{rheality.check}

I’m going to take a page out of Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccillo’s “He’s Just Not That Into You” because after a recent night out it made me think that women are not the only ones that need to get the memo. In fact, I’d rather take the female approach and have someone stress out and wait for a phone call from me than to persistently pursue me when I’m not interested. Not all of these scenarios listed are ones that are applicable to my present life, but a few did just come up in the last week. And all of them are things that I have not only personally experienced but also have discussed with several of my friends and we all agree are incredibly annoying to deal with.

She’s just not that into you if…

• she hasn’t called you back and you’ve called more than once.
• you texted her more than once and have gotten no response.
• you met her when she was out with someone else and she’s not calling you back.
• she told you she is seeing someone.
• she’s busy every time you want to go out.
• she calls/chats online all the time but can’t make time to see you in person.
• she goes home with you but doesn’t give you her phone number in the morning. (Yes, girls do this, too).
• she won’t say yes when you ask her to marry you and you’ve asked multiple times.
• she doesn’t want you to meet her friends.

I know girls can play hard to get. It’s true, we all do it at some point but seriously, stop calling. If we like you, I promise we’ll call you back. Yes, persistence can be a good thing. But calling every day when we aren’t responding back is just annoying.

Also as a good feminist, if I like someone, I don’t need you to ask me out. Yes it is always nice to have someone else ask you out because that whole pressure of rejection is taken away from you but honestly, not necessary. If I’m really interested, I’ll ask you out (which I realize may not be true for all women but I promise they will drop enough leading hints for you to get it). I have more faith in both men and women than both Greg and Liz, if you really like the person it doesn’t matter who asks whom out, you’ll be fine in the long run.

And let’s face it, we don’t need some arcane rules to tell us how we should be dating. In fact, we don’t need people to tell us how to “snag that girl/guy of your dreams”. Use some common sense. Treat the person you want to date the way you’d like to be treated, I think that’s a good cardinal rule. For example:

• Would you want someone to call you every day for a week if you weren’t interested?
  No. Then don’t do it to someone else!
• Would you want someone to ignore you and talk to their friends that happened to pass by when you’re on a date with them?
  No. Then don’t do it to someone else!

It’s amazing what a little common sense can do in the dating arena. Now if all you’re looking to do is hook up then obviously none of these things matter. But I promise calling every day will just make you look pathetic. Don’t do it. No one wants to sleep with someone whose desperate.

Ok, so I haven’t read the book. I’m only judging the movie… currently. I may read the book because while I liked the movie as being your typical “chick-flick-feel-good-everything-turns-out-great-in-the-end” kind of movie, I take issue with the entire concept of a book and/or movie that feels the need to tell women “he’s just not that into you”. That being said I do love your typical chick flick so needless to say I did enjoy the film even though I do have some critiques of the premise. Warning: there are spoilers ahead – not big ones but if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to know anything about it, don’t read this post.

For one, I’d like to believe that we are not that stupid. It’s not like women truly don’t know when a man “is just not into” them. Sometimes people choose to believe things that are irrational. And let’s face it women aren’t the only ones. Walking out of that film my friend and I were thinking the exact same thing: why isn’t there a book/movie called “she’s just not that into you”? Honestly to be so presumptuous as to think that the female population actually needs a book called “he’s just not that into you” really bothers me. Personally, I’d like to give us a bit more credit because the female population of the world is honestly not that stupid. In fact, I’d say we are better at reading cues than our male counterparts.

Now one of the issues I had with the movie was that what it seems the premise would be is that we are not the exception but rather the rule. So if a man isn’t calling you back or whatever that he’s just not that into you. Granted I think that’s just common sense but that’s neither here nor there. But what I found to baffling is that everyone found some sort of happy ending. And really, most of the women ended up being the exception and not the rule, which I thought was rather sad if this movie was supposed to be “different”. Or perhaps, I just need to lower my expectations.

I have to say one of my favourite parts of the movie was when Drew Barrymore goes off on a rant about how dating these days is just so confusing because there’s myspace, email, twitter, texting, your work phone, your cell phone and your home phone, if you still have one of those. Technology really has made dating a completely different game and she did leave off my most favourite form of confusion which would be facebook. I find that technology can just make dating far more difficult than it really needs to be. I also find that being able to “stalk” your crush online to be a bit tricky to handle because I mean what is the dating etiquette of when to contact the person you’re interested and how or why.

On a completely unrelated sidenote, I just realized that Holi (the Hindu festival of colors) was on my birthday this year and I totally missed it. What a bummer. That would’ve been the best way to celebrate my birthday ever. (Not that my birthday wasn’t great, it was the best one in my recollection so far).

DIRECTIONS:
- Go to Google image search.
- Type in your answer to each question.
- Choose a picture
- Use this website ( http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php ) to make your collage.
- Save the image for use in this note.
- Post and tag all your friends.

QUESTIONS:
1. What is your name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your hometown?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. What is your favorite movie?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What is one word to describe yourself?
10. How are you feeling right now?
11. What do you love most in the world?
12. What do you want to be when you grow up?

You know people talk about the law as if it were a black and white issue when in reality there are so many varying shades of gray that it is sometimes impossible to fathom all the possible outcomes of any one case. Just last week I was reading an article about the pressure that our lovely new fearless leader is facing because he doesn’t know who to support on an issue of partner benefits for federal employees. Well, the state of California recognizes these couples as legally married same-sex couples who should be able to have benefits for their partners but because of DOMA that isn’t true federally. Now I’m not a lawyer and I don’t necessarily understand all of the legal jargon that goes with this but I will say that I think it is problematic when states are allowed a certain type of behaviour while the federal government will go and contradict them. This is not to say that I agree with the federal government (in this case… and come to think of it most cases, I tend to favor what they are doing in California) but it still causes problems within the legal system of this country. Even if the law is not black and white it is still supposed to provide some sort of guideline to allow for equal rights for our citizens. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is doing such a great job of that right now.

I sincerely hope that President Obama will take this seriously enough to understand that he did campaign on some very serious promises for change and I understand that the financial crisis may be taking precedent right now that does not mean that this is something that can be avoided or left unaddressed. Personally I am thrilled that there are some judges who are willing to say what Judge Reinhardt did. This one bit of the article really struck me as something I wish more people would consider:

Judge Reinhardt confronted the question differently, and concluded that the Defense of Marriage Act, as applied to Mr. Levenson’s request, was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment guarantee of “due process of law.”
“A bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot provide a rational basis for governmental discrimination,” Judge Reinhardt wrote.
In adopting the Defense of Marriage Act, Congress said the government had a legitimate interest in “defending and nurturing the institution of traditional heterosexual marriage.”
But Judge Reinhardt said the denial of benefits to same-sex spouses would not encourage gay men and lesbians to marry members of the opposite sex or discourage same-sex marriages.
“So the denial cannot be said to nurture or defend the institution of heterosexual marriage,” the judge wrote.

I’m starting to wonder if perhaps my view of relationships might be a bit skewed. I’ve gotten a few different opinions from several friends and I thought I saw a trend for a while about how they view exclusivity but I am now at a complete loss because it seems to be completely random. Personally, I find dating to be stressful enough as it is without trying to decipher how to approach exclusivity much less assumptions made about exclusivity.

One thing I find particularly interesting is that there are quite a few people that I’ve spoken to who believe that if you have been seeing someone for a period of time and have been “staying over” at each other’s places then the assumption would be that you are exclusive. Now, I don’t think that it would be out of the question that most likely, you are being exclusive, but at the same time to assume that the person you are seeing is on the same page as yourself is fairly severe assumption. At least in my opinion it is. I suppose this is partially due to the fact that (hypothetically) if my significant other hadn’t asked to be exclusive or if I hadn’t asked then I would assume that should I meet someone that would like to go on a date, I would have no problem accepting. Granted for the most part when I am at that stage, I don’t tend to be looking out for anyone else and I doubt I would accept an offer from someone else but I also don’t think it is something that can be assumed. Perhaps it is just that I like to be deliberate about knowing where things stand.

So just this morning I decided to wear heels to work, which I have been protesting for several months partially because of the snow but more so because it is really quite difficult to stand on the bus/train in heels. It’s not the most pleasant feeling for your feet. What really irritates me are men (or boys, whatever you want to call them) who will jump in in front of you just to be able to get the one available seat. Seriously, you can see me walking into the train in heels but you are going to race me for the one available seat? How does that make sense? Also whatever happened to chivalry. Does it only exist in Texas? I know for a fact when I go back home that men will open doors and offer a seat to a lady before they would ever dream of rushing in to take a seat themselves. So, now that I don’t live in Texas, it is always a debate in the morning, do I want to wear heels and risk having to stand for 30mins in a train or a bus just to get to work. Because let’s face it if I’m going to wear heels to the office I’m not going to change into them, I’d have to start and end the day with them. It’d be a shame to only wear them in the office. And so the perpetual dilemma fashion over practicality? I mean as much as I love my dress flats/ballet flats, they just don’t have the same elegance of a beautiful pair of heels. But I also like my feet to not want to kill me by the end of the day… or even the morning after one of those train rides.