Book's a good illustration of just how up-for-grabs has become the 'mating' game, in the post-literate culture(s). (But... we are Always 'imagining things'; that won't ever go away - unless you convert to Repo-ism, that is.)

Not only are the myths up for grabs, but the gap 'twixt social conditioning; the forced acceleration of folkways, mores to try to match the explosion of technos like cel-fones + 24/7 with a i-Whatever plugged into one's anatomy: guarantees befuddlement for all but the Prime manipulators amongst us.
Our current Leadership reflects Our Culture - what do we think That means?

(All of which are my reasons for attempting never to give 1:1 'advice' on what-you-Should-do, on This Topic, even to those of long acquaintance.. maybe especially those?)

A failure of our System (beyond the horrifying Albatross of our Puritan roots, of course) is that we never really Explain.. to little boys the Fact (from all my experience, anyway) that little girls start out with the jelloware for social interactions (whether limned by "left/right brain" or otherwise) -- vastly better organized, from scratch.

And from ~ age 9 up, the gap appears only to widen, with all that preliminary experimentation. Toss in such ideas as monogamy, the necessity of a social fa\ufffdade, especially! in a society whose God is $$ and Marketing/lying to Get More of those:

What did we Expect?

So.. luck to all, getting through the premeditated amidst the utterly unconscious role-playing because, Guess What: there are NO infallible er algorithms for Liff choices :-)

(As everyone from Ovid to the Bard have been tryin ta Tell us..)



Gentlemen, Start Your Injuns