was okay to grow a soul patch in the first place."

O: Who is the book aimed at?

Coyle: Undateable is for the guy who wonders, "Why hasn't she called me back?" This book is his sister saying, "It's those acid-washed jeans and crocodile skin shoes." Every other dating book tells women, "Here's what you need to change about yourself to get a guy." Undateable instead tells guys what they need to fix about themselves. The goal here is to help change a man from a "no way!" to a "yes!"

Five things the authors say undateable men do:

1. Undertip the server...and then try to justify it.

2. Use business clichés like "Let's circle back on that."

3. Go shirtless in public.

4. Talk about themselves in the third person.

5. Yell out "You da man" (usually accompanied by an awkward high five).

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Printed from Oprah.com on Thursday, May 23, 2013