THE MAN WHO IS
NOT ALL THAT INTO YOU!!!! WHY? WHAT
CAN YOU DO?
http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/96/103732.htm
BOOK
"He's Just Not That IntoYou!
Harsh
words from the best-selling dating book may set single women free.
By Denise Mann
Nov. 1, 2004 -- After a magical
first date, Susan was so sure that she would
hear from Stephen again that she even boasted to friends that she'd met "the one." Two agonizing weeks later, she was shocked
that she never did.
"Maybe he got back together with his ex," one friend
piped in. "Maybe he
was too intimidated by you," another said. "Maybe you
should call him,"
offered another. "Maybe he's gay," suggested yet another.
Or
maybe ... he's just not that into you. Sure, these words sound harsh,
but
according to a best-selling new dating book, these six words can
save
women like Susan from a lifetime of heartache and stress.
Ever since talk
show host Oprah Winfrey featured the book, “He's
Just Not That Into You”, on an
episode of the Oprah show, it's been flying off of book
shelves and racing up the best-seller list. Its contents are
discussed
by single women and their dating friends everywhere. Written
by
former Sex and the City writer Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, this
book
debunks many of the myths that women create about men and dating.
The
bottom line is that men are not complicated and there are no mixed
messages.
If he doesn't ask you out, call you soon after a date, or want
to come
inside with you after a date, then he's just not that into you.
Honey, I
started polygamy at age l7, I'm 50 and I’m hooked.
On Polygamy, not you. Sorreeee…
This new catchphrase actually
started on an episode of Sex and the City when
Miranda (played by actress Cynthia Nixon) tells her friends that
her
latest crush ended their last date with two kisses at her door but
declined
an invitation inside. His reason: He said had an early morning
appointment.
Reasonable, said her friends, but then the only male at the
table
said ... "He's just not that into you."
The
Truth Shall Set You Free?
"Coming up with reasons
that he might not have called that are not critical
of you is a natural defense mechanism," says New York City
psychoanalyst
Gail Saltz, MD, author of Becoming Real: Defeating the Stories
We Tell Ourselves That Hold Us Back. Such
defenses serve a positive and a negative function, she says. "They
can
keep us from being overwhelmed by negative emotions, but if you are
always
in denial and your head is in the sand, that's not useful either
because
it keeps you holding onto a relationship where there is none,"
she
tells us.
"Hearing the
words 'he's not that into you' are painful because it's like
'what's wrong with me?'" she says. But, Saltz notes, it's not
always that simple. "Sometimes
there is something going on that is not about
you," she says. "The possibilities are endless and this book is
popular
because usually we don't like to talk about the possibility that
you are
not the one." The growth and popularity of
Internet dating services may have fueled the
need for such advice. "The Internet and the
emailing that goes on before the first date
creates the illusion that you
know the person and when they don't call you
back, it seems more mystifying, but you really don't know each other
at
all," Saltz says.
Next:
'He's Just Not That Into You' Excuses People in Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones
Friends create,
analyze, and reinforce the excuses and reasons that women come
up with because it could just as easily be them with this dating
dilemma. "Everyone identifies with the victim, so to speak, and
hopes
that when they are in these same shoes, their friends can also
think
of reasons that he has not called," she says. But
"if you have a friend who can't see the writing on the wall and as a
result
they are not out looking for next Mr. Right then [being honest]
would
be doing the person a favor," she says.
"It's all a
matter of degree and there are also ways to wake someone up but spare their
feelings," she says. "Try saying 'you are terrific, he
doesn't
t know what he is missing,' because there are ways to be supportive,
but still make it clear that they are hanging on to a pipe dream."
'He's Just Not
That Into You' Excuses
Making excuses can be
counterproductive outside of the dating world as well,
she says. "Hopefully your spouse should be able
to say to you, 'I feel like we need to be having sex more
often' without you saying, 'Of course, he wants
more sex. He always wants sex. He is a sex maniac!'" she says.
"You
need to be able to hear the other person, consider what they are
saying,
and look at what you are doing to grow, change, and compromise,"
she
says. Or "if your boss is trying to tell you
that you are not doing a good job and you walk around saying 'he
has a problem' or 'she just doesn't like men,'
it's not productive," she says. "You need to be able to hear
criticism,
obviously if it is constructive criticism, that's better."
Men's
Take on Dating
"I can understand why
women feel empowered by this book," says Terrence Real,
founder of the Relational Recovery Institute in Cambridge, Mass.,
and
author of several books on male emotional health including, How Can
I get
Through to You: Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women.
"The
book is implicitly teaching women to have good psychological
boundaries,
meaning that if he's just not that into you, it's not your problem,
it's his and you need to deal with the fact that for whatever
the
reason this guy is not interested in a relationship with you," he
says.
"If
you are on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass looking for
a
needle in a haystack as to why he stopped pursuing you, you're nuts.
It just
didn't click, which is fine," Real says. "Maybe he doesn't like
redheads
or maybe you have a broad face like his mother or maybe you
don't
have a broad face like his mother." It may
be an intimacy issue on his part, Real says. "The
kind of guy that has trouble with intimacy is love-avoidant," he
says.
"A man who has been wounded in his childhood by family and culture
and
can't distinguish between being close to someone and being eaten up
alive
is love-avoidant, " Real says. "If there is a history of
enmeshment with one of the parents, often the mother,
in which the man was used as a hero child, performer, confidant,
or the
baby, then the relationship with a parent was one in which the
child
was there to service the parent's needs, not the other way around,"
he says. "That's what they feel will happen to them and are
basically
intimacy-phobic." But, he cautions, don't throw
out the baby with the bath water. "If you spent
the whole date talking about yourself or not talking about yourself
or were excessive and extreme in another way and bet it was a
real-turn
off, look at it and do better next time."
* * * *
* * * * *
BUY THE BOOK DISCUSSED
ABOVE, USED AT ABE BOOKS
BACK TO THE LUCK IN LOVE
WEBSITE