Up, Down and All Around

"He's Just Not That Into You"

I was actually able to watch the Sex and the City episode where this line was first used, and back then it didn't strike me as being anything special. It wasn't until many many months later, while watching the Oprah Winfrey Show, that I realized how big a furor that simple 6-word sentence had caused.

Oprah's guests were Sex and the City writers Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, who together have authored a book with the title, you guessed it, He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys.

Greg was brutally frank when he said that guys simply don't have the guts to tell a girl to her face that they're not interested. So they try to be subtle and women sometimes misunderstand the signals. Bottomline, says Greg, if a guy is really into you, you'll know without a doubt.

Some memorable examples:

• Not Into You. Guy says he's leaving the country on an early flight out the next day, so he can't see you tonight.
  Into You. If he were really into you, Greg says, the guy would be spending the evening with you because you'll be apart for a few days.
• Not Into You. Guy says he's swamped this whole week so don't expect him to call.
  Into You. If he were really into you, Greg says, the guy would squeeze in a couple of minutes each day just to say hi, because it will actually help him get through the day.
• Not Into You. Guy says on Sunday night he'll call you within the week to set a date for the next weekend and you finally get a call on Friday.
  Into You. If he were really into you, the guy would have set a date before you parted ways on Sunday night, or at the very least, he would have called you on Monday. If you get a call on Friday, it's because the girls he really wants to date are busy and you're the next best thing to having no date for the weekend.
  

As I said... brutally frank! hehe!

Anyway, that phrase has been hovering around the back of my mind since I saw that show a couple of months ago. But it was only tonight, while I was chatting with a friend at Starbucks, that I fully grasped the meaning.

My friend was doing her damnedest to convince me that I have a potentially great relationship with one of our common guy friends. I wasn't quite sure where the conversation was going, but nevertheless, I spent the next half hour or so shooting down her statements one by one. I told her that a relationship with that guy really looked iffy because:

• The guy doesn't text or call. We bump into each other on a regular basis, but he doesn't make any attempt to engage in conversation beyond the times that we see each other.
  
• The only time he gets in touch is when he needs a favor. The whole interaction feels very "user-friendly" to me.
  
• The guy doesn't remember conversations we've had. He'll ask me questions that he has already asked me before -- on topics that we've already had long discussions about. If he wasn't just making conversation, surely he would remember what I thought about a particular issue.
  

After we had been discussing this for about half an hour, I honestly felt like telling my friend that if she thought he was such a great guy, then she should go after him with my blessings, because it sure looks like the most that he and I will ever be is friends.

And finally, to drive the point home, I used that simple 6-word sentence to express in no uncertain terms why I thought my relationship with the guy was heading nowhere, and that it would be much better for me if I didn't think of him in that way, even though my friend was trying to convince me otherwise.

One of these days, I'm going to have to buy a copy of that book and actually read it!

Tags: Personal, Relationships, Books

Posted by CF at 12:05 AM