Not long ago, I was referred to this book, ‘How to Get the Man of Your Dreams’ by someone who had heard and liked one of the author’s talks. (I should add that the someone is no fool, either, so there must have been something in the talk worth hearing.)

I’ve not read the book, so I can’t judge it. I have, however, read the title, and if a Masters degree is good for anything, it’s good for teaching you to analyse books you haven’t read based on their titles. So! I will now comment upon the book’s title, as follows:

1) Surely the whole point of the Dream Man is that he doesn’t need to be got? You know, because, he, like, knows he wants a wife, and has, like, actually asked you out himself because he actually likes you? (Does any woman dream of marrying someone who has to be earned, won, persuaded, pollinated** or otherwise convinced into marriage?)

2) If the author wants to write for women rather than men, that’s his privilege. There’s a lot to be said for explicitly telling women not to waste their time with man-boys, and I’m sure someone has been saved some heartache because of it. But wouldn’t it be nice if there was a companion volume for men, entitled, “How to Win the Woman of Your Dreams” or “How to be Worthy of the Woman of Your Dreams” …or even, “What Exactly Do You Have to Offer Any Woman, You Arrogant Jerk/Lazy Slob?”

**I once read a traditionalist Catholic book which declared that, though man has authority over woman, still, woman is powerful, because it is the woman who pollinates the man. I’m not joking. It said ‘pollinates.’ Nothing that anyone else has ever written could be as awful as that! Nothing!