BOOK REVIEW: Nobody’s Perfect: What to do when you’ve fallen for a jerk but you want to make it work. By Helene Eksterowicz and Gwen Gioia. Published by CDS Books ISBN 1-59313-017-2. Copyright 2004. Available at Barnes & Noble and Borders Books or online at Amazon.com.
This is the first in a series of three articles about Nobody’s Perfect and the aftermath of The Bachelor 2.
Was this a joke assignment? At first I didn’t know. Two contestants from the Bachelor 2 wrote a book and I was set to review it. Quite the contrary, this warm and funny paperback will make you laugh and perhaps put dating into the ludicrous context it deserves.
As I questioned if the book was 218 pages of bubbleheaded fluff, I remembered who wrote it. Helene Eksterowicz, who actually won Bachelor 2 and momentarily found herself engaged to Aaron Buerge, is a practicing school psychologist. She’s a trained counselor. Her co-author, Bachelor 2 finalist Gwen Gioia, also has a graduate degree in psychology and has practiced industrial psych for several years. Both are well-educated career women.
Before passing judgment and wanting to characterize any woman from The Bachelor as a vapid, publicity hound, I stopped to read the book. After all, these were the women who handled Aaron with poise yet still kept their hearts out there for the taking, who had America fall in love with them along with Aaron.
Remember the viewer uproar when Gwen was sent home? Or the high fives on reality message boards when Helene won? It seemed like a win for clever ladies everywhere. Their dialogue was intelligent; their vocabulary far advanced than the “ewww” we heard all too often from other female Bachelor contestants.
These are smart, educated women, not uninspiring ex-beauty queens. They had a life before and after the TV show, and they write very well.
They write about imperfect people with a very hopeful sensibility—this is, about MEN. Men with small penises, short men, slobs, “definitely not gay but slightly effeminate” men, men who can’t dress themselves, men who are fitness freaks, men who still hang out with their frat brothers. Using their literary prowess, Gwen and Helene conquer them all.
The book is divided into five parts. The first part is “The Perfect Quiz,” an imperfect test within this book about imperfect people. Then Helene and Gwen divide men into 24 types, from “Mr. Cheapskate” to “The Cad.” These types make up the next three sections of the book, “Jerks Who Can Be Saved,” “These Jerks Can Be Saved, Too!: They Simply Possess a Physical Abnormality That You Can Overlook,” and finally, “Creeps and Rats: When to Change Your Locks, Phone Number and Your E-mail address.” The paperback concludes with the authors’ query, “What About Mr. Right,” then they describe “The Biggest Jerk of All” and ask for more stories for their next volume.
It’s a great book for fans of personality quizzes (yes I know my tickle.com IQ score) and self-help dating books. After all when I was single, I loved Stephanie Brush’ Men: An Owner’s Manual and memorized Tracey Cabot’s How to Make a Man Fall in Love with You : The Fail-Proof, Fool-Proof Method. That book made it easy—you just figure out what your guy would wear on the next date and you wear exactly the same thing. That always worked. So what would Helene and Gwen tell me that would help as much?
The answer is: a lot of useful, funny things. Readers start with a quiz that categorizes the men in their lives into the book’s “types.” For the 19 questions, the directions say: using your own intimate experience and observations, find the answers below that most closely approximate what your dreamboat would answer.”
My husband, bless him, fell into almost every category of men who can be saved, and two that can’t. Nothing was consistent. One of his highest scores was for the type, “Mr. Separated but Not Yet Divorced.”
That was the flaw of the book, it seemed, that Gwen and Helene clearly didn’t consider computer nerds when they wrote the quiz. Of course, my husband idolizes John von Neumann not Bill Gates, would love to date Buffy if he was single (not Sarah Michelle Gellar, but really Buffy), owns almost every song recorded by The Beatles, and has the TV stuck on the Sci-Fi Channel. He only went to one Sci Fi fan convention but that’s because his friends dragged him along. None of those answers were in the multiple choices on “The Perfect Quiz.”
The quiz is inconsistent but it is still clever and cute. It introduces the “types” and stories that follow. After each chapter, Helene and Gwen include a useful list women can use when attempting to size up their guy. These include “Helene’s Top Ten Least Romantic Scenarios for a First Date,” and a “Top Eight List of Inappropriate Topics to Discuss on a First Date.”
Apparently, you don’t talk about surgery or rashes and you don’t go to a gun show for your first date. Solid advice, I say. You’ll have to read for yourself “compromises a woman will happily accept but only for the right man.”
Helene and Gwen also include helpful hints in little boxes within the chapters. If you go through the book and only read these social clues, you will learn to “avoid lasagna if your boyfriend is a slob,” and “no woman wants a gay man as her boyfriend.” Very helpful hints.
The chapters themselves include an introduction to the personality type, several stories of people who dated guys like these and what to do next if you are stuck with Mr. Mama’s Boy or Mr. Control Freak.
In the penis chapter, they advise, “Small penises are perfectly acceptable ladies. There are so many worse traits a man can possess.” That’s great news, but if only women can stop the guys with the tiny organs from buying those raised up, monster trucks. Those cars are a bear on joint checkbooks.
Bravely, Gwen and Helene also take on the taboo subject: penises that are too large for their owner’s girlfriend. In our society where women can’t be too rich or too thin, a penis can’t be too big, or so others would like you to believe. These two psychologists make a point that REALLY big guys should slow down and get good at foreplay. Otherwise, they may lose their girlfriends who can’t withstand the pain of repeated impaling.
Helene and Gwen suggest men ignore the Email messages offering to increase their girth. Besides, guys with small ones feel they need to compensate by zealously proving themselves worthy, night after night. That’s why the book states small guys may be the best lovers.
For me, and I’ve been married what seems like forever, the book was a fun memory jog about what it was like to be single. It reminded me of the hours spent on the phone with my friends trying to decipher men. While going through the pages, I laughed, I smiled, but in the end, it made me think of The Serenity Prayer:
“God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I Cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.”
And in their highly amusing way, Gwen and Helene try to tell single dating women out there just how to know the difference.
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