Sun Tzu says: Know thy enemy

A discussion with a friend a couple of weeks ago prompted her to ask if I'd ever read He's Just Not That Into You. Actually, she asked if I believed the statements from that book. I hadn't read the book. Now I have.

First of all, it's written for women. I can tell because there are many shades of pink on the book jacket. I thought maybe there might be some acknowledgement that men might read it, but there isn't. The book did direct me to acknowledge myself as a girl who deserves good things, so after a few choruses of "I Feel Pretty," I was ready to continue reading.

The main author is a man who's advocating his basic philosophy: if a man isn't doing everything possible to get a woman's attention, then he's not really interested. In the context of this book, there seem to be two types of men. One is the type that gets exemplified in all the examples: the Bad Man. This seems to be everyone who doesn't call, doesn't date, doesn't respect, doesn't have sex as often as possible, does have sex often (but not with you), doesn't want to marry, doesn't believe in monogamy, eventually breaks up with you, etc.

Which leaves the other kind of man: the Not-Quite-As-Bad Man. I wanted to try using "Good," but I couldn't justify it, although "good" men are included in this group. This second group includes people like the author, a man who admits a philandering past, but is now happily married and willing to be brutally honest to women about what people like him think.

The book is entertaining. It's written in a quasi-textbook style, and since the author's day job is being a comedian, there are some choice lines. It also contains some good advice. Most important seems to be that if a guy is doing awful things to you (abuse, too much drinking, ignoring your feelings, weird excuses), then he's not someone that's worth trying to keep. Another is that it's better to be slightly pessimistic about relationships, rather than trying to be a sunshined optimist about everything, especially if things are going bad.

There's a lot of truth in this book. I feel that personally because I recognize much of what's said in my friends and my own personal experience from years before the 2004 publish date. That said, something about this book doesn't jive with me. And unfortunately, I can't put my thumb on it. Maybe it's the relegation of what I would call "good guys" to some mythical platform somewhere above the Elysian Fields. Maybe it's the horrible odds they give for finding a happy relationship.

I think it mostly has to do with the lack of patience that's being advocated. But I'll be honest, that's my personal hang-up; your mileage may vary. I think people aren't patient enough. Obviously, this doesn't go for truly awful relationships. For such cases, all possible speed is encouraged to extricate yourself. As in "We've found the edge of the Earth, and here there be dragons. Full astern."

I skimmed through a second time, reversing the genders. I pretended the book was written for man. Obviously, most of the common sense works just as well in the other direction, such as a breakup being an already-decided course of action, non-negotiable, and not a democratic decision. Other situations aren't quite as transferable. I know that some women abuse alcohol and their significant others, but it's not as common a problem as the reverse.

It seems to me that if you need a good self-esteem pick-me-up, this book might help to put you on the right track. It tries to get you to work towards concrete understanding in your relationships. But if you're already well-versed on the common sense of relationships, you probably won't find anything earth-shattering here.

In the end, if I try to disagree with any of the statements outlined against the behaviors of men, it starts to feel like arguing with Freud about sex. The harder I deny it, the more denial would be taken as a confirmation of guilt. If I attempt to say that not asking a woman out means that I'm not interested (see chapter 1), that is false (for me). But of course, I'm only one guy.

I've always had a tenuous perception of whether or not my behavior is the exception or the rule.