He's Just Not That Into You

A few weeks back, I snuck away for the day with a friend and saw the movie He's Just Not That Into You. It was entertaining enough and had a decent storyline, but I left the theater with a bad taste in my mouth - and not just from the bitter aftertaste of synthetic, melted butter.

The premise of the movie, which I'm sure you are all nauseatingly familiar with the media blitzkrieg that occurred after a character used this phrase in a Sex and the City episode four years ago and a (pretty awful) book of the same title was published, is that men send women very clear signals concerning their interest in a relationship and we, as a gender, are just too stupid to see them. Women delude themselves into thinking men are complex, make excuses for their bad behavior and jump through hoops to make the wrong guy into the right guy all in the pursuit of coupledom.

The most enraging aspect of the movie is it actually seemed to perpetuate the problem, rather than help fix it by enlightening the female movie-goer. The worst story line in the movie is that of Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck. Having been together for seven years, with no wedding in sight thanks to Ben's belief that marriage is "just a piece of paper", Jen languishes in the relationship watching, tearfully as her younger sister gets married.

Sidebar - I take issue with cohabitation. And yes, I know I'm going to piss people off. And yes, I know you and your husband lived together before you got married and, no, I'm not talking to you. Who I worry about are the women like Jen in this movie, who use living together as another relationship milestone akin to saying "I love you" for the first time, or bringing him home for the holidays rather than having it be part of the marriage package and shacking up before they've had the "You are definitely the one, but we need to save some money/finish grad school/get a real job first" discussion. Couples who move in together as a test of their relationship are fooling themselves. I also love how these same couples adhere to the ideology that you get to know someone better by living with them first. Please, in this post-"Wake Up Little Suzy"-world, we all know sleepovers abound pre-nuptials and during said nights, you learn all you need to know about someone's habits and lifestyle. And let's be honest, no marriage ever ended over the way someone puts on the toilet paper roll (because if he does at all he's a keeper!).

Anyway, Jen eventually leaves him and after many twists and turns, including some highly emotional dish-washing at her sick father's house, they get back together after Aniston says she doesn't care about marriage, and he is already husband enough to her emotionally. Blah, blah, he sees the light because now he's not being given an ultimatum and he proposes. I almost left the theater covered in twenty bucks worth of regurgitated Diet Coke and JuJuBees. And all of this made me want to stand up and scream the question - when did women stop doing the choosing and become the ones to be chosen?

Remember all those old novels we had to read in high school? Suitors, courting, where did all that crap go? Women used to hang out at home and while men came to call - all for them to be like, "Um, not so much" until the right guy rang the bell. Even the language we use today when a couple becomes engaged is a time capsule showing us what it used to be like. Proper etiquette dictates to the engaged woman you say, "Best wishes" and to the betrothed man, "Congratulations!", since he is the one who got lucky getting the broad to accept his sorry ass! Nowadays you might as well say to the woman, "Good job hooking this loser. Glad he didn't get away!"

And please spare me your bile since, I know, I got lucky meeting Hubby in college and being married young. But as I have said before, the reason it worked out is because I didn't take any crap off of him and I didn't chase him. Once, early on, I thought he didn't seem that into me,and I moved on. Guess who was on me like white on rice after a few days? Mmm-hhmm (meant to be read in the voice of Jackée Harry of 227 fame).

Maybe I am out of touch. Maybe it is a different world out there with Facebook, Myspace and texting. But I think the essentials always remain the same for women. You are an amazing, creature who some man (or woman - no judgment here!) is going to fall, madly, ridiculously in love with and you need to start acting that way in order for him to find you. Because how is The One, who you are supposed to spend the rest of your life with, and father your incredibly cute babies, whose pictures you'll force me to look since you'll use them as your Facebook profile picture, supposed to find you if you've settled and shacked up with some loser who won't have anyone tell him when he's really "committed" to someone (he uses air quotes) and you spend Saturday nights home washing his skid-mark undies? Please, realize you're just not that into him and move on.