Lexicon ·
the 90-day rule
noun phrase
- Stated meaning
- Wait three months before sleeping with a man, so that his intentions show before you have committed anything.
- Operating meaning
- A probation clause written into courtship, under which intimacy vests as a benefit once a fixed quarter has been served, whatever was done during it.
- Origin
- Steve Harvey's 2009 advice book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, restated by Harvey on television in 2019 in the vocabulary of employment.
The rule comes from Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man (opens in a new window), the 2009 book by the comedian and talk-show host Steve Harvey, which its publisher (opens in a new window) sells as “The #1 New York Times bestseller from the new guru of relationship advice.” In the book, as Atlanta Black Star summarized it (opens in a new window), a woman should wait three months before having sex with a man. The same article reports that the book was later adapted into 2 films.
In January 2019 Harvey restated the rule on his television show in the language of human resources. “It gives you 90 days to prepare to know a man,” he said. “90 days is the probation period at FedEx, at the Post Office [and] at a motor company.” A man who completes the period receives “the full benefit package.”
Under load, the arrangement is a probation measured by the calendar. A man seen twice a week and a man seen twice a month reach the end of it on the same date, with different amounts of evidence on file, and both are confirmed in post. In employment, probation is an evaluation the employer pays for. Harvey’s 3 examples, a courier, a postal service and a car maker, all pay wages during it, which is the one term of the contract the analogy leaves out.