Warning: this post contains spoilers about the plot line of the film ‘He’s just not that into you’ (but realistically, you should have seen that film by now and if you haven’t, maybe this post will inspire you to give it a go!)

Dating is hard. In this generation in particular it is really bloody hard. As a 30+ year old woman who has spent about 85% of her adult life being a single desperate lady, I can say the dating world is tough. Dating app’s are even harder. But I will touch on the world of dating specifically in a variety of later posts I can promise you. But this post, is something I need to share with everyone about a particular film that I think anyone in my scenario (or even in relationships) needs to see, and take note of.

Ten years ago in 2009, an american chick flick was released with the gripping title ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’. I remember when it came out, a lot of friends were posting statuses about it, how good the trailers looked and also how if they went to see it, it was going to make them ‘understand men better’. Bit of an extreme expectation if you ask me, but the fact is, this film touches on numerous single and relationship scenarios in a lot of ways and to this day it is the most realistic film I’ve ever seen about dating.

It’s a well known fact about me that I’ll watch anything, I am mainly a horror, Star Wars, Tim Burton kind of girl but I am a sucker for a good romantic comedy or chick flick. Even though, I find myself frustrated with them a lot of the time – with this whole unrealistic kissing in the rain not being a complete mess, men and women chasing each other in airports, crashing their ‘true loves’ weddings, like seriously – we all need to sit back and acknowledge that these things just do not happen in real life. I personally, no matter how much I thought someone was the one for me would never go and crash their wedding to prove a point, you’ve got to let that shit go. But anyway, I’m sliding off the point here and that is this, to this day, even 10 years on from release, I still turn to this film every single time I need reminders when it comes to my dramatic love life and confusion with the opposite sex.

Now, it may seem like common sense and not something that we need to be reminded of over and over again, but seriously, we do. Because over the years I have learnt that we all like to live in a complete fantasy scenario. We are constantly making excuses for the opposite sex when they don’t call us back or reply to our messages within a few hours of us sending them. I’ve learnt that even my best friends do this to me, when I have guys constantly going quiet on me or not contacting me or seeing me when I want them to, my friends are always trying to make excuses for them and do the whole ‘Maybe he’s busy’ ‘Maybe he’s had an emergency’ etc etc. The first couple of minutes of the film ‘He’s just not that into you’ is basically a montage of a bunch of scenarios where women are telling each other different explanations as to why a man has rejected or dumped them, but as Gigi’s voiceover states we are just avoiding the obvious.

Gigi

Gigi is literally my hero. Because she’s me. Throughout the film, she is completely incapable of playing it cool. She runs after guys before they leave the bar to ask who’s calling who first, she keeps checking her phone for messages, she waffles on and on… I am basically the real life British equivalent of Gigi. My friends can vouch for that. Yes, Gigi finds her night in shining armor eventually, but not before finding herself in quite a few awkward rejection situations beforehand. But here is why, even though you could argue that, the film still has those ‘predictable plot lines’ where the guy that’s helping her out ends up being the one, I would argue that although you might have seen it coming, it is still pretty damn believable. Why? Because he doesn’t acknowledge it straight away, that he wants Gigi. Now this situation happens in every day life, I’ve seen it happen a lot. You have these friends who hang out a lot, have great chemistry, but one of them doesn’t actually realize they like them until they can’t have them anymore. And that is exactly what happens. Gigi leaves, he pines for her, and eventually goes to find her – he doesn’t run through airports, or crash dates, or anything OTT and unrealistic. He just simply turns up at her apartment to tell her he is an idiot and he likes her. Simple.

I’m not saying we all should date our friend that we always talk to about our love life… this is not an advertisement for friend-dating. It doesn’t work for everyone.

Gigi of course, is not the only person with a story in this film. There are numerous characters going through different struggles. There’s a married couple with issues – the wife is a bit of a nag I’ll be honest, but the husband (played by a yummy Bradley Cooper) is an arsehole who secretly smokes behind her back and cheats on her with Anna – possibly the most selfish person in the film (in my opinion), Anna basically not only has an affair with Ben knowing he’s married with the secret hope he’ll leave his wife for her, but when things get a bit pear shaped, she starts using her friend Conor – a cute little desperate male friend of hers who she has history with. Conor is like a male version of Gigi in this film, he will do ANYTHING for Anna to get her to hook up with him again, and Anna uses him to her advantage when things don’t work with Ben. Now, no-one’s perfect, and we’ve probably all had a situation or two where we may have hurt someone whether we intended to or not. No judging here. But there’s a lot of stuff going on in this film where there’s guys who don’t want to marry their long-term girlfriends, guys or girls not calling each other back, trying to read between the lines of whether someone likes you or not. It’s all really hard!

Bear in mind also, that this film was 10 years ago, before we even regularly used dating app’s like Bumble, Tinder, Hinge etc. Myspace is the site that gets a shout out in this film which shows how old it really is. Imagine if we had a film now about dating apps! But regardless of this, the film is still relevant. It still speaks volumes in a lot of ways. So in honour of this film being in my life for 10 years, helping me along the way here are the things I’ve learnt in life from this film, that I think is good for anyone to touch down on..

There are rules and exceptions to rules: People tend to always treat people the same way when they don’t give a shit, they only change for the one, or who they feel is the one. Think about it – when you’re scrolling through your dating app’s or having different people express an interest in you, they’re not that bad but you’re not fussed either way – you’re going to treat all of them in the same way. But when there’s someone you really like, you will, without even realizing you’re doing it: always act differently. And you need to recognize when the roles reversed and someone isn’t making an effort for you.

Communication is NOT difficult: No matter how busy you say you are, we all will always have time to check our phones. I’m sorry but unless there is a life-threatening situation, this is the truth. No one is separated from their phone or PC for more than a day without valid reason. We prioritize what we do on our phones when we use them, and your crush is the same. If they are not calling you back or messaging you.. it is not because something came up (obviously be reasonable with your time limit we’re talking about 24 hours not 24 minutes), it is because you are not a priority to them and they are not bothered if they talk to you or not.

Don’t give up hope: Regardless of how many times you get rejected, or kicked to the curb, don’t be too cynical when it comes to dating. It’s hard to feel positive about dating outcomes when you are rejected all the time (Believe me, I KNOW!) but not every person you date is the same. Have faith in dating and most importantly yourself.

If your love interest is already invested in someone else, run: Now I don’t care if they look like your celebrity crush, or they are a celebrity or that they tell you everything you want to hear. This may seem like an obvious statement to make but you’d be surprised how common these situations are. I myself, shamefully have been in Anna’s position before where a guy in a relationship has told me everything I want to hear and I fall for the BS (this was many many years ago and I have learnt from my mistake). It’s easy for us to get lost in a fantasy and when someone is giving us all the lines we want to hear, we fall for them and hope it’s meaningful, it doesn’t help that half of the romantic comedies and chick flicks we obsess over actually involve people cheating on each other all the time ‘because they’re in love’ but we have to separate fact from fiction. If the person you want is with someone else, they literally have no intention of leaving them for you. If they did, they would have done it. It’s that simple. If you allow them to see you and do the things they want to do with you behind their partners back, I’m telling you they will literally have their cake and eat it. Once the novelties died with you, they will still be with their lover, and not you. Or hey, eventually they might get found out and leave their love for you but can you really trust them not to do the same to you? I mean, this is a flexible topic I know because there are cases where people have left their partners because they’ve fallen for other people, fine, you can’t control how you feel but it’s more respectful for your partner to turn round to you one day and say ‘I don’t love you anymore’ than it is for you to find out they’ve been dating someone else behind your back before they came to this conclusion. Right?

It is OK to be on your own: Just because everyone you know may be happily settled down and you’re not, doesn’t mean that that’s a bad thing. Sometimes your happy ending is just you. Being on your own. It happens to be the ending for one of the characters in the film, where they pick up the pieces and start fresh, I have so much respect for that being one of the endings because I think that this sort of thing is SO important in films these days. We watch so many films where people constantly end up with each other and it can make us feel like there’s something wrong with us because we can’t be on our own. There is nothing wrong with any of us singletons. We’re on our own because it’s right for us right now.

I feel like this quote was the perfect way to end this post.

Again, if you have not seen the film – you can download it or buy it literally anywhere, I highly recommend it. Also, you can read the book that the film is loosely based on with the same title. I have read that myself on a few occasions and it’s very on point.

(The book is by Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccillo).