The dating expert who has broken it off with JDate men. By Simon Round. Like many people at the start of the year, Zoe Strimpel is on a diet.
However, for her it is not the cakes and pastries which are being rationed but rather men. In her new book, The Man Diet, Strimpel relates how, when she became single in , she gorged unhealthily on male attention.
This, to use her dieting analogy, is what she refers to as "junk food love", and is, she maintains, just as unhealthy as pie and chips. However, like junk food itself, the habit of casual sex, doomed romantic adventures and the demeaning pursuit of men is addictive and hard to wean yourself off, particularly as she feels there is pressure on young women Strimpel is 29 to "live the life".
She recalls: "When I broke up with my ex-boyfriend, it was like I had a duty to myself, my friends and society to live this life - to be single and loving it. That involved having wild stories to tell people. I found that I had developed a slightly mercenary, quantitive attitude towards men and dating. It started with the desire to distract myself from an unpleasant break-up and it quickly led to a type of mania. American-raised, Cambridge-educated Strimpel, a long-time fan of Sex and the City, viewed as her role-model the character of Samantha, a predatory seeker of men.
After a spell attempting to live up to this "ideal", Strimpel realised the wild, single life was not working for her. I think a lot of women feel pressure to see sex in the disconnected way that men do, but I don't think women can do it.
