Dear Lisa,

Many of my girlfriends are recommending a book called He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt, Liz Tuccillo (the authors are two writers of the popular show, 'Sex in the City'), but then I have been hearing about guys whose girlfriends are actually breaking up with them over it and I wondered what you thought about it.

Curious,

Beth

Hi Beth,

Well, to be honest, I have not read it so I cannot personally comment, but I can tell you what people have told me about it, which is that it has a lot of surface and contrived dating advice that suggests that women should expect men to take the initiative in the dating scene and that if they don't go out of their way for you then he must not truly care about you. Apparently Behrendt says things like... women should NEVER call a man or ask any man out first. Smells of stupidity to me.

I mean good grief, if I had waited for my shy husband to have taken the initiative we'd probably still be chatting about the weather.

I have to say that part of why I have not and will not read a book like this is because while I liked the show "Sex In The City" and found it quite funny at times, I would not have used it for dating advice!

Many books like this (such as The Rules by Ellen Fein & Sherrie Schneider) tend to be about highly surface goals which is to "land a man," not a complex, genuine, honest relationship.

I believe in the rule of thumb that "like attracts like," meaning that if you are manipulative or playing games then you will attract men like that. If you are confident and authentic then I believe you will be more likely to attract the same and will be easily able to spot it if it is right in front of you. Just my thoughts on the idea of such a book, and would love to add comments from you or anyone else that may read it.

Best,
Lisa