I found this book entertaining, insightful, a bit crude perhaps, but definitely well-written, and while not totally applicable to an LDS readership, at the very least, it is something to think about. In fact, I wish I had read it when it first came out in 2004. It would have saved me about a year and half of cumulative confusion and worry.
For those unfamiliar with the premise, it is a non-fiction self-help book written by two of the writers of the show Sex and the City. (I know, I didn’t watch it either. But that isn’t really the point.) The woman writer is someone who professionally writes screenplays about relationships, and the man is one of the writers’ consultants, who is himself happily married. While none of these qualifications grant the writers absolute credence as self-help-book-authors, there is something refreshing about reading something written by real, non-academic people, in the real world.
In a very small nutshell, the thesis of the book is this: If a guy is not lavishing (this is my word for it) lavishing his attention on you (i.e. calling you, dating you, spending time, keeping promises, just being there) he’s just not that into you. No excuses. No “well, he’s just so busy,” or "I intimidate him" or “maybe he’s waiting for me to make a move.” Baloney. He’s not. And he’s not that into you. I confess, I got a little tired of reading the phrase, “he’s just not that into you,” but the writers overall do a pretty good job of drilling this concept into their readership’s heads.
I first read parts of this book several months ago when it came through Collection Development, damaged. But a little while ago I decided I’d better give it a real go, and here’s my verdict: I would recommend this as an interesting, if not totally helpful, read to any girl still single, and confused. Also, after reading this book, I have formed my own hypothesis about one possible reason why men can’t bring themselves to tell women when they’re not that into them: I think men like to “collect” women.
What?!
Let me explain—and I think I’m right, because…hello, I’m a girl, and girls do this, too. Girls “collect” guys. (Don’t tell me you haven’t met at least one girl in your life who hasn’t.)
Self-esteem, the way I see it, is a measure of how we feel about ourselves not based on our intrinsic worth but on our perception of outside sources. One of these biggest outside sources is the way others think or feel about us—or at least what we think they think of us. This is why girls feel bad when they don’t get asked out, or vice versa. And this is why girls and guys feel good when they sense that a lot of people would like to ask them out—even if they’re not that into any of these people. I think many people find it very satisfying to have a little entourage. It’s that ever gratifying, addicting sense of being “dateable,” if not “dating.”
Well, okay. I’ve deconstructed part of this horrendous thing we call The Game. Almost everyone in this world is dateable—to someone. (Don’t argue with me on this one, because I will hold fast.) And there is no need to have an entourage to prove it.
And there is NO need. Ever. To be part of an entourage.
I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes in this regard during the course of my adult life. Some of them recent enough to still elicit a cringe. And I will, no doubt, continue to make mistakes. But in the meantime, I HAVE have had the great satisfaction of learning something about myself.
Here I make my end by saying knowledge is power. Power is freedom.
(I don't mean this to sound like an attack or a diatribe, because it really isn't. Just a book review.)
8 comments:
a really bad feeling comes when you realize you've been part of this entourage of girls "belonging" to a certain guy who is totally and absolutely undeserving of the attention. you've fallen for the same things everyone else has. this has happened to me on two levels, one much more negative than the other. my feeling of the first instance of this in my life is bewilderment and a bit of shame; in the second, mostly just amusement.
lately, if i sense there is any sort of a "harem" of girls hovering around a guy, it's a total turn-off to me. i want no part of that. kind of a shame, because it's not necessarily the guy's fault.
anyway....
No, it isn't necessarily the guy's fault. But if he's not singling YOU out, then get YOURSELF out, I say. Avoid unnecessary pain. There's no reason to hang around, hoping, like a love-sick puppy. What many guys don't realize is this: girls are turned off by competition. Most guys I've found are really into a girl who has lots of guys hovering around her. But many a girl has the opposite reaction if a guy has lots of girls hovering around him. And for good reason! It makes them feel like a groupie.
As a guy, I am going to put my two cents into this intriguing discussion.
Are guys and girls really that different? What's wrong with being friendly with one another? In my experience, the more friends-who-are-girls you have, the more girls you are likely to meet. The less lady-type-friends you have, the less you are likely to make. This probably applies to guys too. Now, I don't like competition, and if I see one of my girlie-friends flirting with hella mantastic induhviduals, I will certainly not be _that_ into her, but I will still hang out because, hey, I like friends.
Some girls, and guys, do like competition, if an individual has many opposite-sexers or even interested same-sexers around (more common here in Seattle I wager), the perception is "boy howdy, they must be potent, virile, far more attractive than I think they are, etc..."
But here's my dealio: I find that being just not _that_ into someone is the only way for a social leper like myself to keep my cool and not compel potential friends or girlfriends to say "let's be friends" which of course means "If we never speak again, I won't notice."
So if a girl wants me to sacrifice myself on an altar for her, no chance. The bending over backwards to get some attitude portrayed in that book (confession: read a few chapters myself, I did), is exactly the type of unreasonable blanket expectation that every girl ought to have to help us all keep the population growth to a minimum. Which is wonderful. But that doesn't mean we can't all be friends.
Yes! Seth! I am so glad you put in your two cents!
While I find I sometimes express my opinions a little more strongly than I feel, I am not usually a person to actually ADOPT or AGREE with extreme opinions. And where I'm going with this is that I don't for one minute believe that the things in this book are blanket statements applicable to all situations. You're absolutely right that guys and girls are less different than they (I should say we) like to pretend--and we need to stop using these differences as excuses to misunderstand each other.
That said, there ARE differences. The difference, for example, between a guy friend and a boyfriend. Neither I nor this book are in any way negating the goodness of guy/girl friendships. What it IS pointing out (to girls) is how to gauge a guy's level of interest/commitment on a girlfriend/boyfriend level. (Can I use anymore slashes? Hmm, we'll see.)
Thanks again for your comment, and I think it's totally valid.
I absolutely loved this book. I read it when I was dating and confused and by the time I was done the book was twice as thick from all the little postits and linemarkers I put in it. Great book.
Thanks for this post, Pear, and I'm grateful for all the great comments. I, too, wish I'd been a little more savvy or less "sensibility" and little more "sense" when it came to a couple of guys in my life (AC, SH) that weren't that into me, even tho I was into them. Kinda learned that the hard way.
On the flip side, there was another guy (JC) that I finally lost my romantic feelings for and we have become the best of friends. In DC he had his little "harem" which totally made me laugh- surprisingly no jealousy at all- especially when it was my apartment he'd come to every night to have a chat with me, his FRIEND!! It was great!!!
Pear and others, thanks for these thoughts. I haven't read the book, but I saw part of the movie on an airplane. In the snatches I saw, there were several types of relationships portrayed. Some people looking for a deep relationship, some mostly lusting after sex. Most were caught up in their own problems so much that they never saw the real worth of the people around them. And that's where the issue of what friendship is comes to the forefront for me. We need to learn to be good friends to each other. It starts in the family; it grows in grade school and up into adulthood. We have to be careful not to let the physical aspect to our relationships create emotional attachments that confuse us or are hard to break away from when the relationship is actually not a good friendship.
It sounds so chaste, but honestly, a good friendship must be the basis of a committed relationship. If it doesn't start out that way, it's got to become that. And the friendship has to continue for the rest of the relationship's existence. That's why these issues are still relevant to me, even though I'm a married woman.
Mand, again. Sorry to digress from the book review aspect of the post, but it makes me reflect for a minute on my own experience with Curtis. He wasn't as "into" me at first as I was him, but in time he became so. In the meantime, what did I do? I backed off from infatuation and focused on strengthening myself. A huge part of that was reaching outside of myself to learn how to be a good friend. I wanted to be a good friend to Curtis, but also to others around me--to do kind things in order to share experiences and grow and learn from each other's perspective, but not with the expectation of someone falling in love with me. And an important part of developing a friendship with Curtis was talking with him. I said, if you enjoy this friendship and want it to continue you have to give some thought and kindness in return. That's what all people have to do in order to make and keep friends. He had to decide if he wanted to make time for that in his life. All of us have to. That's been true since before kindergarten. It's not always easy to keep up friendships as adults. But oh how desperately we need them! So this became a powerful piece of knowledge for me. In addition I realized that if, in our friendship, I could sense that there was not a reciprocation of my growing romantic feelings, I was not in any way to indulge in fantasizing about the relationship becoming a romance. That said, after a couple of years of trying to give and receive honest friendship, I could truly say I had fallen in love with Curtis (meaning, my feelings had continued to deepen in love for him and I wouldn't mind that continuing for the rest of my life). I had gotten to know him even better, and I just really loved who he was. I had to tell him how I felt. To be honest. I needed to know if he saw any potential for his own feelings to grow into that kind of love towards me. And if not, I needed to move on from that relationship. Appreciate it for what it was and what I had learned from it, but to make a break.
What Curtis decided was to give it a go. He wasn't as in-tune with all of his feelings, but he was willing to try being a good friend in return. The more he did to think of me and serve me, the more he understood his own needs and feelings and the more he loved me.
A key aspect to all of this was that marriage was a goal we were each working towards. I think that this brings up another key issue: the purpose of marriage and marriage as mutual goal. In "He's Just Not That Into You" it was easy to see that many people had a fuzzy definition at best about the purpose for and potential of their relationships. Being clear about your goals for a relationship is key. Since Curtis and I were both looking for a marriage relationship and our defintion of marriage was shared, we were able to go forward with that mutual goal in mind. If it became clear that one or both of us didn't want to continue along that path to marriage as we understood it, then we would have known to break our exclusivity, to remain friendly but to look elsewhere for a relationship that could go deeper. Not to hold onto each other in a selfish, lustful, or "collecting" way.
Well, in our case we ended up falling in love totally and completely. In our world there are several things capable of distracting from and destroying that love, but with diligence and selflessness, we can make it.
One resource I like for some clear thinking on all of this is a talk by John Bytheway. I know-- he's a cheeseball. But actually, this was a great talk: http://www.byub.org/talks/Talk.aspx?id=1534
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