I've watched with fascination as the Internet has been taken over by mentions of the movie "He's Just Not That Into You." While I admit to not having seen the movie, I have read the book, along with its companion piece, "It's Called A Break Up Because It's Broken" by the same author Greg Behrendt (and for what it's worth, feel that the break up book is better). I feel like I've already seen it multiple times thanks to the gazillion reviews I've seen through out the Web. It even made it into a Christian Bale rant re-mix!
The movie itself is problematic enough: a bunch of white people hanging out in 80% African American Baltimore, who still call each other on land lines and make what are almost anachronistic mentions to Myspace.
As if this group of educated white people would still have functional accounts on there! You know this group of fools would be using Facebook and communicating entirely on GChat.
My biggest problem with this phenomenon is the idea behind it, that the answer to all relationship problems is that a dude is "just not that into" me. It leaves no rooms for contingencies and exceptions and the kind of mind fuckery that can so often accompany male/female interactions.
It leaves no room for taking a chance and going after what you want, if every woman just gave up on dudes who were "just not that into" them, many relationships just wouldn't exist. The path to love (whether it lasts a few weeks or many years) isn't cut and dry.
And really, who cares if he's not into me, what if I'm just not that into him? The underlying idea behind "He's Just Not That Into You" is that the woman has no control and her relationship fate is solely decided by whether or not a guy is "into" her.
It is the same sexist crap that The Rules tried to sell women 10 years ago, but with better branding.
What scares me is the number of women who are going to think that just because these fools got a book deal, all of the experiences in the book will translate to your life. If you think pithy quotes are going to be applicable to everything that happens to you, you're in for a big surprise, lady.