I didn't write my book, 'I Don't Care About Your Band,' in order

In the marketplace of advice, where scroll-sellers promise dating rules like charms to ward off heartbreak, a clear voice refuses the trade: “I didn’t write my book—I Don’t Care About Your Band—to give women a brand-new set of dating rules they need to feel terrible about not abiding. I wrote to help them feel good about themselves, and a little more entitled to be treated well by the guys they go out with.” Hear the oath inside the jest. The author breaks the rod of shame and lifts a banner of dignity. She says: let counsel be bread, not a whip; let laughter be medicine, not a muzzle.

The ancients knew this distinction. Law is a plumb line; shame is a millstone. Rules multiply when trust is thin, and soon the soul measures itself against a yardstick it never chose—too loud, too quiet, texted too soon, waited too long. Such ledgers make women feel terrible precisely where they most need courage. The speaker’s vow turns the table: let the measure be honor. If a rule does not nourish self-respect, let it pass. If a custom requires you to ignore your own worth, let it break upon you and fall away like water on stone.

Mark the heart of her intent: to make readers feel good not in vanity, but in rightful standing—to be a little more entitled to be treated well. Entitlement here is not presumption; it is citizenship in one’s own life. A citizen does not beg for safety, attention, or kindness; she expects them as conditions of the treaty. In romance, this treaty is simple: good faith for good faith; clarity for clarity; care for care. A guy who mocks this covenant forfeits the privilege of your presence. The book, then, is not another cage of dating rules; it is a key ring.

Consider a mirror from history. In the yearbooks of wisdom stands Christine de Pizan, who, in The Book of the City of Ladies, raised bright walls against the slander of her sex. She did not issue a thousand strictures about how women must move in salons or bow in cloisters; she built a sanctuary of esteem, laying stones named Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. Her aim, like our author’s, was not obedience to new codes but restoration of rightful stature. Where shame had scribbled commandments, Christine inscribed worth.

Let us also tell a smaller, modern parable. A young woman—call her Mira—kept a notebook of borrowed dating rules: never eat first, laugh at all jokes, pretend busy so as not to seem eager. She followed them like a penitent and found only hollowness. One evening, she crossed out three pages and wrote one line: “I will not go where I am diminished.” She began asking plain questions, stating needs without apology, ending dinners when contempt arrived in the eyes across the table. The suitors grew fewer, the evenings quieter—and then kinder. The new “rule” was not a rule at all; it was a remembering of dignity.

This is the teaching to pass on: satire can be a shepherd. A witty book with a biting title—“I Don’t Care About Your Band”—is not a sneer at art or love; it is a flare fired against manipulation, a reminder that affection without respect is counterfeit coin. Let guides and gurus offer their maps; carry only what helps you arrive at yourself. Your worth is not collateral to be traded for attention; it is the ground on which you stand while you choose.

Walk, then, with practices fit for free people: (1) Before each date, speak a brief creed—“I am entitled to kindness, clarity, and safety; I will extend the same.” (2) Replace compliance with curiosity: ask what you truly enjoy, and honor it without apology. (3) Keep a “respect diary”: after an encounter, record not the rules you “broke,” but whether you were treated well and whether you treated the other well. (4) Use laughter as a lantern—humor that lifts, not humor that makes you smaller. (5) When a situation makes you feel terrible, step back; your body is wiser than a pamphlet. In these simple rites, advice becomes nourishment, the self becomes a city with strong gates, and love—when it arrives—finds you standing tall, joyful, and free.