Review of “Making Sense of Men”

In Alison Armstrong’s second book, Making Sense of Men: A Woman’s Guide to a Lifetime of Love, Care and Attention from All Men, she discusses common misconceptions women have about men’s intentions and how to know if a man is just interested in sex or to have a more meaningful relationship. She calls the latter “charmed and enchanted” and even men not seeking a romantic relationship can be charmed and enchanted with you.

This book is essentially the script for the introductory free evening workshop her staff delivers to acquaint you to her concepts and entice you to register for the first of several weekend workshops they offer. I attended one of these some months ago and got a lot out of it and will take the weekend workshop soon.

The promo promises:

• Why men pursue some women for sex and others for heart-felt relationships
• How to tell when a man is emotionally involved
• How to inspire generosity and attentiveness in all men
• How you can be strong and successful—without discouraging men

I find Alison’s work puts men’s behavior in a context that makes sense. Women tend to expect men to behave like women and get frustrated when they don’t. One of her chapters is “Men Are Not Hairy Women.”

And she’s not into male bashing — in fact, the first workshop you enroll in is called “Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women.”

The most insightful and useful chapters are “Getting Men’s Attention, “The Real Goodies,” “A Valuable Lesson in Men-glish,” and “The Goods that Attract the Goodies.” In the first of these she describes what attracts men to a woman. There are four things, three of which you’ll guess. The fourth is surprising until she explains it. If a woman has all four things a man wants to have sex with her.

In “The Real Goodies,” she describes how men react to a woman they are charmed and enchanted by. We love men who treat us this way. In “A Valuable Lesson in Men-glish” she decodes what men say that expresses they are charmed and enchanted. Sometimes we miss these signals or misinterpret them and lash out at guys who are really just trying to tell us they like us.

“The Goods that Attract the Goodies” details the four things that cause men to become charmed and enchanted. Guess what? None of these are hard to do! Most of us naturally do some if not many of them. And with consciousness you can consistently project all of them. They are nothing that is false. No faking it required, just perhaps a shift of perspective.

There’s only one bone to pick with this product. While I think the content is solid, I was disappointed at the 67-page length and 14-point type. In my mind, this is a classic case of pumping up the margins and type size to make a book out of something that doesn’t really merit to be called a book. The length of the content would be better as a white paper or special report, or even a long article, but not a book. It is self-published soft-cover book, and if a trade publisher had printed it the 12-point finished product would have been more like 40-50 pages in 8.5 x 5.5″ format. Alison has so much content, I don’t know why she didn’t expand some of her chapters to make a deeper and richer product and justify creating a book.

So order it from Amazon for $16.47 to save yourself some money off the $24.95 list price. Not that I don’t think the content is unique enough to be worthy of $25. There’s just not enough of it to justify this “book” price.

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