He’s Just Not That Into You — Dating Advice from a Different Moment

I first heard about He’s Just Not That Into You on the radio. The original came out in 2004 and the Korean edition was advertised widely enough that the title stayed with me.

The book later became a film. Its premise grew out of Sex and the City, where coauthor Greg Behrendt worked as a consultant and Liz Tuccillo was an executive story editor.

The television show’s popularity gave the book a ready audience. Behrendt, a comedian, carried the brisk delivery of a punchline into his role as a giver of relationship advice.

He’s Just Not That Into You

A woman writes to Greg about a man’s behaviour. His replies repeatedly turn on a simple reading: the man may be less interested than the letter writer wants to believe.

The book urges the reader to move on rather than spend more time explaining the behaviour. Its chapter subjects show how often the same answer comes up:

• He never makes an approach.
• He says he’ll call and doesn’t.
• He avoids going on a date with you.
• He shows little interest in sex with you.
• He’s unfaithful.
• He looks for you only when he’s been drinking.
• He avoids talking about marriage.
• He is quick to say you should break up.
• He suddenly stops getting in touch.
• He won’t be in an exclusive relationship.
• He ignores your feelings.

How the Book Sounds

A few of its arguments are especially revealing of its voice.

1. It imagines most men as people who enjoy pursuing a woman and being kept in suspense about the outcome.
2. It is sceptical of the word “friend” when someone uses it to excuse behaviour that makes the other person miserable.
3. It mocks the idea that a man is so important and so busy that having your number in his phone should count for something even if he never calls it.
4. Behind the joke is the same question again: why keep giving time to a relationship that seems to exist mainly in the explanations you make for it?

Dating in an American Advice Book from 2004

These are American dating stories told through a particular heterosexual script. The cues around showing interest, making plans or calling after a date need some translation when the reader brings a different set of expectations.

There is also a gap between 2004 and the world in which I reread it twenty years later.

The way people get to know each other and stay in touch has changed. A rule that was framed around waiting for a phone call can sound different when someone is within reach all day.

I find the book more interesting as a record of the way dating was talked about at the time. It sold well enough to become a film, and there is something worth hearing in the confidence of the original voice.

Book Information

He’s Just Not That Into You

Authors

Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo

Publication

2004 (original English edition)

ISBN13

9788973376377

View the book on YES24

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