Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
Gaggle’s founders, Rebecca
Wiegand, standing left, and Jessica Massa, right, at a happy hour. The
Gaggle advocates using all the men in your life to find love.
Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
Rebecca Wiegand, left, and Jessica Massa of Gaggle.
The 20-something relationship gurus of the evening, Jessica Massa and
Rebecca Wiegand, had a blunt message: Praying for that prince with a
dozen roses and a dinner reservation for Friday night? Forget it.
Clinging to your mother’s rules about waiting for his e-mail or phone
call? So last century.
Their advice: Embrace all of the men in your orbit, whether they text or
G-Chat, whether they’re hunky or grungy. Savor every connection — the
drunken conversation at the bar, the casual sexual fling and the
impassioned philosophical debate over pumpkin lattes — without worrying
whether any of it will lead to love. And in the midst of this confusing,
messy muddle, the young women argued, romance can (sometimes) bloom.
Every generation has its relationship sage: There was Helen Gurley Brown
in the 1960s with her best seller, “Sex and the Single Girl”; Dr. Ruth
Westheimer, with her radio and TV shows in the 1980s; and Ellen Fein and
Sherrie Schneider, who wrote the best seller “The Rules: Time-Tested
Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right” in the 1990s.
Now the focus is on the so-called millennials, the young women in their
20s and early 30s, many of whom are struggling to find their way at a
time when traditional dating seems like a quaint relic.
“If you’re following the rules, that just doesn’t work anymore,” said
Ms. Massa, 29, who is the author of “The Gaggle: How the Guys You Know
Will Help You Find the Love You Want.”
“We’re dealing with a different generation of men,” she said. “We’re
dealing with technology. We’re dealing with changing norms.”
Ms. Massa, whose book has been featured in Elle and Cosmopolitan,
released her new guide to the lovelorn in June. Lena Dunham, the writer
and star of the HBO comedy “Girls,” landed a multimillion-dollar deal
this month to write a book that will offer “frank and funny advice on
everything from sex to eating to traveling to work.”
And in January, just in time for Valentine’s Day,
Ms. Fein and Ms. Schneider will jump back into action with their new
guide, “Not Your Mother’s Rules: The New Secrets for Dating.” The book
will include tips on instant messaging and a helpful chart with
text-back times for women paralyzed by the thorny question of when to
and when not to text.
Of course, romance has resisted such rules since the days of the
Montagues and the Capulets. But that has yet to stop the lonely from
seeking romantic advice or the commercially minded from selling it.
To the women sipping sauvignon blanc and vodka cocktails as they
listened to Ms. Massa in TriBeCa, the flurry of books from professed
relationship writers makes perfect sense. As professional women
accustomed to forging their own way, many have been struck by how hard
it has been to navigate their love lives, which seem so different from
the ones described by their mothers or depicted in movies.
“Nobody picks me up, nobody drops me off at home,” said Anne Zelek, a
27-year-old marketing manager, who says she has embraced Ms. Massa’s
approach of simply enjoying the company of the men she meets without
focusing on finding Mr. Right.
“Oftentimes I don’t really know that I’ve been on a date until I get
home from one,” she said. “It’s confusing. All of our love lives are
confusing.”
Nowadays, young men and women often hang out together in groups, leaving
some of them uncertain about where friendship ends and relationships
begin. A series of hookups may or may not lead to a relationship, which
can mean a longer period of uncertainty for women who are increasingly
delaying marriage.
“I think a lot of women might prefer a regime of serial monogamy rather
than serial hookups, but that doesn’t seem to be emerging so much,” said
Paula England, a sociologist at New York University who said she has
conducted online surveys with more than 14,000 women at 21 colleges and
universities. “There’s this much murkier thing that’s taking place. You
can tell that they are trying to figure out how they stand with these
guys. They are struggling with the ambiguity of the situation.”
Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
At a happy hour, women talked about how hard it is to commune with men these days.
Some writers have argued that the hookup culture makes women more
vulnerable to depression, feelings of low self-esteem and sexually
transmitted diseases. But others have embraced the shift, arguing that
it allows women the freedom to enjoy their sexuality without getting
locked into serious relationships or marriage, which might impede their
efforts to further their careers or education.
In her new book, “The End of Men: And the Rise of Women,” Hanna Rosin
writes, “To put it crudely, now feminist progress is largely dependent
on hookup culture.”
She acknowledges that many young women lament the lack of traditional
dating, but says that many are still looking for “fulfilling
relationships that exist outside the path of marriage.”
“Nobody says, ‘I love the hookup culture,’ and nobody says, ‘I want it
to change and go back,’ ” Ms. Rosin said. “They sense that it’s more
liberating, but there are still kinks.”
Ms. Massa and her best friend and business partner, Ms. Wiegand, share a
similar philosophy. They urged the young women gathered at the happy
hour in TriBeCa to embrace their sexuality. If you want to hook up, hook
up, they said. And afterward, they advised, be natural. Crack a joke.
Have some food. Act as if fun, casual sex is just that: fun, casual sex —
nothing more.
“We live in this confusing, ambiguous post-dating world, and we need to
embrace that,” said Ms. Wiegand, 29, who, along with Ms. Massa, is the
co-creator of the Gaggle concept. “We cannot expect to impose upon this
world a set of rules, a set of regulations, a set of expectations.”
Nonsense, say Ms. Fein and Ms. Schneider, the authors of the new “Rules”
book. Romance and dating are alive and well for women who refuse to
settle for anything less, they insist. They argue that women should try
to preserve an alluring air of mystery — no easy task given that many
young people chronicle their every move on social media.
“It is harder today,” Ms. Schneider said. “But the reality is that you
can still pretend it’s the 1950s when we didn’t have all of this
technology. Don’t answer the phone. Don’t answer the text.”
At the happy hour in TriBeCa, the young women drank, laughed and shared
stories about how Ms. Massa’s advice had played out in their lives.
Charlise Ferguson, a 28-year-old magazine editor, savored the
camaraderie, saying it felt like a “group therapy session” with
like-minded women who know exactly how hard it is to commune with men
these days.
“They all like to communicate via text message,” Ms. Ferguson said.
“When you tell a guy you want to talk on the phone, it’s like you want
to get married to him.”
Nafeesa Saboor, a 33-year-old blogger and freelance writer, said she
recognized Ms. Massa’s description of a post-dating world and liked her
suggestion that women should enjoy their connections with men regardless
of whether they were going out on formal dates. (“The only people who
make reservations when I go out are men in their 50s,” she sighed.)
But she disagreed with Ms. Massa and Ms. Wiegand’s unabashed endorsement
of hookups and with their idea that women shouldn’t make some more
demands of men.
“There’s no one answer, no one book for everybody,” Ms. Saboor said.
“It’s going with your gut and using your discernment. That’s frustrating
and exciting. But that’s the way love is. You just never know.”
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