"Not That Into You" chapter 17 notes (long)

Continuing the series of posts showing you what happened in my head as I read through "He's Just Not That Into You" (here's the rest of the series).

Nearly finished now: we've reached the extra chapters written for the 2006 edition - Liz Tuccillo's "Life after HJNTIY" (the notes I made from which are in this post) and a final FAQ answered mainly by Greg Behrendt (my notes on which will be coming shortly).

N.B. common abbreviations used:

L.T. = Liz Tuccillo (author)
HJNTIY - He's Just Not That Into You (the book)

Chapter 17: L.T. – Life after He's Just Not That Into You

"If you have just read this book for the first time or read the book but didn't care for it so much, I am inclined to tell you to read no further. This section really is for the women who are fans of the book, who used it to make great changes in their lives – and who are still out there dating. It is a chapter that can come only with perspective – and I don't want you to get ahead of yourself. For that reason, if you have just read He's Just Not That Into You for the first time, I suggest putting this section down and reading it in a year or two – and only if you feel like you need a little extra encouragement."

Almost inclined to follow this advice, but as I'm not a woman using this for dating advice but rather a guy reading it to critique it, I'm not sure whether or not I should skip it. Let's see what happens when I turn the page…

…the stages of Life After He's Just Not That Into You, according to L.T.

Exaltation (Otherwise known as 'He's out of my phone and he's out of my life!')

“You get out of the dead-end relationship. You realise the crush isn't going anywhere. You stop texting that guy. And lo and behold, pretty soon you feel better."

Well, indeed. That's true anyway, and has little to do with this book in particular, it's to do with the lightened emotional load, and believe me – I've felt it too! The release of tension, of stress, that comes from making a clean break of it from something that wasn't working – definitely worth it!

L.T. Recounts incident where she treated with scepticism a half-hearted approach by a guy: “look at my website and email me your thoughts?” (see Ch. 1: “...if he's not asking you out”.) Guy later did call and ask her out.

Well, my objections to Ch. 1 have been mentioned several times so far. The specifics of the anecdote less important than the emotions of L.T. - empowered due to being able to tell herself “nope, he didn't do well enough” plus vindication when guy upped his game. I think this is one good thing that the book does do: it makes it okay to say “no” and be clear about it with self and others. The concept of having standards is a good one there.

Loneliness (Otherwise known as 'Great, what the hell do I do now?')

“You have the space … Your imagination is now free … You start thinking about true love again, about what that looks like, feels like. You remember how much you want it and how you had forgotten that it was even a possibility.”

Woh, hold up there a minute! So all women are purely interested in a relationship because they want “true love”, they want it sooooo much, right? I'm not really the person to criticise this outline, because I am totally the one who's out there imagining true love and how much I want it and all that. But I'm a sample of 1 (not to mention, not a woman)! I'm willing to bet, though, that there are plenty of women out there for whom relationships and dating are not about finding “true love” except possibly as a tangent from where they're at now. (Heck, there's loads like that out there if the profiles on dating websites adverts are anything to go by!) Or are the ones who are not looking for true love not worthy of the same respect as the other women reading this book?

“And then it hits you … - who the hell is there left to date?”

“For me, the jubilation of finally realising what I'm worth and what I'm not going to put up with any more slowly, eventually moved on to utter, bone-crushing loneliness.”

"I don't know about you, but I wanted my reward. A huge, seismic shift had occurred in my entire outlook on love and dating, and I believed the heavens should honor me by delivering to me a really nice boyfriend. Unfortunately, life doesn't work like that."

Now, where have I heard that idea before – that the world just owes someone a romantic partner? Oh, yes: Nice Guyism. Although the Nice Guy generally doesn't get that "life doesn't work like that".

"But most often, the reward for feeling better about yourself and no longer letting people treat you poorly is just that – feeling better about yourself and not having people treat you poorly.

"But I have to say, there is something else that comes in to fill the vacuum that our book creates.

…

No, it's not a handsome man whisking you off your feet, but it's the thing that will get you there more assuredly than anything else. It's confidence. And you must not underestimate the power and gift of that."

A lovely message, but again: the reward for feeling confident is – feeling confident. The reward is NOT a man "whisking you off your feet" (and why would a confident woman necessarily want that? Why wouldn't she possibly do the whisking to him instead? Oh yes – because of ch. 1 *groans*)

Just to be clear, I have no problem with the broad overview themes of this book, outlined here by L.T.: "(You can and should) Feel better about yourself!", "Don't let people treat you poorly!", "(You can and should) Feel more confident!" But I think that although following rules of engagement like this book can give you that, they don't necessarily give you the best tools for once you've got it.

Not to mention: the whole problem with a lot of this is that the default state for a lot of men is this "loneliness" phase, only without any of the "confidence" to go with it. Several of the advice tips seem based on assuming that men are in that state.

Temptation (Otherwise known as "The devil comes in many disguises")

Temptation1: The One Who Didn't Get Away

Anecdote about meeting a guy who sent "mixed messages": "Don't you know I literally wrote the book on the subject?"

Amused: "Because now I was a superhero, imbued with superhuman powers of detecting mixed messages, of immediately defending myself against men who really were just not that into me, no matter what clever disguises they used

…

But just as Superman had his kryptonite, you will meet a man (I would say you can count on it) who will have two very important things going for him. First and foremost, you will really, really, really like him. And second, he will have a really, really, really good excuse."

Steps: "You will allow yourself to fall for it (because life isn't all black & white)" -> "You let it go on too long." (because you like him so much) -> "wrap your brain around the sad, disappointing truth"

"You can't believe it's true – it just can't be – no, really? You realise he's just not that into you. Oh, for Pete's sake!

"You thought it could never happen again. And here you are. It's really depressing…. You know better now! How could this have happened?"

"Love is something most of us want very badly in our lives, sometimes more than we even want to admit. And when we get close to getting it, we are reminded of how great it feels to have it, even if it's for a moment, even if it's just a whiff of it, we may forget everything we believe in."

So, right. Who's this "we"? Is it "we women", or "we the human race?" Because if the latter, then what's going on with all those guys who are "just not that into you" – do they want love too? So why aren't they demonstrating it by being into you?

But if it's "we women" then congratulations L.T. for the gendered-assumptions FAIL! Because, of course, all women everywhere (or the vast majority of them) are such emotional dizzies that at the first hint of teh romantz they lose ALL their rational capacities! How much more fucking 19th Century can you get!? Just can't cope without feeling Love! Really, L.T., come on!

As it happens, feminism knows the reason behind why men appear to be "not that into you" even if they, too, "want love". [I'll save the explanation for when I do the fancy polished review post, which I'll do so folks can see how this mess of thoughts ends up as a proper blog post]

Temptation 2: I Can Do This

"You are lonely. You are horny. You think no one will ever love you again."

Because, of course, in every woman's mind "sex" must involve love – "I'm horny therefore I need someone to love me"? Whereas in reality, a liberated and confident woman says "I'm horny, I need to fuck someone!" (or "someone to fuck me", if that's her thang). Alternatively, "You think no one will ever love you again" suggests (in what follows) that you need to be being fucked by someone to feel loved by them!?

This whole point torpedoes the situation that this section outlines. Nothing wrong with being fuck-buddies as long as you don't confuse "sex" with "love" and "genital contact" with "intimacy". As the great philosopher Renegade Evolution says, "intimacy lives in the head and the heart, not the crotch".

Let's see how L.T. misses this point:

"So you keep calling that guy who's only making the mildest attempt at keeping a connection with you. You suggest hanging out together. You have sex with him… You keep sleeping with him – always at your suggestion."

**SCREECHING MENTAL BRAKES**

"Always at your suggestion". And this guy, we're supposed to read, always says "yeah, alright, why not?" Because a man would never ever ever say "no" to sex, right? What a HUGE FUCKING GENDER-ENFORCING, RAPE-CULTURE-SUPPORTING PILE OF CRAP! Maybe I'm the wrong guy to consider this, but I find it hard to imagine L.T.'s scenario as being very common, just because if he enjoyed the sex then he'd want more and ask for it (since he knows she's up for it), whereas if he didn't, he'd just say no, surely? Unless… G.B. says men would say anything to avoid letting on they're "not that into you" so he thinks he's got to perform sexually to keep you happy and not offend you?

Whatever's going on with that situation it seems to me like the GUY needs a wakeup call of his own with respect to "(You can and should) Feel better about yourself!", "Don't let people treat you poorly!", "(You can and should) Feel more confident!" (see "Loneliness" stage).

"You know, deep down, that he's just not that into you." But telling yourself it's okay because you know and are not deluding yourself.

"It's like you've learned the rules of the game and now you're using them to your advantage."

Firstly, I think it's plain that "HJNTIY" is not "the rules of the game". Secondly, what's the advantage here? If all you're after is a good fucking then there's no problem and you're not "playing the game" anyway, but if you're after love then this automatically proves that you aren't getting what you want – so there's no advantage. That may be the point that L.T. is trying to make with this section, but I don't find it clearly stated.

"But it's so funny. A guy taking two days to call you back, or two weeks to want to see you again when you're sleeping with him, still hurts your feelings no matter how clever you think you're being. (Unless you really don't like him – then that's a different story.)"

Again equating fucking with love. I can't get my head around this assumption that women can't separate the two, and therefore get all emotional over a fuck-buddy situation. Sure, some people have rules about the emotional investment they want there to be before sex happens. But dammit, the scenario L.T. painted was "I feel horny" and "I feel lonely", and "I know he doesn't love me". I get it if for you, "sex" means "he loves me" or "I love him", but honestly? That doesn't have to be a general rule. It's something you're bringing, an expectation of "I let him stick his dick in me, now he owes me emotional involvement and I'll be upset if I don't get it." What's more, it's something that feminism can help cure, because feminism explains where that idea came from!

As for "unless you really don't like him" – yes, it's a different story. Because WTF is going on with you that you're wanting to hang out and have sex with this guy if you don't like him!? Unless "like" here means "have romantic feelings for", in which case L.T. is just saying "you slutty women who fuck without loving don't count anyway, no one cares how you do things!" Even though that way of doing things manages to solve both the horny/lonely thing and the emotional pain thing. Again, I quote the infamous and illustrious Renegade Evolution: "Intimacy lives in the head and the heart, not the crotch".

"The good news is, just as you are able to identify a lame excuse without equivocation, you are also able to recognise… Pain. Longing. Hurt feelings… So you know … that it's absolutely unacceptable to let anyone make you feel like that."

Yeah – although in this case you didn't let anyone else do it, you did it to yourself. And, it seems to me, you were doing it to him, too.

Balance (Otherwise known as 'settling in for the long haul')

"Sometimes you just get sick and tired of being on a diet, or even of just thinking a particular way.

…

We were tired. We were tired of having to be so conscious, of having to be on guard."

Woh, I've heard that before. Where? People who got away from the "second-wave" radical feminist school of thinking. I don't know what sort of parallel there is to be drawn there. But it's an interesting thing nonetheless.

"We were tired of having to be so goddamn vigilant with our love lives and our standards."

…

If you want to break the rules a little, go ahead. "At the end of the day, it's your life, and it's your judgement… But, ultimately, you're going to have to make these judgement calls on your own. Sometimes you will make decisions that empower you and honour you, and sometimes you're going to cheat and maybe go against your better instincts for a bit – just at the off chance that this is one of the exceptions to the rule."

…

"If you take nothing else away from this book, please remember that nothing is worse than longing for someone who doesn't want you."

"Please, the minute you realise the situation is making you feel depressed and hurt and it's really not going to go the way you want it to, please put an end to it as soon as you can. It's nice to have a break from being completely and utterly single, but only you will know when the price you're paying for that is too high."

Ah, now the analogy becomes clear: the people who break away from radfem land want to be allowed to "make … judgement calls on [their] own."

I think the message here is a good one: that last quoted sentence particularly - only you will know when the price is too high.