EN are mysteries. We do inexplicable things, like not calling after a "really great date." Or dropping off the radar for no reason whatever. Sometimes we appear unwilling to commit, but then a year later marry another woman!Posted on 10/16/2004 3:47:59 PM PDT by NYC GOP Chick
By RICK MARIN
EN are mysteries. We do inexplicable things, like not calling after a "really great date." Or dropping off the radar for no reason whatever. Sometimes we appear unwilling to commit, but then a year later marry another woman!
Go figure. If only women could, many seem to believe, wedding bells would ring across the land.
But what if women don't want to know the real reasons we won't call or suddenly vanish or marry someone else? What if — and I realize that I could be burned in effigy on "The View" for this — they would rather be told, again and again, only what they want to hear: that men are jerks, and women are their helpless victims?
This is the evil genius of "He's Just Not That Into You" (Simon Spotlight Entertainment), the advice book on men by two former "Sex and the City" writers, which shot up to No. 1 on Amazon last month and went from 30,000 to 400,000 copies in print. It sells women more of what they want to hear, in the guise of advice they supposedly don't want to hear.
Oprah Winfrey helped. The hour she devoted to the book on her show felt like a mass intervention, as if she had found her new Dr. Phil.
Onstage sat Greg Behrendt, who says he was the token straight guy in the "Sex and the City" writers' room, while his co-author, Liz Tuccillo, a executive story editor for the show, was relegated to a seat in the audience. The book is billed as "The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys," so Mr. Behrendt is the front man.
Ms. Tuccillo appears at the end of each chapter to assure women that they must listen to Mr. Behrendt even if they don't like what he has to say. She vets him girl to girl, as Ms. Winfrey did, leading her audience in chants of "He's just not that into you!"
The brilliant title, coined in an episode of "Sex and the City," is the book's blanket answer to all enigmatic male behavior. Why doesn't he call? He's just not that into you. Why did he break up with you? He's just not that into you. Why did he disappear? He's just not that . . .
Which is half of a good point. The book catalogs the male's so-called bad behavior, but doesn't explain why he's not that into you. Maybe it's because you talked about yourself for five hours at dinner or mentioned that your last boyfriend was a warlock or simply aren't the right gal for him.
But it's never you; it's always him. As one chapter heading advises, "He's Just Not That Into You if He's a Selfish Jerk, a Bully or a Really Big Freak."
When there's no culpability on the woman's part, there's no need for accountability.
Like most chick lit, this book starts from the position that men are emotional criminals and women innocent bystanders. This has become a given, because women own the terms of debate. We live in a world that revolves around "Sex and the City," "Bridget Jones" and Oprah.
Men are either charming bounders or boring, safe marriage material, and never the twain shall meet, even though some of the most incorrigible bachelors I know have been transformed into devoted husbands and fathers.
You could see Mr. Behrendt hesitate for a moment when Ms. Winfrey said, of his single days before he married, "So you were a jerk." Then he muttered, "Yeah," conforming to the stereotype expected of him.
"Men aren't complicated, although we'd like you to think we are," he writes. "We are driven by sex, although we'd like to pretend otherwise."
But if that's true, why did he marry. Shouldn't he still be out dumping as many women as he can?
Ms. Tuccillo maintains: "There aren't that many good men around. Statistics prove it."
Any single guy will tell you there aren't that many good women around, either. When he finds one, he marries her if she will have him. Let's agree that neither sex is exclusively to blame when things don't wind up in wedded bliss.
There is something wildly condescending about the image of women as helpless creatures standing around minding their own business until men come into their lives and break their hearts. This, after how many waves of feminism?
Have you, ladies, ever dumped a guy? Did you always do it with maximum consideration for his feelings? And did you feel guilty afterward? These questions are never entertained. Nor is the possibility that guys suffer exactly the same agonies of rejection, loneliness and insecurity as women.
It will be interesting to see how many women go to see "Alfie," the remake of the great 1966 Michael Caine movie, which opens this week. It is, after all, about the kind of man that women, the romantic-comedy ticket-buyers, supposedly want to know all about: a cad.
This time around, Jude Law confesses his innermost thoughts into the camera between seductions — a conceit lifted from the original stage play. No sooner has he "had it off" with a bird in the back of a car than he's telling us he's already looking at her in the rear-view mirror.
But with its Gucci-clad pretty boy smugly scooting around Manhattan on his Vespa, the remake is a tarted-up, watered-down update. "Poncified," as Mr. Caine's Alfie might say. In the original movie, which turns quite dark, he goes into a sanitarium to recover from a lung infection, gets his invalid roommate's wife pregnant, then has to call in a grim cut-rate abortionist. The camera spends a good minute on Alfie weeping at the sight of the dead fetus. The movie's famous title song (performed by Cher, arranged by Sonny) is music of a man reckoning with his own culpability and accountability. He doesn't blame any of the women in his life for his lonely, childless lot, only "me bleedin' self."
Men aren't complicated? Even Alfie is complicated. You want to understand, just ask.
What's it all about?
Which is half of a good point. The book catalogs the male's so-called bad behavior, but doesn't explain why he's not that into you. Maybe it's because you talked about yourself for five hours at dinner or mentioned that your last boyfriend was a warlock or simply aren't the right gal for him.But it's never you; it's always him. As one chapter heading advises, "He's Just Not That Into You if He's a Selfish Jerk, a Bully or a Really Big Freak."
When there's no culpability on the woman's part, there's no need for accountability.
I think we can all agree that it's pretty much a 50-50 split? ;D
I'd agree with that!
oh, sure.
the difference between average male baseline and average female baseline: Men give love for sex, women give sex for love.
no saints in that equation.
For the record, in his single days, my husband was WILD!!! We have been married for 21 years, and I couldn't even think of life without him. We complement each other. He treats me well, and I do my best to treat him with love and respect.
You should see them go apoplectic when you start picking their arguments apart right in front of their faces.
"Maybe it's just you." is the most devastating comment you can give .
It's interesting hearing single people complain about their love lives, ruuning down their various ex-'s. They always seem to miss the common factor in their relationships: themselves.
Would a loofa and falafel take care of this problem?
And then they wonder why they've been alone most of their adult lives.
Oooohhh, that's a good one! I think I may use that next time. Thanks!
Mom.....Hope this ain't too late..........:o)
Well, I admit to my role in some previous relationships that went bad. However, there were at least a couple of times where I can now look back and realize that no matter what I did or did not do, it just wasn't going to happen. In *some* cases, it really *was* him, not me.
With one in particular, he was extremely emotionally damaged, but enough of a sociopath to hide it for a very long time. Took me a couple of years to realize that I did nothing wrong -- other than trust him and be involved with him.
Let's not bring Bill O'Reilly into this, please!
Are you referring to Lefty? ;-)
I don't know about 50-50, but I do tend to view it on a case-by-case basis. We should blame the responsible party, not the other sex as a whole.
If a woman chooses jerks over and over she is obviously looking for jerks.
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