Guest Blogger: Erin Duffy, author of "Bond Girl"

Erin Duffy graduated from Georgetown University in 2000 with a B.A. in English and went on to spend more than a decade working in fixed-income sales on Wall Street. Bond Girl is her first novel. In it, a feisty, ambitious woman named Alex stands up to the best (and worst) of the boys on the Street. 

Here, the author gives the skinny on "Wall Street Dating 101."

It has come to my attention that there are a lot of girls out there who are struggling with the pitfalls of dating a Wall Street guy. No worries, ladies. Consider me your mole. Class is in session.

There are a few things you need to know if you want to have a relationship with a Wall Street guy. First and foremost, DON’T call him at the office eight times a day. It makes his coworkers think he’s whipped and opens him up to inhumane ridicule. Never, ever do this. Put it right up there on the list with running with scissors and playing in traffic. On the rare occasion that you are actually able to get your boyfriend on the phone during the day, don’t be offended if he hangs up on you mid-sentence. No, he’s not mad at you; simply put, he had another phone call that was more important than yours, (read: one that pays him). Poor phone habits are a byproduct of the job. The sooner you accept them, the better.

Next up: be prepared for a lot of alone time. When your boyfriend apologizes for missing your mother’s birthday on a Sunday because he has to go to a golf outing for work, he’s telling the truth. Sure, no one likes coming in second to a putting green, but you need to understand that mandatory sporting events are a part of the job description.

This lesson is a particularly hard one for girls to understand. You can’t be surprised if your boyfriend goes to every nice restaurant in the city during the week without you, and then on Friday wants to sit on the couch and order in pizza. I know it’s not fair. You have been waiting patiently all week for the work obligations to end, and now he’s too tired to put on pants? The short answer is, yes. As a male friend of mine so perfectly put it, “I leave everything on the field during the week. I’m not moving off my couch on a Friday for anything less than my apartment catching fire.

Lastly, Wall Street guys have multitasking down to an art form. If you are talking to your boyfriend and he’s simultaneously checking his I-pad, writing a text message and reading an email all the while assuring you he is listening to your every word, he probably is. Our brains have been reconditioned to absorb information from ten different sources at once. This should be good news. You aren’t being ignored nearly as much as you think you are.

If you find yourself dating a Wall Street guy, and remember these rules, you will be much better off. Believe me, he will love you all the more for it.

Class dismissed.

--Erin Duffy