He's Just Not Into You...

This post has nothing to do with the book or the movie: I haven't even read the book, nor have I seen the movie, but I'm thinking that could possibly be an oversight on my part...

How many times do we just ignore the signs? They were there all along, but we convince ourselves otherwise. The power of positive thinking, right? If you believe it is so, then it must be…

My friend Jenn is amazing. She’s super friendly, intelligent and caring. I met her when I was a few years ago at a party. She is several years younger than I am, but that never seemed to make a difference. There was this group of about four of us that became very close friends during our week there. I have since lost touch with two of them – one on purpose – and have sporadic communication at best with the third. I have, however, managed to keep in touch with Jenn.

Despite* how wonderful Jenn is, she’s never been overly popular with men. She has some disabilities, and I could tell they made men nervous during the time I spent with her. It’s not right, but stuff like that does happen.

After Jenn finished her undergraduate degree, she decided to go to Law School. It was there that she met B. Good-looking, rich, popular, he was everything Jenn wasn’t.

And she, of course, fell for him.

In turn, he let her “help” him. With a bunch of his papers for school. Granted, when he got things published, he gave her accolades, but that’s currently beside the point. As they went through law school together, she essentially waited for him. And kept on waiting. She’s determined that he’s really in love with her and either doesn’t know it, or isn’t ready to face it yet. And because she believes she’s in love with him, she’s OK with that.

She used to tell me little things that he’d do or say that would make her go completely gaga over him, simple things that any decent male friend would be saying a female friend. At the time, I tried to gently tell her that I wasn’t as convinced that she and B would end up together as she was, but sometimes there is no convincing a woman in love. (Dang rose-colored glasses and all.)

One of the last full-fledged updates I got from her was in January. In it, she told me about how she’d finally stopped going after B, instead deciding that he was going to have to see what he was missing not having her in his life. As someone who was always around and there for him, he never had a chance to miss her or realize how much she meant to him.

I was proud of her decision when I first heard about it. It’s good to move on and this really would tell if B was into her or not. My hunch was still not, but I hoped I was wrong.

Then she told me she was sure her plan was working – all because of an extra hug out of the middle of nowhere one day.**

It’s so easy for me, someone looking at it from the outside, to say “He’s just NOT that into you.” Why, then, is it so hard for her to see it?

Same reason it’s hard for any of us to see it.

Maybe we don’t want to. Maybe we’re just in denial. Why? Because it’s easier to believe that he cares about us than to realize we fell in love with someone who won’t ever return the feeling. Whatever our individual reasons may be, we’ve all been there before. I just don’t want to do it again, because it’s somehow worse every time I do.

I had a male friend tell me one time “If you give a guy your phone number and he never calls, he’s just not interested. It’s that simple.” ***

You're probably rolling your eyes right now, thinking that's almost too simplistic, of course you knew that, but think back to the last time you met a great guy, thought you meshed well, you gave him your number ... and he never called. Yeah, that's what I thought.

It's that simple... and that complicated.

* Or perhaps because of? That’s a whole other topic for a different post though.

** Granted, B isn’t the hugging type from what she’s told me. So maybe for him to come up to her and give her a hug out of the blue really did mean something. I’m just not totally convinced.

*** We were actually talking about a girl in his life, but I thought the advice fit here.