Useless Advice Free to Friends

I went to see the movie "He's Just Not That Into You" last night.



Now I haven't read the book, so I may be entirely wrong.
But I thought that the book finally told women that it is time to face reality and to stop believing the lies half truths we're told we tell ourselves to make us feel better when men/potential partners don't call back or there is no second date.

I'm reminded of Jeff Goldblum's line from "The Big Chill" where he's talking about sex and rationalization. Where his retort to the statement
"Nothing's more important than sex." is "Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?"

So while the movie faces the hard to swallow facts that men don't call because:
* they lie
* you've blow up this one date into a huge fantasy to the point of marraige, while he just had a good time
* that he's just not that into you
* he just doesn't like you that way
* men can be shits and while it's nothing personal, it makes you feel like shit

it betrays the simple premise by ending up giving the audience the quintessential happy hollywood ending.

The woman who has lived with a man who won't marry her for seven years gets her proposal.

The woman who has talked herself into the fact that her male confidant and dating coach is in love with her, is really in love with her.

The married man leaves his wife for the woman he's dating on the side - well, his wife does finally throw him out, but the bottom line here is that he is free of his wife to pursue the woman on the side if he were to choose to.

The woman on the side gets her comeuppance by having to hide in the closet, while the married man and his wife have sex in the next room.

The narrator lives happily ever after with the guy who pines after the woman who is seeing someone else finally stops stringing him along. In this case, the guy is the victim of "She's just not that in to you"

The only truth here is the wife who has been cheated on finally faces the fact of her betrayal and that things aren't going to get better and dumps her husband who has cheated and lied to her in so many different ways.

It's a cop out.

Of course, if the happy endings of the story lines didn't happen, I'm sure that this lighthearted romantic comedy would be a real downer, but it would have been more true to what the message of the book was.

I once heard a comedian talk about the fact that you get 5% - the people you meet aren't going to suddenly have the lightbulb go off and suddenly change. The falacy of every woman who thinks believes that she is going to be the one to change the man -
turn the gay man straight
make the bad boy reform his evil ways
make the player be committed and monogomous
make the drinker stop drinking
make the drugee get clean

it's not going to happen. What you see is what you get. When you meet a person it is most likely that they aren't going to change for you. Maybe you'll get 5%, but anything beyond that is gravy. People are basically the same as they have been most their life. You are not going to be their savior. If they are going to change, they are going to do it for themselves, not because you turned on the lightbulb of self-discovery and they find themselves drawn zombie-like to do the right thing.

So as a movie "He's Just Not That Into You" was entertaining, but just like the rationalization and stories we are told to make us feel better we are warned against we should not expect to be the exception because in life, we really are the rule.

Sure it's not pretty, but very few of us get to live life in a Movie.

And while we all hate 513, it is more likely and realistic than the way He's Just Not That Into You ended.

Of course, in a movie or fanfic, we can write our own happy endings.