The Cosmo Curriculum: How to Close the Deal

Lessons From the Pop Culture Trenches

I’m back with my time machine – get in, loser, we’re going shopping back to school!

It’s the 80s and the school in question is Cosmo University where we can all major in Questionable Life Choices with a minor in The Ghosts of Our Teenage Insecurities. But why do we want to do that, you ask? The best of bad magazine articles, like the best trashy reality TV, provide a rare spectacle: pulling back the curtain to expose our collective id. It’s usually cringe-inducing and a bit gross, but can also be strangely instructive; like a divining rod for getting to the heart of our beliefs and values.

Plus, they are, like … dumb fun.

Today’s lecture is called “How to Close the Deal (get married)” brought to us by Roberta Ashley*. What kind of deals did you think we’d be closing? Hah! Not at Cosmo University! At Cosmo University, if it doesn’t revolve around men and/or their very important opinions, we don’t want it.

Note: all words in quotation marks hereafter are direct quotes from the article.

Alright, let’s set the scene. You’ve been “wonderfully clever (and lucky!)” and you “have on your hands a possible husband”. What do we know about him? He’s nice, albeit with a few “froglike characteristics”, but the key thing is that he’s willing to stick around for longer than 5 minutes and isn’t “going to vanish like a hungry dog’s supper”. Sounds like Prince Charming to me! Better close that deal FAST because remember: it’s not the dogs you need to worry about, it’s the other women. They’re competition, ok? Please never forget this very important point.

So you have a man and now it’s time to lock him down. Look, I hate to break it to you, but it won’t be easy. The dude doesn’t even love you (yet); “only in books do men fall in love at first glance” and they’re total “laggards” when it comes to commitment. It’s up to you to lead him to the water, so to speak, but best do it “delicately” so he can “feel at least as if he is doing the choosing.” Roberta knows this can be hard on a girlie’s morale – not least because if “you’re any kind of loyal feminist, the idea of auditioning [for the wife role] is a real tooth clencher.” A REAL TOOTH CLENCHER, okay? But, she asks rhetorically, “what can we do about the inequity?” The answer is nothing. This inequity is a law of nature like gravity. After all, “most of us couldn’t even call up a man for a date, so who has the nerve to propose?” Definitely not you, because once you step foot outside of our carefully patrolled boundaries of feminine identity, we won’t let you back in. Either you’re with us, or you’re out.

I guess they didn’t invent the Not Like The Other Girls^TM loophole for acceptable femininity until the 2000s. Sad.

If you’re wondering how to go about “closing the deal”, well, you’re in luck because Cosmo has conducted vital “research” with “real experts” aka “a veritable horde of happily married women” (including but not limited to Nancy, Miranda, Caroline, Marilyn, Susan, Ginny, Jessie, Maggie, Marcy and Lou Ann) and has compiled “eight rules on how to make a merger and avoid deal breakers.”

Ready?

Rule #1: “Only wild women rush in”

I know you’re excited but your “key words are patience and restraint.” If you thought you were done with playing hard to get, think again. You gotta “[h]old back on the phone calls, resist the urge to suggest those reassuring long-range plans” and avoid “subtle hints” that might indicate that you’ve got marriage on the mind. Examples include hints as subtle as a subway train (“how your friend’s father can get diamond rings wholesale”) and questions which I, a Happily Married Woman^TM, asked my husband on the second date (“how many children he might like to have”). Proceed at your own risk.

Rule #2: “No paranoid attacks”

This one is simple: don’t be a jealous ball of insecurities. Easy peasy. Well, not for Caroline who was in the habit of “rummaging” in her boyfriend’s wastebasket and going through his credit card bills while he was in the shower. Translation for the Gen Z among us: she was logging into his phone to check his text messages for suspicious activity. She confronted him with what she thought was proof of a secret assignation at a fancy restaurant but it turned out that her boyfriend had a perfectly good explanation, or at least a really good poker face for lying, and she ended up looking like a jealous psycho. But it’s okay, because she “beg[ged] for his forgiveness” and they ended up married despite this major red flag little hiccup and I am very sure that no unhealthy behavioural patterns or dynamics were established whatsoever between these two. What’s the rule, again?

Rule #3: For better and not for worse

If you think this is the time for your partner to really get to know you, WRONG. Until you’ve locked that situation down, “hide the flaws”. Don’t worry about “trivial stuff” – “by now he knows you’re flat-chested” and somehow hasn’t lost his boner, whew! – but focus on “those wretched traits you’ve picked up over the years, such as bossiness or a tendency to whine, complain, or nag.” That’s strictly Wife Territory, girlie, and you’re still on probation. Don’t let him know you have a spine or, worse yet, ideas. Ideas are reserved for men. Also “guard against any spinsterlike traits, such as worrying about drafts or polishing germs off restaurant silver with your napkin.” I had not realized that being a spinster turned people into my 94-year old grandma, so now I sort of understand the urgency of this article. Ladies, better get married, stat, before you too start reminiscing about WWII air raids.

Rule #4: Practice those winning ways

Ok, you might think it’s enough to just “banish one’s crummy side” (see Rule #3) but no. According to Susan, who “wooed and won an auto dealer” (a real catch, you understand), here’s what you also need to know: “When it’s road-test time, you sparkle and glide like a brand-new Maserati.” Don’t show up like some beige Corolla or, god forbid, an economy minivan. Remember, you’re not a person, you’re a status symbol. But also? Be careful of “overkill”. Like, don’t be a Bugatti about it.

You “want to be terrific but not cloying or clinging, and definitely not a doormat.” Need some suggestions for how to achieve this very simple balancing act? How about knitting him a sweater? He’s allergic to wool? Maybe try “debarnacling [a] wooden sailboat”. He’s not a Maine fisherman? You could buy and wear a “garter belt” or, better yet, “broil kidneys”. You’re not dating Hannibal Lecter? Sorry, I can’t help you.

Rule #5: How many is too many?

Ah, yes, the all important question: are you a Madonna type or the other Madonna type? Either way, shame on you. Because here’s the thing: “[m]en do find sexually experienced women compelling … but that’s those women not you (the potential mother of his children).” But here’s the other thing: “[e]ven though men tend not to marry wild women, they also don’t want the last peach on the tree.” If other men didn’t lust after you, are you even a woman? So what’s the right number that will simultaneously stroke his ego and also not kill his boner? Roberta and her experts are strangely silent on this point, probably because whatever answer you come up with is going to be wrong.

Rule #6: No recluse, you

 We are going to stick with the peach metaphor here and remind you that you must appear to be the pick of said fruit by keeping up with a busy social calendar at all costs. Try to look “busy, popular, and independent” – men like that and it makes them nervous. Here’s Maggie dropping some truth bombs for ya: “Men are as territorial as coyotes, and even the hint of a poacher can sometimes be enough to get them to nail down the relationship.” Just don’t go literal with that poaching metaphor though. Roberta advises that if “you have any male pals you’re not sleeping with, keep those relationships going (naturally, you’ve dropped the sleepers).” You want your partner to be “unsettled” by the “vision of your bopping around unsupervised” with “Geraldo” but you better not be bopping Geraldo for real.

So, to recap: actual f*ck buddies BAD, suspected f*ck buddies GOOD. Stroke your partner’s insecurities until he pops. The question, of course.

Rule #7: Desperate measures

If you have tried all of the above and you STILL don’t have a ring, it’s time to take a “dangerous risk” and line up a “maneuver … so scary” that Roberta “hate[s] to even bring it up.” Any guesses? YES, IT IS THE ULTIMATUM. You must tell him that he needs to decide if he’s going to “fish or cut bait”. Wait, I thought the guy was the fish here? Oh, never mind. The thing you need to keep in mind is that “timing is everything”. Don’t wait until passion has “peaked” or “terminal anxiety” is causing you to pick fights about the future of the relationship. No. Instead, in a “loving and peaceful setting” blindside him with the ultimatum: marriage or bust. And if he hasn’t put a ring on your finger within 24 hours, dump him. There are plenty more fish in the sea … or something like that.

Rule #8: Happy endings

How can you top an ultimatum? You don’t! Have you not been paying attention? Rule #8 is not really a rule but rather an opportunity for Roberta’s Smug Marrieds to brag about their engagements, most of which they received “without taking extreme measures” thankyouverymuch. Patsy found her ring “nestled on her morning grapefruit” while Marcy’s husband proposed at his best friend’s wedding. Both those men are terrible, and you can’t convince me otherwise. Meanwhile, Lou Ann isn’t actually sure her man proposed – “the words were so garbled that he might have been speaking Lithuanian” – but she seized the opportunity and told him “if you’re asking me to marry you, the answer is yes!” But what if the poor guy was just practicing his newly learned Lithuanian on his girlfriend and then was too embarrassed to say anything after she proposed to herself?

In Roberta’s timeless words” “wonderful question, wonderful answer.”

Well, there you have it, my loves. Eight Seven ways to lie and manipulate your way into the role that (patriarchy thinks) you were born for. There will be an additional seven eighty-seven unhealthy relationship practices for you to master as a wifey, but for now bask in your success as a deal-closer and ignore any gnawing suspicion that you might have made a terrible mistake. Your frog-like prince is waiting for you and he probably needs a sandwich or something. Step to it, girlie!

* I cannot confirm or deny whether Roberta Ashley is, in fact, a real person or an early ChatGPT prototype.