Once when I was in college I got busted by a classmate checking out diamond engagement rings. She totally called me on it and was really snotty “oh are you planning something?” when she could have played it off and just said “hi.” The girl was getting married at the time too, and she invited me to her wedding. When I RSVPed with two dinner choices she called to tell me that I didn’t have a “plus one” since I wasn’t dating anyone that she knew of. My rambling point is that there are times when women check out engagement rings, but we do it in relative private and if our friends find out we don’t want them to be bitches about it. I didn’t particularly like that girl, and she made it much worse by acting like I was pitiful for even looking at commitment jewelry.

Jennifer Love Hewitt has a new dating and self-help book out The Day I Shot Cupid and in a brief review posted on NPR it’s revealed that Hewitt admits to trying on a favorite engagement ring at the jewelers once every month since she was 12. I’m not going to be like that bitchy “friend” whose name I would have to look up to remember. I’m just going to say that if I had a friend who did that, I would encourage her to head to the other side of the counter where she could buy some nice earrings or a bracelet. It’s just not productive to be so fixated on your own engagement that you try on a ring every damn month. What do they say about that? “A watched pot never boils”?

There’s more at NPR, and I’m chuckling at the way they describe Hewitt’s writing style “the late stages of an Internet message-board meltdown.” Overall it sounds like a silly book without much going for it in the way of useful advice:

Called The Day I Shot Cupid, it is subtitled, “Hello, My Name Is Jennifer Love Hewitt, And I’m A Love-aholic.” Yes, this means that her name is on the cover of the book twice. As you can see from the cover, this book is about very serious advice for women about how to be happy. Despite the fact that I feel like I am walking right into a trap set by a publisher who expects this book to sell with an Irony Multiplier of about 8.5, I simply cannot help myself. Here are ten completely awesome things that happen in this book.

1. On page two of the introduction, the word “TRUTH” (in all caps, thusly) is followed by 23 exclamation points. On page three of the introduction, the word “love” is followed by five question marks. Two sentences later, the word “CUPID” is followed by two exclamation points. Three pages into the book — pages of the introduction, which comes after the preface — you’re already basically reading the late stages of an Internet message-board meltdown.

2. On her own press: “I cannot even tell you how many times I’ve been reading an article, happy with what they have written, focusing on all the right things, and then, like the clap, it appears: serial dater.” It seems to me that there is a very unfortunate and obviously unintentional parallel being drawn here between what causes one thing to “appear” and what causes another thing to “appear.”

3. “Guys hate to spoon — they prefer to fork, lol!”

4. “This is embarrassing and personal, but once a month, since I was twelve years old, I go to my favorite jewelry store and try on my dream ring.” She is 31 years old. If this is true, she has made roughly 225 trips to the jewelry store to try on engagement rings. I do not know where to go with this.

5. From the list of 20 Things To Do After A Breakup: “Make out with a stranger (he must be gorgeous or you’ll feel worse).”

6. From the list of 10 Things To Do Before A Date: “Spray tan is a must.”

7. From the list of “Strikes,” where if a guy has three, you forget it: “He keeps saying ‘That’s so dumb’ when you’re talking.” Oh … Jennifer Love Hewitt. I’m so sorry that possibly might have happened to you once or twice or I’m assuming you might not have brought it up.

8. “Remember, your body is a temple, not a 7-Eleven.”

9. From the list of “What A Man Should Know”: “How to pick a diamond,” and “To always have a coat for you.” A coat for you? Always? He should always have a coat for you? And pick out diamonds? I am beginning to think that Jennifer Love Hewitt and I do not share exactly the same priorities vis-a-vis romantic situations and also who is in charge of choosing and transporting our clothing.

[From NPR via WeSmirch]

The tenth point is all about how Hewitt bedazzles her mons, a story which has received quite a bit of press. I’m not going to get into that except to say that it looks painful on several levels.

I just saw Hewitt on The Today Show on Tuesday, and she was so warm and funny. Like Kaiser mentioned a couple of days ago, I also like Hewitt and find that she’s growing on me. She’s got a great attitude about her breakup with co-star Jamie Kennedy, and is handling herself well as she promotes this book. That said, she doesn’t seem to have a real clue about men and dating. It’s like she’s put so much emphasis on getting married that she’s not pausing to question what she really wants in a man and a relationship.

While Hewitt was cute and friendly on The Today Show, she did say some things to Meredith Viera that I just found sad. She said that women are giving mixed signals to men and that we need to find one role to take in a relationship and stick with it. On the surface that may sound like good advice, but when you read between the lines it’s like Hewitt is trying to take the complicated issue of relating to a partner and reduce it into how she presents herself. She said “I feel like there’s more I need to learn about myself before I can completely give the perfect version of myself to somebody.”

When Meredith asked about a passage in Hewitt’s book in which she wrote “Women need to decide who they want to be in a relationship, do they want to be the woman, the boss or the equal?” She explained “Maybe men have a point when they say we’re incredibly complicated and they’re not sure what we want. I think it’s because women want to be really powerful, but they also want to be the girl. That doesn’t always mix well. You can’t sort of say ‘I want to wear the pants, but now buy me dinner and open the car door.’ I think that women have to better figure out who to be in a relationship, sort of stick with that consistently and maybe the guy will figure out better how to deal with them.”

It all sounds so contrived. Just be yourself and work on relating to your partner authentically, don’t adapt some silly persona in an effort to keep a man on the hook. Relationships change and require different roles for both parties. Plus, it’s not all up to the woman to make it work! Stop trying on engagement rings and thinking about how you need to change in order to keep a man, and get out there and live your life, J. Love! The best men come along when you’re happily doing other things.