If He's Not Asking You Out

In the beginning of the movie He's Just Not That Into You, the girls keep obsessing over why a guy is not asking a girl out. And it's in a few different languages with a lame excuse for each dialect. He's not asking you out because he's scared of your emotional maturity. He's not asking you out because he's intimidated by your professional success.

When I was a preteen, a classmate repeated to me these lines that she probably heard from a female adult mentor, maybe her mother or aunt or an older cousin. Men are intimidated by attractive, intelligent women. That's why they don't want to ask us out. So that was why the boys at our school were idiots who didn't show interest in her and me. Of course, this was before the days of books like "He's Just Not That Into You" and "Act Like a Lady, Think Like A Man" that made women wiser. I had plenty of years to date. I didn't sweat it at that young age.

As a thirtysomething woman, I don't understand why women would sweat it if a guy has never even asked them out. I've been out with girl friends and they will say to me, "That guy just smiled at you. He likes you. Why don't you go talk to him?" I leave that to the guy. I don't read too deeply into a smile. People smile all the time to be friendly. If a guy smiles at me, I don't automatically view him as a prospect just because a well-meaning girl friend tells me he likes me. It saves me a whole lot of disappointment.

Years ago when I was very naive about men and dating, I would construe little conversations as a sign that a guy was into me. I've graduated from that years ago. But when I was eighteen and immature, I had my whole life ahead of me and all the time in the world to dream about the impossible.

I met this attractive Yale University senior at a party when I was in my first year at a prestigious Massachusetts liberal arts college. I don't remember what brought him there, but I think he was visiting friends at my school. He approached me and we had a long talk about things 18 to 22 year olds find interesting. I've been removed from that age group so I don't exactly remember what about. He majored in some social science and I was debating between Economics and Latin American Studies, eventually settling on the former.

He walked me to my dorm and we talked the whole time. I enjoyed myself. I assumed he did, too. He then asked some students for directions to get back and bade me farewell.

I was on Cloud 9. There's something to say for women in their late teens through their twenties. They get so damn infatuated. So much that they think he's feeling it, too, even when there was nothing there to begin with.

My friend at school told me she had a friend at Yale who could help me track him down. It was like we were conspiring in a stalking mission. Before we embarked on what would have been an exercise in romantic futility, I told her I would pass.

But I continued to obsess over the Yale senior who I will call Yalie. He held my hand and walked me to my dorm. How sweet was it! I kept replaying it in my head. My brother told me to stop myself. If Yalie were really interested in me, Bro explained, he at least would have asked me for my phone number. Even if we were about two hours apart, Yalie would have taken it down so he could make plans with me on weekends if he were truly into me like I had hoped. That's elementary in dating basics.

My obsession with Yalie was so bad that it lingered on two months later after I had moved to a second dorm before the end of first semester. My new roommate, who I lived with for the remainder of the academic year and who I am still good friends with today, was the next victim on the receiving end of my unrealistic romantic ravings.

I had met this guy at a party in early September and had moved in with my second and last college roommate in early November. I tortured her with my desperation. During that time, Yalie could have begun dating someone in New Haven and been in a steady relationship. Two months is enough time for that to happen. And there I was still thinking about him, counting our grandkids that would never come into being. I never took it upon myself to stalk him to New Haven, but I sure fantasized about him. He was as unattainable as Brad Pitt, my Hollywood crush at the time.

My roommate repeated what my brother had been trying to get through my thick skull. "He goes to Yale. There are plenty of girls there for him to choose from. Forget about him," she told me. I eventually did.

I've come a long way since I was a stupid kid. As a rule of thumb, even if a guy asks me for my number I don't count on him calling me. I don't sweat whether or not he likes me unless and until I get that first phone call. I don't read into any conversations we have leading to the exchange of numbers. I will know offhand if he really likes me if he follows up and actually tries to make plans with me.

A few weeks ago, on the night before Hanukkah, I went to Four in Melville, NY to have dinner alone by choice. I'm independent. As an interesting side note, I heard on the radio years ago that if you go out alone you are highly likely to meet someone.

Speaking of which, I did meet someone at the restaurant that night. Landlord approached me sitting alone at my table and said that it was a shame I was dining by myself. I wanted to curse him out. I thought he was being condescending at first, but I'm a lady so I kept quiet. Besides, he would later on tell me he found me attractive.

When I was finished with my meal, I hailed the valet to bring my car over and went back inside the establishment to wait so I could avoid the cold. Landlord approached me again and we started chatting. He told me he owned a restaurant and some rental properties. I've been bullshitted so many times in my dating life I won't buy a guy's lines. He may or may not have been telling me the truth. I told him I had done foreclosures for the longest time but was now shifting my practice to Landlord Tenant matters.

He expressed to me his frustration at trying unsuccessfully to collect rent from his deadbeat tenants. And we engaged in some more small talk. We seemed to have a connection. With that, Landlord told me he would like to take me to dinner some time. I gave him my card and wrote my cell phone number on the back.

Sounded promising, right? Not so fast. I wasn't going to get myself all excited for nothing. I'd met countless men on the Long Island Railroad who asked for my number and never called. When was Hanukkah this past holiday season? Sundown on December 11? That's about right. This is early January, and I haven't heard from him. He probably got too busy with the holidays. Right? No. There is no such thing as "too busy" for a man who truly is interested in a woman. None whatsoever.

I'm not upset about it. Landlord just wasn't that into me. I can deal with that. At least he didn't take me out once or twice, tell me how much fun he had and how attracted he was to me and that he wanted to see me again and then blow me off. That would upset me. I didn't expect anything from him because he didn't even ask me out. It didn't go any further beyond that short encounter. No harm, no foul.

Women should not stress out over a guy not even asking them out to begin with. I wait to panic after he actually has asked me out. That's when the trouble starts for me. I get so excited because he's all over me and coddling me, telling me how into me he is. And then, without warning he makes excuses to avoid another date with me. In some cases he tells me he will see me again but never does. He doesn't have the balls to say outright that he's had a change of heart. And then my false hopes are dashed.

When a guy does that to you, that's when you stress. No, that's when you get seriously pissed off like I do and say, "What the fuck! Why couldn't he have told me he changed his mind back then so I wasn't following up with him for the next date he said we would have?"

It's a guy's perogative if he decides later that he doesn't want to be with me. But after he gets me all excited, he should tell me up front if he has had a change of heart. It's not rude for him to say that on second thought he doesn't think we'd work out.

But if he never asks me out, I assume he never liked me to begin with. Nothing was lost. I didn't expect anything. The ball hadn't begun to roll; it never was going to. I never had the opportunity to feel bitter.