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“He’s Just Not That Into You” has a good general message to send to women, but it gets oversimplified in the book to the point of inaccuracy, and repetitive to the point of HOLY SHIT I GET IT AND WE’RE ONLY LIKE 15 PAGES IN.
The crux of the book is in the idea that if a guy isn’t calling you back, or if he doesn’t show up when he says he will, or if he only goes out to friend-like activities with you, or if he scratches his head a certain way, it doesn’t mean anything complicated, or anything worth wasting your life analyzing.
It simply means he doesn’t really like you. He just doesn’t take the relationship, or you very seriously. So you need to do likewise and leave him.
Beneath this message is the idea that you should take no shit, never think he’s the exception to the rule, and accept no excuses if the guy you’re dating fucks up in any of these ways. You’re worth more than this.
It peppers in some strong examples throughout of how women’s unwillingness to acknowledge this can screw up their love lives.
It points out how if a guy really cares about you, being “busy” won’t stop him from contacting you in a timely manner.
It points out how if a guy is always drunk when he’s around you, that’s probably not a great sign for how he feels about you, regardless of everything else.
It gives the example of how some women will have breakup sex with a guy, and then think that that means there’s still a chance to be with him, when the guy was just getting his D wet (If he actually liked you, it would be…”in a relationship” sex).
These are all things that seem obvious to outsiders, but for women in relationships, it can be tough to see, so it’s valid to try to the tactic of, “Hey, maybe if I whack you upside the head with this book, that’ll help.”
It also encourages you to stop waiting for guys to change their behavior. Stop trying to make a relationship with a guy happen that’s not there. Stop hoping for him to see the light shining out of your ass. If he doesn’t, he’s not worth the time, and you need to move on.
It’s truly not bad advice to keep in mind as you work your way through cheaters, deadbeats, and dickholes (literal and figurative) in your dating life.
This is all basically positive. It’s good for women to feel more valued than they often do. It’s good for them to not get so caught up in the stupid intricacies of the dating world, and to generally have less of a take-shit attitude.
…
BUT….
There are a couple of reasons why I don’t recommend this book.
The first is that you really don’t need to read it at this point, because I’ll summarize the entire thing again for you right here:
“If he treats you poorly at all in any way, that means he doesn’t care about you, and you should dump him.”
That’s it. It simply hits you with that hammer over and over again. All roads in this book lead back to “He’s Just Not That Into You.” This book says it’s own name constantly. It’s like Timmy from South Park.
Aside from that, when you take that message to the extreme, it can sometimes suck. The authors looked at every, fucking, possible offshoot of how a guy could be flawed (for any period of time), and used it as a reason for you to dump his ass.
“Doesn’t love your friends, but literally everything else is great? Dump him.”
“Doesn’t always want to fuck you and take you skydiving every second of the day? Dump him.”
“He teases you sometimes, but you don’t care, but others tell you that you should? Dump him.”
At nearly zero points throughout the book does it encourage talking to the dude or working through the relationship. Everything has to be crystal perfection, or cut off his dick and throw it into a single woman’s bonfire.
As a result, it has for sure ended several relationships that didn’t need to end.
Co-written by a woman and a man, the book has a very, ahem, “old school,” view of the genders while also being very pro-woman. It’s that obnoxious “have your cake and have him pay for it too,” brand of what some pretend is feminism.
Except it’s not really feminism at all, because it places women on a giant pedestal throughout, thus making them superior, and not equal.
Throughout the book, the authors tell the reader that they deserve a guy who does (or mostly doesn’t do) hundreds of things that fall on their checklist, and if he doesn’t, he doesn’t deserve you.
On the other hand, they assume the women reading it are incredible, and in no way need to improve at anything about themselves except for their ability to say goodbye to men who are beneath them.
I’m paraphrasing here, but the message is basically something like: “After all, reader I’ve never met, you’re smart, sexy, beautiful and worth being chased, obsessed over, and worshiped. Have I mentioned you have a great ass, and a fantastic sense of humor? Go vaginas!”
If this sounds like blatant pandering, duh. Of course it is.
If you think I’m being some paranoid red pill weirdo, the female author eventually just flat out says, “There are more good women than there are men.” She says that “many studies” prove this, of course without saying which ones, or how any study would ever prove what the fuck “good” means, because accuracy isn’t the point anyway. The point is to make you feel like a superhero for having a vagina, so that you feel better about yourself, and you stop making excuses for abusers and douchebags.
It also implies throughout that men are puddle-deep simpletons motivated only by sex. This is the basis for a major chunk of the book, and how it gets off treating the idea of “He’s just not that into you,” as a hard and fast rule.
If men have any other layers to them whatsoever, there could be many potential motivations, or complicating factors beyond “me want sex” that impact their behavior, and then the entire premise of the book comes crumbling down.
And look, I’m not about to argue that men aren’t motivated by sex. Of course we are. I’m just saying, boiling everything down to that is stupid, insulting, and misleading. Yes, men may think about sex every seven seconds, but that leaves six other seconds where we have other shit going on, and that actually does complicate things.
For instance, in terms of the more casual dating phase, the book argues that if a man likes you, he will move heaven and earth to ask you out, and that “excuses” like fear of rejection, being genuinely busy, and trying to play games are all myths.
It says this not because it’s actually true, but because oversimplifying men to this degree is the only way the book’s premise goes from being “a rough idea that you should keep in mind more often,” to “the basis for an entire book.”
Fear of rejection isn’t suddenly conquered if you really like someone. At times, it can make things even worse. If you get rejected by a rando at a bar, oh well. If you get rejected by someone you love, then shit. Game over, dude. You really will die alone, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
And of course men also play games. “Hard to get” is real for both genders, and people do it because they like people. We all know this. It would be easier if no one did it, but unfortunately, people do (with that said, it’s totally cool to pass on a guy for doing it–not because it means he doesn’t like you, but because it’s annoying and stupid).
The reason I recommend reading my summary of the book instead of the book itself isn’t just that it saves you a few hours and $11.95. It’s also because this is a book specifically where you’re better off if you get the rough idea of it, and don’t get into the weeds. There’s bullshit hidden in there, and you could step right in it.
You should value yourself, and not put up with stupid dude crap. You should work under the assumption that everything happening with you is the rule and not the exception, and go from there.
But life (and men) have complications and imperfections. We all do, and there’s some degree of that you’ll have to put up with if you want to be with anyone at any time ever.
A book that banks on making you feel like a goddess sure does feel nice, but if taken the wrong way, it’ll likely end with you being alone and WAY too proud of who you are.
I guess what I’m saying is the book is really nice, and I think it could be really good for the right reader, but over all, I’m just not that into it.
