Sneak Peak! Mara's Book of Love: How to Con Your Way Into a Barely Functional Relationship

SNEAK PEAK! Enjoy this exclusive look inside the forthcoming New York Times Best Seller, Mara's Book of Love:  How to Con Your Way Into a Barely Functional Relationship.*

Forward:  Popular books on dating and relationships often lack significant contributions to an overly saturated market.  He's Just Not That Into You, Why Men Love Bitches, I Can't Believe I'm Buying This Book:  A Commonsense Guide for Internet Dating.  These popular titles promise to reveal the secrets of successful daters - those good looking, well adjusted men and women that do not rely on internet dating  to find someone willing to have sex with them.  The prototypical dating guide tells its readers that they are the same as the functional dater, that with a little push (provided by the self help guru profiting from consumer lonliness and desperation), they too can have loving relationships.

This is where most dating books fail.  They operate under the erroneous assumption that you are deserving and worthy of love.  That with a little polish and training, you too can navigate the waters of the opposite sex and find a suitable mate that will love you for who you are and not for who you pretend to be.  Mara's Book of Love assumes the opposite.  Mara's Book of Love knows you are damaged and needy, probably about ten pounds overweight and potentially permanently disfigured.  You probably are not the life of the party or able to effectively socialize without alcohol.  You need a book that speaks to your idiosyncrasies and obsessive tendencies.

Mara has tested all of her theories first hand and knows that strict implementation is the only avenue to successful relationships, otherwise you will are destined for a life of thankless solitude.

Mara's Book of Love:  How to Con Your Way Into a Barely Functional Relationship

Chapter 1:  Entitlements

Chapter 2:  Bullying and Withholding - Your Body as a Negotiation Tactic

Chapter 3:  Cheating Your Way Into Monogamy

Chapter 4:  How to Reroute Your Texts to Yourself So You Never Send Outgoing Messages - Unless They Contain the Word "Help"

Chapter 5:  Exploiting Dependency - Demands, Threats and Ultimatums

About the author:  Mara Rebecca Mockshin was born and raised in Canton, Ohio.  A midwestern girl at heart, Mara spent her childhood square dancing with her local Jewish youth group.  An Ohio State grad and current student at Harvard Law School, Mara enjoys quoting her LSAT prep book and eating hummus with her fingers.  An interest in travel has brought Mara all over the world, from Jerusalem to Bangkok, from Cleveland to Washington, D.C., Mara enjoys mingling with the locals and buying Fanta in plastic bags. 

*Chapter titles are the intellectual property of Mara Mockshin, all other written material has been outsourced to blogging, bored friends.  

I Was Gone For a Minute Now I'm Back Let Me Hit It

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a girl who was self involved enough to believe that people would be entertained by her random musings on a totally self indulgent and superfluous blog. This girl, lets call her Mephanie, blogged about life, love and the pursuit of happiness (or the pursuit of entertaining herself at work). Mephanie's blog was an instant hit among blood relatives and childhood friends. Despite taking pleasure in writing her blog, Mephanie was forced to halt blogging activities when she moved to the magical land of London and became busy with school work and a social life. Alas the masses were left wanting more (or so Mephanie believed). Mephanie, being a woman of the people, decided that academia and friends should not be her priorities and certainly should not stop her from blogging. WIth this in mind, she packed up, moved to New York and settled in for a tenure of unemployment which would allow her to blog uninhibited by things like "school work", "actual work" or "day-time TV" (thank god for DVR).

English American Dictionary

Despite its British colonial heritage and shared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, America and Great Britain have somewhat divergent ways. Many would assume that a move across the pond to United Kingdom would be seamless due to the obvious uniting factor, a love for George Michael. However pop icons can not be the glue that hold our great declining nations together, for there are deep fissures in our union.

The English language, what should be our common denominator, has failed me time and time again over the past six months as I attempt to assimilate to my adopted mother land. Having spent time in Spain and Israel, I knew that not speaking the native tongue can really inhibit an experience abroad and also make it extremely hard to make friends and purchase feminine products in more rural areas (for those of you who were present for the yesh po tamponim debacle, you'll know what I am referring to). Alas my move to London would signify the first time that I might actually get to know a place in its own language instead of through sloppy translations and repeated pleas of "bathroom?" to shopkeepers and waiters. English, the only language I speak, would prove to be my key that would unlock London and its ancient mysteries! Or so I thought.

To my great shock and surprise, it turns out that cultural differences and an ocean have separated many words from their meanings as I know them. Restroom, something that I use frequently due to the somewhat exorbitant amount of water I ingest on a daily basis, is not a word that gets much of a reaction over here in the Great Britain. Loo however, seems to mean something other than a man's name. This the preferred word for bathroom makes me think I'm being introduced to someone. When people aren't running to the loo, they are letting me know that they "need a wee." While this is understandable enough, it is not something that one would expect to hear in an office, at dinner, in class, wherever. Despite all their claims of subtlety the Brits feel the need to explain in full what the intend to do in the bathroom.

After you're back from the loo someone might offer you a biscuit. A biscuit, you might think, is warm and puffy and generally comes with fried chicken, some sort of breakfast sandwich, or a turkey meal. If you did think this, you'd be wrong. Instead a biscuit refers to sub par chocolate chip cookies. That's right, stop your mouth from watering. Also, don't bother asking for jello in the grocery store. Even describing it as "that wobbly stuff with Bill Cosby on the box" won't help. It's jelly, and jelly is preserves or jam...I'm still not sure. Then there is the spelling. The r's are misplaced, s's are everywhere z'd used to be, and u's keep sneaking in where you'd least expect them. Writing academic papers in British is hard, its like a second language.

In an attempt to bridge culture gaps I have taken to pulling from classic British films in order to appear more English. In one recent conversation with a native friend I said she was acting quite randy. While I meant to relay that she was being a bit feisty and quippy, I was quickly informed that randy did not mean feisty. Randy, it turns out, means horny and is not normally used in an exchange among girls in the midst of a larger social gathering. Imagine my discomfort when the conversation went quiet and everyone turned to me as if I was a bit crazy and wildly inappropriate. I guess using Austin Powers as a cultural yard stick wasn't the best of ideas.

Graduate Student Seeking Employment

Current master's student seeks employment upon graduation in fall. This is an exciting opportunity to hire a young mind fresh from the manipulation of liberal academic normative values. Potential candidates for employment should be quick learners willing to adapt lowered expectations regarding productivity. Only those offering four day work weeks with flexible hours need apply. Clerical work is not included in repertoire of skills and administrative activities are strictly prohibited. Only substantive tasks that genuinely engage and interest job seeker will be entertained and only in the mornings and early afternoon. The hour following lunch and the hour preceding departure will be spent socializing in office or on internet gossip sites. Full access to the internet is required and acceptance of a constant g-chat presence is preferred.

Special skills include an absolute inability to understand functions of basic technology, a tendency to have tourette's like outbursts of profanity when frustrated and remedial Spanish.

Now accepting applications, to apply please send gift basket and starting salary data.