The only dating advice you'll ever need

• Always send fewer texts than he does • Reply with one-word answers if he sends only one text • Use reverse psychology to manage his behavior

Books, articles, movies, blogs, and videos all promote a single right way to date with specific combinations of texts, words, and behaviors designed to make someone fall in love.

All this advice is based on the idea that love is a game and people are prizes to be won.

The speaker followed these rules as a teenager while reading Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazine, believing they would guarantee romantic success.

When following dating rules and getting to know someone better, you realize too late that you're actually incompatible.

You maintain a fake version of yourself for an extended period, which requires significant effort and emotional energy.

If someone falls in love with the carefully constructed persona you've presented, they're not falling in love with the real you.

It's much harder to maintain an idea than to keep being yourself, yet dating advice encourages the former approach.

The only dating advice you will ever need is to just be yourself.

When someone falls in love with you while being yourself, they're falling in love with the real you, not an idea you've presented.

Being authentic is a way to see who's weirdness vibes with your weirdness in a straightforward, no-nonsense way.

This simple advice stuck with the speaker as a powerful antidote to the anxiety and confusion caused by dating rules.

• Being yourself means saying whatever is on your mind, even if it's inappropriate or dark • Your date will either laugh and like it, or think it's awkward and never call you again • Either way, you haven't suppressed an aspect of your personality

Be upfront with who you are and what the other person is signing up for.

• If they like it - great • If they don't - move on and find somebody else

When you finally find someone who likes you, they'll like you for you, not for a carefully curated construct you've spent time building.