If Books Could Kill - July 31, 2025


He's Just Not That Into You

Topics
calling when he says will
Malcolm Gladwell's ＂Blink＂ Thomas Chatterton Williams' ＂Summer of Our Discontent＂

Episode Stats


Length

59 minutes

Words per minute

208.83

Word count

12,492

Sentence count

589

Harmful content

Misogyny

51

sentences flagged

Toxicity

199

sentences flagged

Hate speech

87

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 I just ordered a beverage center, which is what they're calling mini fridges, fancy mini fridges.
00:00:06.760 You call them beverage centers?
00:00:08.060 I feel like maybe what's happening is that they realize that if you say mini fridge that people will be like, well, then why is it $2,000?
00:00:15.780 Is it like Wi-Fi enabled or some shit and it like reports to you when you need like white cloth?
00:00:20.760 So first of all, some of them are. 0.60
00:00:22.480 Why would you want that on anything? 0.95
00:00:24.600 I get a fucking push note notification when my dehumidifier fills up. 0.94
00:00:28.220 but anyway you're like but i will say they are in of them in a vacuum cool like it's got different 0.97
00:00:34.680 temperature controls for the different levels the bottom level is a wine rack and so like
00:00:38.800 there's a little wine rack and then there's stuff for your sodas and beers are you talking 0.99
00:00:43.380 yourself into getting this oh no i already got it really you spent $1,500 on a fucking mini fridge 0.99
00:00:51.720 it's not just the mini fridge oh my god you can put something that's like out of place garbage 0.98
00:00:57.280 looking or you can get something decent and it's really expensive that's basically the choice they
00:01:01.580 put in front of you i have been recording this whole time i'm putting this segment in the show
00:01:04.600 unedited feel free people should know that i'm bougie you know they by now if you don't know 0.84
00:01:11.180 by now he moves to new jersey look what happens to him the brands and shit they had like by the 0.74
00:01:16.740 way we have oh my god we moved in there's a drawer microwave you know the kind of like you it's like 0.93
00:01:22.580 in the lower part of the cabinet and you like press a button and it comes out like a drawer
00:01:25.720 what i didn't even know this existed this is big in our area um breaks like day one every time i
00:01:32.140 pass like the microwave section at trader joe's i'm like that'd be nice but yeah it's not the
00:01:36.800 life i live anymore which by the way i have to say like oh my god you keep saying by the way
00:01:41.560 we've been doing this for 45 minutes fine let's go let's go zing us zing us zing us i'm socially 0.99
00:01:46.860 deprived you're postponing because we now have to talk about this stupid fucking book 0.99
00:01:49.740 all right yeah but what is my zinger well you could have spent 45 minutes thinking of one 0.99
00:01:57.300 don't pretend the whole 45 minutes was a waste michael i think it was great we caught up a
00:02:01.520 little bit we talked about merch we had we had some good chats you're just you're just upset
00:02:06.220 that you're learning about my life and you don't care about it no i'm upset that i learned about
00:02:09.280 a whole new appliance category a fake appliance category two drawer my graves and beverage
00:02:13.780 all right let's do it let's do it all right peter michael what do you know about he's just not that
00:02:21.440 into you all i know is that this is the first book we've done where the title is advice that
00:02:27.080 every single person in my life needs to hear
00:02:30.180 usually we start the episode by saying the full title of the book but the full title of this book
00:02:48.520 has changed when it first came out in 2004 it was called he's just not that into you colon
00:02:54.300 your daily wake-up call uh-huh and then in association with the movie in 2009 it was
00:03:00.900 re-released as he's just not that into you colon the no excuses truth to understanding guys okay
00:03:07.200 it is by greg barrent and liz tachillo two writers on the show sex in the city before we get into
00:03:15.640 this we have to talk a little bit about my like existential crisis with this episode you had an
00:03:20.600 existential crisis doing blink because you were like this is like actually kind of a good book
00:03:24.980 we might have to just like learn something on the show yeah my core problem with this is that
00:03:30.100 this book is not bad enough to dunk on but it's not good enough to learn anything it's in the
00:03:36.700 sort of 60 degree day category yeah so i do still have 74 pages of notes but i'm not like this might
00:03:42.640 not be a classic if folks could kill episode tune out folks you know they say good albums are like
00:03:46.800 no skips this might be a skip way back when we talked about this book and all we knew about it
00:03:53.460 was the title and all i could think and all you could think was like that's definitely some advice
00:03:58.840 that some people need to hear it's very reasonable advice for a very specific scenario yes and so my
00:04:04.580 idea for this episode which you rejected was we solicit people's relationship problems
00:04:12.840 and weave them in and then you know someone is like hey this guy said that he wanted to meet 0.60
00:04:21.500 me at the restaurant and then he never came and then he texted me that i'm a bitch should i
00:04:25.600 see him tomorrow and then we're just like girl no but that's why they want to do it is because 0.62
00:04:32.900 there's no way to do that without becoming the thing that you're critiquing folks sound off in
00:04:36.920 the comments do you want that episode i know you do it was sort of inevitable that we would cover
00:04:41.900 this book because this is one of the most popular dating books of the 2000s. It became a, I guess,
00:04:47.520 popular movie. It sold a million copies. The authors were on Oprah four times. We had to
00:04:52.520 cover it eventually. People are always requesting it. And the only thing that is interesting about
00:04:57.560 this book is that for what it is, right, it's a pithy phrase. It is advice that is reasonable in
00:05:04.420 a very narrow range of circumstances, but would be ridiculous if you tried to universalize it.
00:05:08.920 this book is basically as good as it can be. I think first of all, it starts with a correct
00:05:15.060 premise. If you're in the early stages of seeing somebody and you're getting quote unquote mixed
00:05:20.420 signals, they're probably not mixed signals. The person is probably just kind of meh about you.
00:05:25.680 It's better to just assume that this person is not a great match for you and you should move
00:05:29.660 on to somebody else. I think that's like completely reasonable. The other good thing about it is that
00:05:33.320 like the authors of the book do not pretend to have any insight or expertise. Like the sort of
00:05:39.340 running joke throughout the book is like, we're just two random people giving you advice. You
00:05:43.220 shouldn't listen to us. They're not pretending this is like clinical advice. Yeah. I also feel
00:05:48.080 like it's probably pretty weird for them because it sounds like they are television writers and
00:05:53.560 comedians who came up with this idea. They were like, this is marketable, right? Someone was like,
00:05:59.500 you should write a book. And they were like, yeah, let's write a book. And then all of a sudden
00:06:02.900 you're on oprah pretending to be a dating expert exactly nothing like that's ever happened to us
00:06:08.040 but i could see our careers spiraling out of control like that based on the pre-zing segment
00:06:13.540 of this episode peter you're about to become an appliance guru that's right you're about to start
00:06:17.640 giving kitchen advice ask me about any appliance i'll tell you how much it costs the other but the
00:06:24.040 the other thing that i think is responsible about this book is that like obviously the he's just not
00:06:27.940 that into you concept is like a very narrow piece of advice but also the book does not try to
00:06:32.740 universalize it yeah it doesn't have a chapter on he's just not that into you in politics he's just
00:06:37.740 not that into you at work here's how he's just not that into you explains the fall of the soviet
00:06:41.940 union it's giving simplistic generic advice but at least it sort of seems to know that it's giving
00:06:47.700 simplistic generic advice and not pretending that this is going to like become a phrase that you use
00:06:52.500 in other areas of your life i got really distracted there because you said it's giving and i thought
00:06:56.660 you're using it in like the gen z way it's giving i thought you were being like it's giving a
00:07:02.180 simplistic advice you know not you giving simplistic advice and then the other thing
00:07:08.180 that i like about it and this is more i think subtle it doesn't give any self-improvement tips
00:07:14.140 like it's geared at women but it doesn't say like here's how to lose 10 pounds or here's how to act
00:07:19.060 on a date so that he likes you that's actually that's pretty cool it's literally just like if 0.99
00:07:22.760 a guy sucks, walk away. Yeah. Respect yourself, hon. I like that. And so compared to like, 0.98
00:07:27.120 for example, the rules, which was like, pretend that he's funny so that he likes you or like
00:07:32.080 all these weird manipulation tactics. Every time I walk back through the catalog of like
00:07:37.520 dating advice books on this show, we're talking about the game, the rules, the Steve Harvey book
00:07:44.600 and this. And men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Oh my God. I mean, this is such a clear
00:07:49.000 winner just based on the title alone. Although, Peter, I think one thing I should stress is that
00:07:53.240 I'm giving this book a lot of credit. This book is as good as a book like this can be. However,
00:07:59.200 it is very bad. It's an abysmal book. So we are going to dive into the introduction of the book.
00:08:08.940 We begin in the writer's room for Sex and the City. The writer's room at the time was seven
00:08:16.780 women two gay men and greg the only straight guy in the room king keep repping brother and so
00:08:23.420 they're sitting around talking about dating dilemmas apparently a lot of the plot lines on
00:08:26.700 the show came out of the female writers like actual sort of dating peccadillo's in new york 0.97
00:08:30.760 and greg's just sitting there the whole time being like are you fucking kidding me ladies 0.52
00:08:33.920 this is exactly what happens so one woman is describing like a guy that she went on a date 0.95
00:08:38.860 with and she's she's doing this thing of like i'm getting mixed signals he said this but i don't
00:08:42.340 know and and the women in the in the room are doing this thing that i think is very typical
00:08:46.000 of friends when you're like describing your dating problems they're like oh my god you're
00:08:49.900 so fabulous he like totally likes you he's just like afraid or like he's not calling because like
00:08:54.180 he's worried about intimacy you're like they're kind of making excuses for this guy right you're
00:08:57.700 trying to be nice to your friend but actually you're pushing them further into a shitty dynamic
00:09:03.360 we finally get to uh greg's advice so why don't here i'll send this to you why don't i be the
00:09:09.320 woman and you can be greg that makes sense i knew you were gonna make a little quip there so she
00:09:14.500 says, Greg, you're a guy. She's very observant, this one, for I am indeed a guy. So I've been
00:09:20.300 seeing this guy. Well, I think I have. I know the answer. See, we went to a movie and it was great.
00:09:25.800 I mean, he didn't hold my hand, but that's cool. I don't like to hold hands. Still know the answer.
00:09:30.480 But afterward, he kissed me in the parking lot. So I asked if he wanted to come over,
00:09:34.420 but he had a really important meeting in the morning, so he didn't come over. So I ask,
00:09:38.340 have you heard from him? Well, that's the thing. This was like a week ago. And then today he emails
00:09:43.200 me and is like, why haven't I heard from you? This superstar of a woman is confused about a 0.99
00:09:47.340 situation that to me is so clear. Actually, confused is the wrong word because she's too 0.92
00:09:51.720 smart for that. She's hopeful, not confused. But the situation is hopeless. So I break the news to
00:09:56.960 her. He's just not that into you. It's the name of the book. He said it. And let me tell you,
00:10:01.920 that's the good news because wasting time with the wrong person is just time wasted. And when
00:10:07.220 you do move on and find your right person, believe me, you're not going to wish you had gotten to
00:10:11.380 Spend more time with Stinky the Time Waster or Freddy Can't Remember to Call.
00:10:15.800 This is apparently in the room seen as like a revelation.
00:10:20.000 And this is why you need straight men in the writer's room.
00:10:23.320 Exactly.
00:10:23.760 We need to be at the table.
00:10:24.760 So this then becomes a plot line on Sex and the City.
00:10:28.900 So we are going to watch it.
00:10:32.200 So he kissed me goodnight at the door.
00:10:35.120 I invited him up.
00:10:36.220 He couldn't because he had an early meeting.
00:10:38.300 We kissed again.
00:10:39.040 and he said he'd call two kisses very promising you think even though he didn't come up definitely
00:10:45.840 it means he likes you but he wants to take it slow that's nice burger what do you think
00:10:50.620 really want to know please i would love to have a man's opinion for a change all right i'm not 0.99
00:10:56.980 gonna sugarcoat it for you he's just not that idiot boom that's not true don't listen to him 0.99
00:11:03.740 Oh, no, no. I'm intrigued. Elaborate. 1.00
00:11:06.740 God, the way they talk.
00:11:07.740 Look, I'm sorry, but when a guy's really into you, he's coming upstairs, meeting or no meeting. 0.93
00:11:12.740 Oh, that is ludicrous. What about extenuating circumstances?
00:11:17.740 What about you're stressed out, you're on deadline, you have a migraine?
00:11:20.740 Or a lot of guys are afraid of getting their feelings hurt, and they don't want to ruin a friendship.
00:11:26.740 Or they're freaked out by their own feelings? There's a lot of push-pull out there, a lot of mixed messages.
00:11:32.740 Yeah, I'd have to say that's all code for he's just not that in here.
00:11:36.780 I'm sorry, but with guys, it's very simple.
00:11:38.880 If we're into you, we're coming upstairs.
00:11:40.560 We're booking the next date.
00:11:42.100 There are no mixed messages.
00:11:44.360 No mixed messages, but I've spent my whole life deciphering mixed messages.
00:11:49.860 I've made a whole career of it.
00:11:52.000 Wow, he's just not that into me.
00:11:56.620 It really, this scene really feels like it was written by a man.
00:11:59.600 Yeah.
00:11:59.860 Where all of the women are like, wow, this man is so wise. 0.96
00:12:02.380 Yeah, you're trying to, they're trying to introduce the idea that women are overthinking it and men have this insight into our own actions that would blow the female mind if it had access to it.
00:12:15.420 And you also see the kind of the essentialism that we're going to get more into where he's like, if he likes you, he's coming upstairs. 0.53
00:12:23.280 And like, I am 43.
00:12:24.700 If it is past like 930, I'm not coming upstairs.
00:12:27.660 That has nothing to do with whether or not I'm into you.
00:12:29.660 That's like, I'm sleepy.
00:12:30.960 that part that part i think is a little silly although he said like he's booking the next date
00:12:35.900 like if i'm into somebody i'll be like oh i don't want to come upstairs but like what are you doing
00:12:38.500 next wednesday this guy's like hey i have a job and he's like i don't think so dude i don't think
00:12:43.220 so so according to liz she then says that this this insight is so deep that greg should spin this
00:12:50.160 into a book so then a couple years later we get the book he's just not that into you and we're
00:12:57.140 just gonna talk a little bit about the structure of it because this book like all of our books is
00:13:01.540 like mostly filler it's very obvious that we have learned the lesson that can be gleaned from this
00:13:06.860 book at this point in the in the two minute scene that we just watched you really don't need anything
00:13:11.000 else the whole lesson is like in the early stages of a relationship if a guy is showing signs of
00:13:18.020 disinterest then he's disinterested right like and don't don't over don't overthink it one of
00:13:22.280 the things he doesn't say in the book but i think is a useful way to think about this is that like
00:13:26.660 if you think of the people that you have not been into in your life yeah this actually like falls
00:13:31.140 into place really easily right yeah some people just not that into it's not that they did anything
00:13:34.520 wrong right and also it might not be a hundred percent disinterest it's just sort of like yeah
00:13:39.960 they're fine you know so the way that the book is structured is every chapter is a reason that
00:13:47.280 he's just not that into you so chapter one is he's just not that into you dot dot dot if he's
00:13:52.500 not asking you out. Okay. Greg writes the bulk of the book. So Greg starts with like a little
00:13:57.900 opening paragraph. Many women have said to me, Greg, men run the world. Wow. That makes us sound
00:14:03.580 pretty capable. So tell me, why would you think we could be incapable of something as simple as
00:14:08.280 picking up the phone and asking you out? You seem to think at times that we're too shy or we just
00:14:13.700 got out of something. Let me remind you, men find it very satisfying to get what they want,
00:14:18.540 particularly after a difficult day of running the world if we want you we will find you that's like
00:14:24.300 the little kind of manifesto of the chapter 80 of this book so the rest of the chapter is a series
00:14:30.520 of letters from women who are having dilemmas so like dear greg here's my dilemma and then
00:14:36.540 he answers them but it says in the foreword to the book that these letters are fake so greg is
00:14:43.240 writing hypothetical letters from women writing to him because he's not a dating guru at this time
00:14:48.100 right before the book comes out.
00:14:49.160 So people are not writing him letters
00:14:50.320 being like, dear Greg.
00:14:51.800 Right.
00:14:52.100 This isn't like where Steve Harvey
00:14:54.020 has a radio show
00:14:55.180 where he can pull examples from.
00:14:57.520 Yeah.
00:14:57.760 But I will say,
00:14:58.940 based on the examples
00:15:00.280 from Steve Harvey's radio show,
00:15:02.960 whatever Greg can make up
00:15:04.680 is less embarrassing
00:15:06.200 than the reality of human existence.
00:15:09.300 So for this episode, 0.91
00:15:10.300 I will be the women. 0.90
00:15:12.280 I will be the letter writers.
00:15:13.780 And you can be Greg,
00:15:15.080 giving me no nonsense advice.
00:15:16.420 We won't be doing any subversion, folks.
00:15:19.640 No, exactly.
00:15:20.180 No, we're just fully, we're leaning into it.
00:15:21.760 We're doing it.
00:15:22.560 The first letter is, this is titled the, maybe he doesn't want to ruin the friendship excuse.
00:15:28.620 She says, dear Greg, I have this friend that I've known platonically for about 10 years.
00:15:33.240 He lives in a different city and recently he was in town for work.
00:15:35.900 So we met for dinner.
00:15:36.920 All of a sudden it felt like we were on a date.
00:15:38.840 He was completely flirting with me.
00:15:40.540 He even said to me as he was checking me out, so what, you're working the whole model thing
00:15:44.600 now?
00:15:45.280 We both agree that we should get together soon.
00:15:47.500 Well, Greg, I'm disappointed because it's been two weeks and he hasn't called me.
00:15:51.240 Can I call him?
00:15:52.300 He might be nervous about turning the friendship into romance.
00:15:55.160 Can I give him a nudge?
00:15:56.460 And then here's Greg.
00:15:58.540 Greg like makes up like a mean little nickname for all of the women that he makes up.
00:16:03.960 Dear friendly girl.
00:16:05.280 Boom. 0.98
00:16:05.840 Got her.
00:16:06.300 He's just not that into you.
00:16:07.860 Here's the truth. 0.99
00:16:09.000 Guys don't mind messing up a friendship if it could lead to sex, whether it be a fuck 0.89
00:16:12.420 buddy situation or a meaningful romance. 0.97
00:16:14.920 Go find someone that lives in your zip code who will be rocked to the core by your deep conversation and model looks.
00:16:20.840 I hate to tell you, but that whole I don't want to ruin the friendship excuse is a racket.
00:16:24.980 It works so well because it seems so wise.
00:16:27.240 Sex could mess up a friendship.
00:16:29.200 Unfortunately, in the entire history of mankind, that excuse has never, ever been used by someone who actually means it.
00:16:35.740 If we're friends with someone and attracted to them, we're going to want to take it further.
00:16:40.100 And please, don't tell me he's just scared.
00:16:42.240 the only thing he's scared of and i say this with a lot of love is how not attracted to you
00:16:47.280 it's a little mean at the end you didn't really have to you didn't really have to do that even
00:16:52.240 though this person does not exist i feel like it's a little condescending to be like you know
00:16:58.040 you've got model looks and deep conversation uh however he thinks you're busted 0.98
00:17:02.960 he does stack the deck sometimes sometimes he writes like the dumbest email imaginable and 1.00
00:17:10.900 And he's like, you're pretty dumb. 1.00
00:17:12.920 He's like, yeah, Greg. 1.00
00:17:13.960 It's a fake person.
00:17:15.260 He's just, this is sort of, this is the equivalent of like a political TikTok where they straw 1.00
00:17:21.940 man the dumbest fucking political opponent. 1.00
00:17:25.000 And like, and you can just watch them as they're doing it, get angry at this person who doesn't 1.00
00:17:29.000 exist.
00:17:29.580 There's one later in the book where he says, are we really having this conversation?
00:17:32.960 No, Greg.
00:17:33.960 No, we're not having this conversation.
00:17:35.700 You're alone in your room, Greg, and you're writing.
00:17:38.440 So then we're not going to read it.
00:17:39.620 But there's a letter from a woman who has a crush on her gardener and she's like, maybe
00:17:43.200 he just doesn't want to bring sex into like a professional relationship.
00:17:47.200 And then Greg is like, regardless of like sexual harassment rules, if a guy wants to 1.00
00:17:51.240 fuck you, he'll try to fuck you. 1.00
00:17:52.760 I also don't think is true. 1.00
00:17:54.980 First of all, I don't think that every gardener who like sees a woman he wants to fuck is 0.96
00:17:59.240 going to give it a whirl in the professional context. 0.99
00:18:01.620 You know what I mean? 1.00
00:18:02.140 Second of all, if you try to fuck your gardener and strike out, like there's no phase two. 1.00
00:18:08.380 You need to calm the fuck down. 1.00
00:18:10.200 You need to take a deep breath and reallocate your resources. 0.99
00:18:13.660 So this is, we're three letters in, and this is the first piece of, I think, very bad advice.
00:18:19.260 Okay.
00:18:19.560 Lauren says, I met a really cute guy at a bar this week.
00:18:23.180 He gave me his number and told me to give him a call sometime.
00:18:25.860 I thought that was kind of cool that he gave me control of the situation like that.
00:18:28.960 I can call him, right?
00:18:30.280 And then Greg says.
00:18:31.440 Did he give you control or did he just get you to do the heavy lifting?
00:18:36.500 What he just did was a magic trick.
00:18:39.600 It seems like he gave you control, but really, he now gets to decide if he wants to go out
00:18:43.700 with you or even return your call.
00:18:46.060 Why don't you take Copperfield's number, roll it in a newspaper, pour milk in it, and make
00:18:50.260 it disappear?
00:18:50.980 He did a little too much at the end there, but...
00:18:52.560 I don't understand the milk thing.
00:18:54.200 Yeah.
00:18:54.440 But also, this is really weird advice.
00:18:57.680 Why does giving your number to someone show disinterest?
00:19:03.460 We can all be adults here.
00:19:04.860 If you're interested in somebody, call them.
00:19:06.420 If he doesn't call back or he doesn't, you know, flakes on the date or whatever, fine.
00:19:09.260 But, like, why would you not just call?
00:19:10.840 He gave you his number. 0.98
00:19:11.800 This reminds me of modern dating advice when you watch, like, fucking podcasters on YouTube talk about dating. 0.98
00:19:18.900 Where, like, nothing is normal human dynamics. 0.99
00:19:21.700 It's all a psychosexual power game.
00:19:24.100 A lot of it depends on this thing that, like, if a man likes you, he'll sort of pursue you beyond all reason. 0.64
00:19:29.260 And I think, I mean, some men will do that, but some men won't.
00:19:31.560 I don't know.
00:19:31.880 Yeah. This seems like it's something from a Sabrina Carpenter song. I don't understand it.
00:19:36.000 You know, officially the book is written by Greg and Liz, but the only contributions by Liz
00:19:40.640 are the section of every chapter where she says, here's why this one is hard.
00:19:45.880 Oh, so they actually are, they're like very expressly using her to cushion the blow of like,
00:19:53.220 this is a man giving advice to women.
00:19:55.960 It's wild. This is in every chapter. And she never, this is the only excerpt from this we're
00:19:59.880 going to read because every single one of them is exactly the same she's like it might sound mean
00:20:03.740 ladies but you gotta listen to men like greg's right about this like they're they're not insightful
00:20:09.040 they're not interesting it's just her saying like yeah greg's right about this it would have been 0.90
00:20:12.640 really cool to have another man do this part of the book a worse man just like an even more 1.00
00:20:19.660 disgusting man greg's right so here's her saying why this is hard ladies the hardest thing to do 0.72
00:20:28.940 for many women, particularly me, is nothing. We like to scheme, make phone calls, have a plan. 1.00
00:20:35.660 And I'm talking about more than just making sure our hair doesn't frizz. Most women who date, 1.00
00:20:40.080 I would guess, don't have men throwing themselves at them every night of the week. Sometimes there's 0.99
00:20:44.280 a long stretch during which nobody's asking us out. So when we see a guy that we feel might be
00:20:48.220 a romantic possibility, it's even harder for us to take a back seat. That opportunity might not
00:20:52.720 come back again for a long time. Women do be scheming, folks. I know. And also, she's kind 1.00
00:20:58.400 of acknowledging that a lot of this is born of like low self-esteem yeah and again this is like
00:21:01.820 a message of empowerment right it's like you don't have to do this it's actually better to be single 0.98
00:21:05.440 than dating some fucking loser right which is true you have to resist ladies your natural 0.95
00:21:10.940 inclination to scheme so after we get liz's little response essay we then get a section called this 0.99
00:21:16.900 is what it should look like okay this is where greg lays out like a better scenario so his scenario
00:21:21.600 for this is that he's drinking in a bar and he's flirting with the bartender and he's like hey can
00:21:25.840 I have your number? And she says, I don't give out my number to men. If you really want to see
00:21:29.860 me, you'll figure out my number. My name is Lindsay Adams. Okay. So he says, do you know
00:21:34.800 how many Lindsay Adamses there are in the phone book of a major city? Let's just say I talked to
00:21:39.140 about eight or nine before I found mine. Imagine being one of the other Lindsay Adams in the city
00:21:43.720 and like every other week, some random guy calls you like, hey, is this Lindsay Adams the bartender?
00:21:48.580 And you're like, leave me alone. You're like, give me your fucking address. Where is she? Stop 0.99
00:21:52.540 doing this when you do find her call me back i want i wanted to talk to her i guess this is like
00:21:57.300 a cute story probably he made it up this is kind of psychotic behavior and also like i wouldn't
00:22:02.620 want someone to like me this much after spending like 30 minutes with me that's the thing is
00:22:07.120 there's a difference between like hey take a hint when a guy isn't interested and like make a guy
00:22:13.880 do a bizarre almost creepy amount of work right to talk to you because i think one of the things
00:22:19.760 that he's reproducing here is this idea that what you should be seeking is like male infatuation,
00:22:27.020 right? That a guy should be like obsessed with you. Like this kind of romantic comedy
00:22:30.480 understanding of love, right? Where you're like standing outside of somebody's house with a
00:22:33.900 fucking boombox. Again and again throughout this book, he sort of seems to imply that like the guy 0.99
00:22:39.120 should be like worryingly into you at an early stage, which I just don't think like, I don't
00:22:46.100 know. You flirt with a bartender for a couple of minutes and then she's like, oh, go to all this
00:22:49.500 trouble to talk to me again i'd probably just be like oh no i'm no that's really weird i'm not 0.97
00:22:53.680 gonna do like a test of strength and will to like go on a fucking first date like just give me your 0.97
00:22:58.820 number like a normal person fucking trying to go on a second date the same way that the terminator 0.99
00:23:02.980 tried to kill sarah connor going house to house yeah then we get to this is the end of every 0.96
00:23:11.380 chapter it's called if you don't believe greg so this is what they say we did an incredibly
00:23:18.540 unscientific poll where we polled 20 of our male friends who are in serious long-term relationships
00:23:23.100 not one of their relationships started with the woman asking them out first one guy even said
00:23:28.240 that if she had quote it would have spoiled all the fun so i don't know i like how this book comes
00:23:35.320 out in 2004 and then like a decade later there's an incredibly successful dating app premised
00:23:41.120 entirely around women being able to ask the guy out first yeah and it's just like it blows up
00:23:47.900 So then the book, then every chapter has what you should have learned in this chapter where 0.60
00:23:55.480 they spend a whole page, like recapping the lessons.
00:23:57.760 And then they have a workbook where in this one, it's like, it says, grab a pen and list
00:24:03.220 five reasons why you think you should have every right or good reason to call him.
00:24:07.900 Put the book aside and wait an hour. 0.98
00:24:09.720 Then ask yourself, do I seem pathetic? 0.98
00:24:12.480 Well, yeah, now you do. 0.99
00:24:13.680 You're filling out a workbook in a terrible dating advice book. 1.00
00:24:17.320 Do something that's pretty pathetic. 1.00
00:24:19.460 Wait an hour. 1.00
00:24:20.520 Yeah. 0.99
00:24:20.700 And then ask yourself, do I seem pathetic? 0.99
00:24:22.740 Yeah. 0.99
00:24:23.360 Yeah, dude.
00:24:24.100 Then don't worry, Peter.
00:24:25.100 We're not going to get into every chapter that much, but that's the sort of general
00:24:29.880 structure.
00:24:30.460 I want to go through every fake lady's letter. 0.95
00:24:32.680 We are going to go through many of them.
00:24:36.040 But chapter two is he's just not that into you if he's not calling you.
00:24:41.220 Okay.
00:24:41.600 We've had he's just not that into you if he's not asking you out.
00:24:44.100 But we then have, he's not into you if he's not calling you.
00:24:47.040 So we're already kind of repeating things to like pad out this idea.
00:24:50.320 Yeah.
00:24:50.480 So this is a dilemma from Annie.
00:24:52.960 She says, I'm dating this guy who ends conversations saying he'll call me at a certain time.
00:24:57.860 Like I'll call you over the weekend or I'll give you a call tomorrow.
00:25:00.840 Or if he has to take a call on the other line, he promises, I'll call you back in a few minutes.
00:25:05.020 And then he doesn't.
00:25:06.060 He always ends up calling, but almost never when he said he would.
00:25:09.420 Should I read something into this?
00:25:10.700 Or should I just know to ignore whatever he says when he's getting off the phone with me?
00:25:14.640 Here is Greg's advice.
00:25:15.660 You'll never guess what his advice is, Peter.
00:25:17.440 You'll never guess.
00:25:18.340 I told a guy my name and to go through the yellow pages and he still hasn't called.
00:25:24.760 He says, yes, you should read something into it.
00:25:27.800 In fact, the very something is he's just not that into you.
00:25:31.240 He keeps dropping the line and it keeps hitting folks.
00:25:34.660 Calling when you say you're going to is the very first brick in the house you are building of love and trust.
00:25:38.960 Okay, Jesus.
00:25:40.340 Yeah. 1.00
00:25:40.520 If he can't lay this one stupid brick down, you ain't never going to have a house, baby. 1.00
00:25:44.780 And it's cold outside. 1.00
00:25:46.520 Boom. 1.00
00:25:47.300 Oh, Greg's on a fucking roll. 1.00
00:25:49.760 Let's go. 1.00
00:25:50.400 Nailed it. 0.97
00:25:51.100 Nailed it. 1.00
00:25:51.700 Some poor 23-year-old was reading this in 04 being like, oh, shit. 0.98
00:25:57.100 I don't know if, like, the norms of, like, calling people are different than the norms of texting. 0.98
00:26:02.000 But, like, he is calling you.
00:26:03.980 He's just not calling you when he says he will.
00:26:05.760 I don't know that this is, like, that big of a deal, especially in the early stages of a relationship.
00:26:10.520 again, like it's actually good when people have lives. You shouldn't, if you're a random person
00:26:15.780 that you met on a fucking dating app, you shouldn't actually be like the most important 0.99
00:26:19.940 relationship in his life. As a serial procrastinator who's very disorganized in my day to day. 1.00
00:26:26.380 Exactly. I will never stop fighting for this man. So we're not going to go over them,
00:26:30.300 but at least like half of the letters in this book are just like extremely minor issues where
00:26:36.100 He's like, that's a deal breaker, ladies.
00:26:39.320 So he has one later where a woman says, like, the sex is great. 0.96
00:26:43.460 The relationship is great.
00:26:44.420 But he's like not super into cuddling. 0.98
00:26:46.740 And he's like, knock him the fuck out. 1.00
00:26:50.220 Get him out of there, ladies. 1.00
00:26:51.900 It's such a simple concept to be like when you first meet someone, if they're not expressing 1.00
00:26:56.640 interest, then like probably easier to move on than dwell on it.
00:26:59.960 Right.
00:27:00.220 Yeah.
00:27:00.560 But again, not a whole book.
00:27:02.980 So you have to be like, oh, he doesn't get along with your mom quite as much as you thought.
00:27:08.700 Toast.
00:27:09.260 You have a lab and that's not his favorite breed. 0.99
00:27:11.320 Honey, kick him out.
00:27:12.880 That's the second brick of love and trust.
00:27:14.720 And it's also not even just kick him out.
00:27:16.620 It's also like he's not that into you.
00:27:18.320 Yeah.
00:27:18.600 If he was into you, he would cuddle.
00:27:20.560 It's like, well, there's more issues in a relationship than just whether or not he's
00:27:24.340 into you.
00:27:25.200 Like these are multifaceted things.
00:27:26.720 And it just seems like the actual advice here would be like, start a conversation about
00:27:30.160 this.
00:27:30.500 Is this something that means something?
00:27:31.620 Or maybe you have some like, I don't know, sensory issues or something, like some reason
00:27:34.640 you're not cuddling.
00:27:35.320 Hit him with this, with the 2025 ableism accusations, Michael.
00:27:39.420 Get him. 1.00
00:27:40.280 Get his ass. 1.00
00:27:41.560 I would say that I cuddle like a cat. 1.00
00:27:43.800 If you just try to engage with me at any moment, I'm like, I don't know about that.
00:27:47.460 But like there are times, right?
00:27:49.200 So, okay.
00:27:49.720 But then the one that really like attacks me specifically, this is from a later chapter.
00:27:54.760 She says, dear Greg, I've been dating a guy for a year who can't sleep in the same bed
00:27:59.620 with me.
00:28:00.020 After we have sex, which is always nice and great, he has to go sleep on the couch. 0.53
00:28:04.180 He tells me he just can't deal.
00:28:06.300 Everything else is fine with our relationship.
00:28:09.080 So then Greg says,
00:28:11.100 Dear freak lover.
00:28:16.420 This is just zero to 60.
00:28:18.280 By the way, I completely forgot as you were saying that, that these are all made up,
00:28:21.400 which makes this so much funnier. 0.98
00:28:23.180 Creating a weirdo and then getting mad at him is so fucking funny. 0.99
00:28:26.140 It's like, look, your boyfriend is literally Hitler. 0.99
00:28:28.260 He wants to sleep in a different place. 0.82
00:28:30.660 Dear freak lover, here's what I'd like to do.
00:28:32.820 Put money down on the fact that everything is in fact not fine with you and freak boy's relationship. 0.97
00:28:38.100 Freak boy.
00:28:38.700 He hasn't slept in the same bed with you for a year. 1.00
00:28:41.380 This is a freak who needs to be kicked off your freak loving couch and shown the bottom of your freak loving boot. 0.99
00:28:47.220 The fact that you even care what this freak thinks of you is just proof that the world has indeed gone mad. 0.99
00:28:52.920 Call it curtains on the freak show, please.
00:28:55.300 It's like Jesus, Greg.
00:28:57.000 he says needs to be kicked off your freak loving couch and shown the bottom of your freak loving 0.95
00:29:03.300 boot it's hard to it's hard to know exactly what's happening in this but it feels like 0.97
00:29:07.820 he's saying kick off the couch and then stomp on him yeah i would say manhattan sandwich he's he's
00:29:12.320 he's recommending a manhattan sandwich i don't what's that a sex thing no 0.90
00:29:15.380 do you ever see american history x yeah where he makes the guy bite down on the curb and then 0.99
00:29:20.640 he stumps on the back of his head that's a manhattan sandwich who the fuck calls that 0.95
00:29:23.380 a manhattan sandwich that's what it's fucking called no it's i don't make these terms up yeah 0.99
00:29:27.480 i think you might i think you might that's what it's called dear greg my boyfriend calls curb 0.99
00:29:32.120 stomping a manhattan sandwich freak boy freak lover tell freak boy over there
00:29:39.100 the funny thing is that satire on 30 rock of like that's a deal breaker ladies
00:29:45.100 yeah like yeah it really feels like that's from somebody who read this book right any excuse to
00:29:50.180 be like kick him to the curb ladies and and kind of doing it under like empowerment yeah i'm not
00:29:55.220 the kind of woman who dates fucking freaks right but it's like this is not really empowerment to 0.99
00:29:59.260 just like end a relationship without talking about it the man's like i'm on medication 0.99
00:30:03.060 i know although some people just don't like sleeping in beds with other people it's fine
00:30:07.860 if that's a deal breaker no it's not fun it's a little weird to be like uh you're he's a freak
00:30:13.240 you need you need to stomp him to death yeah and i will say though liz was cooking with some of 0.94
00:30:17.040 those deal breakers when she's when she's like he's got you talking like a crazy a crazy person 1.00
00:30:22.100 you've got sexually transmitted crazy mouth deal breaker he's got you talking like a crazy person 0.99
00:30:28.560 it has stuck with me forever so it's so true you'll see it everywhere now when like if you 0.98
00:30:33.440 just think about it when someone's talking about their significant other in like the early stages
00:30:37.060 of relationship sometimes you'll be like you're talking crazy yeah like you sound you sound crazy
00:30:43.200 end it okay chapter three is called he's just not that into you if he's not dating you okay this is
00:30:48.840 about situationships before we had that word one of the letters is dear greg i've been dating a guy
00:30:56.400 for about six months we see each other every two weeks we have a great time we have sex it's all
00:31:01.160 really nice i thought if i just let things develop we would start to see each other more often but
00:31:05.360 instead it's staying in this every two weeks situation i really like him so i still feel like
00:31:10.240 it's better than nothing. And you never know, things can change at any time. I know he's really
00:31:14.180 busy, and maybe this is the most time he can dedicate to a relationship right now. So maybe
00:31:18.440 I should actually feel honored that he's able to give me as much time as he does, and he might
00:31:22.680 actually really like me. Deal breaker, girl. And here's Greg's response. Why should you feel
00:31:29.240 honored for getting scraps of his time? Just because he's busy doesn't make him more valuable.
00:31:33.800 Busy does not mean better. In my book, any guy who can wait two weeks to see you is just not
00:31:39.040 that into you which is fair and then later in the chapter he says from this moment on right now as
00:31:45.920 you read this make this solemn vow about your future romantic relationships no more murky no
00:31:50.720 more gray no more unidentified and no more undeclared and if at all possible try to know 1.00
00:31:56.340 someone as best you can before you get naked with them whatever loser yeah i hate that shit a lot of 0.99
00:32:01.920 guys when giving dating advice they're doing this thing where they're like guys are predatory they 1.00
00:32:07.940 want to fuck you and like yeah there's there's this like implication you see it in steve harvey 0.99
00:32:13.300 very expressly that like if you give into that you have you have fallen into their trap or whatever 1.00
00:32:18.940 it's just like right it makes me feel like what they're really trying to say is like don't fuck 0.99
00:32:23.480 those guys fuck me that's yeah that's the sense i guess there's this thread throughout this book 0.99
00:32:28.860 kind of this whole like movement of self-help books at the time where it's trying to package 1.00
00:32:33.080 this as like feminism right it's like yeah move on bestie you can do better like it's all about
00:32:38.000 this kind of like raw raw be proud of who you are self-esteem thing but on the other hand it's like 0.97
00:32:42.580 but don't fuck anybody similar to the lindsey adams thing he's veering into like make him work 0.97
00:32:48.320 for it right or something like that and that's different that's different advice well just 0.98
00:32:51.600 traditional advice i mean this is the thing is like they're repackaging just like 1950s dating
00:32:55.640 advice right also i think if people want to wait to have sex that's perfectly legitimate but also
00:32:59.540 like there's nothing in here about sort of like how to navigate a sexual relationship or also like
00:33:04.360 i don't i personally think like a relationship where you're just kind of having sex with somebody
00:33:08.100 like a sort of situationship thing is also totally fine if you both have the same expectations of it
00:33:12.380 but if you want a relationship and he doesn't yeah you probably shouldn't keep sleeping with
00:33:15.540 that person mostly because it's like i would say for self-preservation of your own emotions because
00:33:19.840 it's gonna it's gonna make you miserable it's gonna stress you out yeah i think like have sex 0.95
00:33:23.960 with people you don't like, then there's no confusion. Is this why once a week I hear about 0.99
00:33:29.920 a guy you were on a date with who said the most insane thing that I've ever heard in my life?
00:33:34.560 You're like, hey, met a guy off Grindr who says that he has a full-size cutout of Tucker Carlson
00:33:42.540 in his apartment? So far, these have been the chapters where this advice kind of makes sense.
00:33:46.380 It's mostly like people in the early stages of dating or they've met somebody that they're
00:33:49.340 interested in. The rest of the book is just like more and more outlandish situations where he just
00:33:55.280 needs to pad out the rest of the book. So chapter five is he's just not that into you if he's having
00:34:00.460 sex with someone else. Yeah. And this is basically like, yeah, if he cheats on you, he's just not
00:34:05.520 that into you. If he family annihilates, he's just not that into you, lady. Chapter six is he's just
00:34:12.200 not that into you if he only wants to see you when he's drunk. I actually think this is good
00:34:16.380 advice i think in your 20s yeah you have those friendships with people you're like we only really
00:34:20.440 like each other or like have fun when we're drinking i think that's like i don't know kind
00:34:24.580 of worth questioning and also greg is in recovery so it makes sense that he would sort of include
00:34:29.300 this i think he had a lot of relationships with women that were based around alcohol i don't know
00:34:33.220 if he's just not that into you is the right framework for that but also this is like
00:34:36.120 fundamentally good advice sure and then chapter seven is he's just not that into you if he doesn't
00:34:40.420 want to marry you this is like a whole different phase of relationships initially it was like
00:34:44.580 he won't go on a second date with me and now it's like we've been dating for eight years and he
00:34:49.420 hasn't married me we then get to chapter eight which is he's just not that into you if he's
00:34:53.240 breaking up with you oh you know what i've always thought that if he's literally told you to your
00:34:59.000 face he doesn't want to be with you ladies he's dumping you i actually know where this is going
00:35:03.760 by the way and it is sort of good advice it's like but yeah if you got dumped please please 0.92
00:35:08.020 don't get back together with somebody who sucks yeah right right so this is a uh this is a dilemma 0.98
00:35:14.800 from eileen she says dear greg yes breakup sex it's been hot emotional amazing i'm tortured and 1.00
00:35:21.840 i love him and i can't stop myself i thought you were allowed breakup sex but now i'm in over my 0.95
00:35:26.580 head help and then he says this hey girl there are several there are several times when it just 0.82
00:35:37.180 feels like greg spending a little too much time in the all-female writer's room
00:35:41.480 girl greg greg you need you you gotta hang out with some boys he says hey girl put down the 1.00
00:35:50.740 penis put your clothes back on and go directly to your best friend's house do not find an excuse to 1.00
00:35:55.700 stay yes breakup sex does seem like a good idea because hey it's nice to have sex with someone 0.99
00:35:59.960 you know but now you know it confuses everything and makes you feel like crap because face it you're 0.99
00:36:04.560 a woman and women can't separate sex and emotions unfortunately that's just something we know about 0.99
00:36:09.260 women how many times will you make me have to say that i sound like such a jerk yeah so now you don't 0.99
00:36:14.520 ever have to make that mistake again got it he's not into you he's into the very bad idea that 1.00
00:36:19.700 masquerades is a good idea over and out ladies you're ruled by your vagina emotions don't make 0.96
00:36:27.380 me say it it makes me seem rude but i'm just but also describing the science to you but one thing 0.97
00:36:33.760 One thing that's weird, though, is I did do a little bit of research for this. 0.77
00:36:37.020 You had sex with a woman? 0.99
00:36:40.740 I had breakup sex with a woman. 1.00
00:36:41.960 I dated a woman for seven years and then we broke up and then we had sex just to solve 0.98
00:36:45.960 Eileen's dilemma.
00:36:47.520 No, I read a little bit about like this wave of self-help books because there's something
00:36:51.340 weird about this book is basically the same as like think like a man.
00:36:54.500 It is.
00:36:54.880 Yeah, yeah.
00:36:55.140 Oh, we need to turn to a man to get like real advice. 1.00
00:36:58.060 Like women can't really be trusted on this stuff. 1.00
00:37:00.080 You're giving men too much credit. 1.00
00:37:02.020 Right.
00:37:02.220 Right.
00:37:02.540 Like that's sort of the premise of both of these books.
00:37:05.000 Have you heard of this, Peter?
00:37:05.680 There's a kind of movement called post-feminism that is happening around this time.
00:37:09.180 I've heard the term post-feminism, but I don't remember what it is.
00:37:11.840 You know, there's the feminist movement starting in the 1960s.
00:37:13.780 There then was this narrative, like almost immediately after the feminist movement starts
00:37:17.820 making gains, that like feminists have gone too far. 0.99
00:37:21.000 Like feminists were too shrill. 1.00
00:37:22.300 They sort of overdid it. 1.00
00:37:23.980 And that, you know, isn't it important to ask whether all this feminism has made women 1.00
00:37:28.100 worse off? 1.00
00:37:28.960 This is like Christina Hoff Summers sort of shit, right? 1.00
00:37:31.980 Exactly. 0.99
00:37:32.420 And so Susan Flutie's entire book, Backlash, she's just pointing out like statistics. 0.98
00:37:36.260 She's like, oh, women still make way less than men.
00:37:38.600 They're still way underrepresented. 1.00
00:37:40.520 Women are still subject to sexual harassment in the workplace. 1.00
00:37:42.640 Like we didn't win everything and go too far. 0.99
00:37:45.660 We are still working on this. 0.50
00:37:47.500 So in the 80s and 90s, you get this massive like backlash to feminism.
00:37:51.060 And then what you then start getting in the early 2000s is, especially in romantic comedies, but also in self-help books, you get like these stories of this narrative about women that just assumes that feminism has happened.
00:38:01.560 That like, oh, everything's equal in the workplace.
00:38:03.700 And so what you then have is you have extremely traditional kind of backlash-y advice to women being packaged as like harsh truths.
00:38:12.360 There's numerous like Katherine Heigl movies that have this as like a plot point where it's like she's a woman in the workforce but like she's too intimidating because she's been acting like a man.
00:38:19.980 And like men find it disgusting. 1.00
00:38:21.620 And then like she needs a man to teach her to be feminine.
00:38:24.020 It's a big theme of the rom-com for many years and to some degree still is, is like this lady has had a job for 10 years and now she's going to be alone forever? 0.95
00:38:36.840 Right. 1.00
00:38:37.040 And it allows this wave of pop culture to cast feminism rather than sexism as the status quo.
00:38:43.500 Right. 0.90
00:38:43.840 So you have things like he says, well, you're not supposed to say it anymore, but women connect sex and emotions. 1.00
00:38:50.740 Yeah. 1.00
00:38:51.160 And like you very much can say it.
00:38:53.500 Like, it's on the cover of Time and Newsweek.
00:38:55.280 This is still the dominant cultural narrative.
00:38:57.800 This is something that happens with conservatism in waves, where there are sort of moments of liberal progress.
00:39:06.420 And then these really antiquated conservative political and cultural notions get to position themselves as transgressive and interesting.
00:39:15.380 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:39:15.760 And so they can sort of present themselves to women as like the truths that the powers
00:39:22.660 that be have been hiding from you.
00:39:24.160 Right. 1.00
00:39:24.340 And the powers that be are like radical feminists who were never meaningfully in power. 1.00
00:39:29.640 Well, it's like feminism's failures have revealed these overarching truths, right? 1.00
00:39:35.820 These truths that shoot through our cultural politics. 1.00
00:39:39.300 And one of them is that girls are emotional. 1.00
00:39:41.940 Girls can't have sex without getting all crazy about it. 0.99
00:39:44.280 If Greg had just met one girl who is a big ho and just loves it, I feel like it would 1.00
00:39:50.660 have really changed his life. 1.00
00:39:52.160 All of this brings us to chapter nine.
00:39:54.520 He's just not that into you if he's disappeared on you.
00:39:58.220 Some of these are literally men like disappearing on women, which like it's not really like
00:40:02.960 a dilemma.
00:40:03.580 I have not seen this man in 10 years.
00:40:05.620 Please, Greg.
00:40:07.520 So Liza says, dear Greg, I went on a trip with my boyfriend of six months to California.
00:40:12.920 We had a great time.
00:40:14.280 When I got home, he went to visit his family in Boston.
00:40:17.260 When I called him to check in, his mother told me that he had gone to visit his friend in Florida.
00:40:21.560 I never heard from him again.
00:40:23.180 It's devastating.
00:40:24.200 I believe the only way I can honor my feelings and their relationship is to talk to him and find out what happened.
00:40:29.420 Girl, deal breaker.
00:40:30.580 So here's Greg.
00:40:31.360 Sometimes a person's behavior is so abhorrent that it leaves little doubt as to what to do.
00:40:36.500 The big mistake you made was choosing that person to begin with.
00:40:39.480 the quickest way to rectify that mistake is by learning from that moving on and choosing much
00:40:44.180 more wisely in the future so you see how this kind of post-feminist thing yeah can just kind
00:40:48.960 of cover up the terrible behavior of men right ghosting essentially on someone you've dated for 0.95
00:40:52.960 six months is like sociopathic i wouldn't say to someone like well it's your fault for choosing
00:40:58.860 him in the first place why didn't you see this coming you can give someone like this advice
00:41:02.420 about moving forward right you have to try to like your best to move on this and accept that 0.73
00:41:07.780 this person is wildly shitty, whatever you thought of him before, right? But to be like, 0.53
00:41:13.140 here's what you could have done differently. It's like, well, hold on, hold on. You're dealing with
00:41:17.840 a straight up psychopath. This is not something that you're likely to be able to prevent in the
00:41:23.960 future because you're probably not going to encounter a human being that's depraved in
00:41:29.840 this precise way. And then we get to the, if you don't believe Greg segment, where it's like
00:41:35.500 statistics so he says this 100 of men polled who had disappeared on a woman said that at the time
00:41:42.260 they were completely aware of what a horrible thing they were doing and no woman calling them
00:41:46.460 up and talking to them would have changed that i like how we're not we're not polling the guys who
00:41:51.200 haven't done this there there's one of the questions in this section is a woman saying
00:41:55.720 like some man ghosted on her after many months and he's like can i email him and tell him he's 0.82
00:41:59.620 like a piece of shit hell yeah and like maybe you want to do that maybe you don't but like to say 1.00
00:42:03.940 like, well, men already know they're a piece of shit. You shouldn't tell him that. I don't know. 1.00
00:42:08.280 I think if you want to do that, go for it. Here's my advice to anyone who's contemplating
00:42:12.680 sending that text or email. Be mean to him, but try not to sound like you're super sad or
00:42:20.800 emotionally affected. Keep it short. Maybe say something about his relationship with his mother
00:42:25.400 and then just leave it. Block him. The book is increasingly desperate from there. Chapter 11 is
00:42:30.900 he's just not that into you if he's married we're getting real thin towards the end of this book
00:42:36.600 one of the questions like a woman who's like dating her married boss i have to constantly
00:42:40.800 remind myself that greg is writing these and it's like the some of these more ridiculous scenarios
00:42:45.240 just like come on it's not just like i'm doing this thing and it's probably a mistake it's like 0.98
00:42:48.620 but i think he might be secretly into me because his wife sucks yes and then and then greg says 0.90
00:42:55.380 ladies i mean it i'm very sorry that it's so hard to find the decent guy these days that you'll let 0.99
00:43:00.420 any punctual male with the ability to dial the phone and drive a car, get away with anything. 1.00
00:43:05.720 You've made up a desperate woman. You're like, I'm sorry, you're so desperate. 0.91
00:43:09.080 It's so funny to make up a woman who asks you for advice and then insult her. You have to
00:43:16.560 appreciate that bit. So the last kind of substantive chapter is he's just not that
00:43:21.660 into you if he's a selfish jerk, a bully, or a really big freak, which is actually good. 0.97
00:43:26.540 this is women walking through scenarios where their boyfriends are abusive but not in a like 0.99
00:43:32.640 violent way but just in a like he belittles me in front of my friends or in these kind of subtle
00:43:36.800 ways yeah and greg's advice is like yeah look there's lots of ways of being abusive that don't
00:43:41.200 require physical violence and like if a guy makes you feel bad you should find somebody else to be
00:43:45.260 with yeah again i don't know that he's just not that into you is like sort of the framework for
00:43:48.460 that i don't really care right making people more open to like hey this is a thing that makes me
00:43:52.640 feel bad and that might actually be abusive even if it doesn't necessarily register to me as abuse
00:43:57.280 or like the sort of traditional forms of abuse i'm used to seeing is like yeah it's okay to see
00:44:01.680 that as abusive and like get the fuck out of there yeah so like this is actually a pretty
00:44:04.520 good chapter like well done cool it's pronounced uh substantive by the way what got them folks
00:44:09.580 oh mr nefarious over here yeah that's an accepted pronunciation i deliberately left that in because
00:44:17.980 i wanted to get emails from listeners i was like we didn't actually need this but i'm keeping it
00:44:21.340 well i don't think that's a substantive pronunciation objection wait what did i say
00:44:25.860 you said like substantive or something that's fucking normal we can't do emphasis i have a
00:44:30.740 dialect that's no that's it i have a dialect it's like madonna in the 90s i have a subtle british 0.81
00:44:35.720 accent no um nefarious is how people from the middle east say it and yo you're gonna lean on
00:44:41.440 this at a time at a time like this you're gonna call me out as as bombs drop on tehran we're
00:44:50.920 going to call Peter out for his pronunciation. I knew you'd get here, Peter. I knew one day
00:44:56.340 you'd pull this card on the show. I like how you act like I've like finally crossed this line as I
00:45:01.500 call you racist for no reason at all in every episode. So we're going to talk a little bit
00:45:09.300 about the reception to this book. There were very few reviews, as with most of these like
00:45:13.540 dating book blockbuster bestsellers, like they get no actual like critical examination in the
00:45:18.540 mainstream media so i didn't find that many reviews although there was an extremely funny 0.97
00:45:23.500 new york times review of this book called beta male for women who count on men to be jerks okay 0.56
00:45:30.760 remember in blink how you said like the book is not that great but also the reviews of the book 0.97
00:45:34.700 were also not that great yeah this is what we're talking about here so first it's a male
00:45:40.460 reviewer so first he says this there's something wildly condescending about the image of women as
00:45:45.880 helpless creatures standing around minding their own business until men come into their lives and
00:45:49.800 break their hearts. This after how many waves of feminism? Wow, you've had this many waves and 1.00
00:45:54.240 you're still this bad, women. And then he says this. The book catalogs the male's so-called 1.00
00:45:59.180 bad behavior, but doesn't explain why he's not that into you. Maybe it's because you talked
00:46:03.440 about yourself for five hours at dinner or mentioned that your last boyfriend was a warlock 0.67
00:46:07.420 or simply aren't the right gal for him. But it's never you, it's always him. As one chapter heading
00:46:12.100 advises he's just not that into you if he's a selfish jerk a bully or a really big freak when 0.99
00:46:18.340 there's no culpability on the woman's part there's no need for accountability this is also very 0.99
00:46:23.200 post-feminist that it's casting as some sort of bold truth-telling to be like when will women try
00:46:29.580 to work on themselves to find a man like when will we finally start saying it it's like that's been
00:46:35.200 like 200 years of self-help advice for women and in fact the entire point of the advice is like
00:46:42.520 maybe for a little bit stop thinking about what you can change to get this guy interested and just
00:46:48.680 move on this guy might not be that interested you're if you're a decent person then maybe you
00:46:54.660 can just respect that someone will like you and and move on right it's like this guy's like yeah 0.99
00:47:00.760 well maybe you're a fucking yapper it's like again these women don't exist their letters are fake 0.98
00:47:05.520 you just call it like everybody needs to take a deep breath sometimes it's also the uh in the 0.99
00:47:11.080 updated version of the book because it was reissued with the release of the movie greg
00:47:15.320 there's like a frequently asked questions and greg actually responds to this he says if we wrote a
00:47:20.520 book called she's just not that into you it would sell eight copies yeah it's like yeah the book is
00:47:26.160 pitched at women because like women buy most books and especially self-help books and especially 0.61
00:47:30.120 dating self-help books like the market is women so we're gonna write it for women i hate when
00:47:34.120 these reviews just like piss me off so much that i'm like don't be mean to greg and his cool book 0.53
00:47:39.540 with good advice it's also so funny to me that they assigned like a dude no that rocks to review 1.00
00:47:44.260 this like you're not the target audience of the book at all stop talking shit stop talking shit 0.99
00:47:49.320 about boys all right so 2009 we get the movie he's just not that into you which takes all of 0.99
00:47:57.040 the ideas the same ideas of the book and makes them so much dumber like this i know i'm going
00:48:03.460 like too easy on this book but i think the movie made me appreciate the book so i'm going to send
00:48:08.400 you a clip from this movie that i took on my phone let's just watch the whole thing so are
00:48:12.660 you familiar with the uh premise of this movie i remember when it came out but i don't remember
00:48:16.600 any details at all i don't remember who was in it nothing it's a anthology movie kind of like
00:48:20.780 love actually i like how you say kind of like as if they weren't trying to recreate love actually
00:48:25.420 I was going to say it's just like traffic, except instead of drugs, it's a man not being
00:48:29.760 into you.
00:48:30.440 It's all kind of around the same theme.
00:48:32.040 They're like interlocking stories, right?
00:48:33.420 It's like one person's a sister of the other person, whatever.
00:48:35.600 Traffic.
00:48:36.200 It's a bunch of different plot lines.
00:48:37.700 But what that results in is like every single character is just wildly underdeveloped.
00:48:43.240 Yeah.
00:48:43.440 So it's a lot like love, actually.
00:48:45.400 All right.
00:48:45.540 So these are the quote unquote two main characters of the movie. 0.99
00:48:49.620 and this is a girl who is kind of into a guy but he's just sort of treating her like shit she goes 0.64
00:48:56.660 to a party of his and he's like hey can you help me clean up and like do the dishes and stuff like 0.97
00:49:00.440 it's just manifestly obvious that he's not into her and she comes over to his house and that's
00:49:06.040 where the scene starts thanks for staying and helping to clean up i really gotta go to bed
00:49:13.220 Is that an invitation?
00:49:15.760 What?
00:49:16.840 Oh, girl, that was cheesy.
00:49:18.780 Oh, I'm not good at this.
00:49:21.080 What?
00:49:23.780 Well, she really went for it there.
00:49:27.520 Hey, boy.
00:49:28.680 Oh, yes.
00:49:29.800 I knew it.
00:49:30.340 The best relationships grew out of friendships.
00:49:32.620 Wait, wait, wait.
00:49:33.780 Cheesy.
00:49:34.440 Wait, wait, wait.
00:49:35.740 What?
00:49:36.780 Now you and I are in a relationship?
00:49:38.280 Well, I'd say if we're not a relationship station,
00:49:40.740 we're at least on the track.
00:49:42.820 And why exactly would you think that?
00:49:45.140 Because of the signs.
00:49:46.600 Really? Like what?
00:49:47.580 Like, it was good to hear from me,
00:49:50.000 and you talked to me even when you were with a girl,
00:49:51.720 and I felt something.
00:49:54.460 Oh, man, what are you talking about?
00:49:56.860 Gigi, what have I been saying since I met you?
00:49:59.140 If a guy wants to date you, he won't make it happen, okay?
00:50:00.580 He will ask you out.
00:50:01.640 Did I ask you out?
00:50:03.300 No.
00:50:04.400 Why would you do this? 1.00
00:50:05.960 Oh, shit. 1.00
00:50:07.400 Why do they build up this stuff in their minds, 1.00
00:50:09.300 take each little thing a guy does,
00:50:10.220 and then twist it into something else?
00:50:11.900 It's insane.
00:50:14.900 Tell him. 1.00
00:50:15.500 This thing that only women do, where they think that something is romantic when it's not. 1.00
00:50:20.000 By the way, it took her a really long time in that scene to catch on to his vibe. 0.99
00:50:23.560 Peter, this is like a two hour and 15 minute long movie.
00:50:25.960 And like all of the quote unquote humor in the movie is all of the female characters 0.99
00:50:31.100 being like dumb as fucking rocks and not like taking a hint when the men are just like openly 1.00
00:50:35.060 mean to them. 1.00
00:50:36.220 Well, look, comedy is comedy.
00:50:38.300 You know what I mean?
00:50:39.460 In every scene, I'm like, is this funny?
00:50:41.540 Like, is it funny that she's like, is that an invitation?
00:50:45.080 Right.
00:50:45.240 Then she chucked herself at his face and said, I knew that the best relationships grew out
00:50:51.440 of friendships, which is one of the most, like, just to say that in that setting is
00:50:56.480 wildly unhinged.
00:50:57.560 Something that Greg did well in the book is that the book never actually implies that
00:51:02.440 like women are the only ones who kind of go nuts interpreting these mixed signals.
00:51:08.200 Right. 1.00
00:51:08.400 Whereas the movie over and over again is like, why are you women reading into everything? 0.52
00:51:12.040 But like guys also do this.
00:51:14.180 Like when guys kind of quote unquote go crazy over thinking that somebody is interested
00:51:19.540 in them romantically, it often manifests as like abuse or like stalking or like violence.
00:51:24.680 But it's sort of like, it's very weird for the movie to imply that sexually transmitted
00:51:29.860 crazy mouth is like a female phenomenon. 0.89
00:51:32.280 If he's not blasting you with a black light lady, he's not interested. 0.97
00:51:36.580 have you even seen his runes my least favorite thing about misogynistic movies is that they make 0.98
00:51:41.360 me misogynistic because like all of the female characters in this movie i'm just like oh god
00:51:47.320 because they're all so one-dimensional that's interesting because when i watch them i understand
00:51:52.020 that it's fiction and that real women are much more complex and dynamic so we're gonna watch
00:51:57.800 another clip this is the the rest of the scene this is the end of the scene i'd rather be like
00:52:03.920 that then be like you excuse me got him what's that supposed to mean i may dissect each little
00:52:12.260 thing and put myself out there too much but at least i mean they still care and oh you think 0.98
00:52:16.980 you've won because women are are expendable to you and you may not get get hurt or make an ass
00:52:22.320 of yourself that way but you don't fall in love that way either you have not won you're alone
00:52:26.840 Alex. I may do a lot of stupid shit, but I know I'm a lot closer to finding someone than you are. 0.99
00:52:39.400 Boom. That's not an appropriate reaction. And then, so then after the scene, 1.00
00:52:42.980 this is toward the end of the movie, he then loves her. Oh. And he like shows up at her house
00:52:47.660 and is like, I do love you. That's what works on men is to throw yourself at them, humiliate
00:52:53.900 yourself yeah but when he rejects you give a really dramatic speech yeah it should be
00:53:00.640 humiliating for you but also make him realize that you're correct which by the way is is what
00:53:07.660 will happen when you articulate the truth to a man this is how romantic love works it's you give
00:53:13.900 a pitch to them like you have a pitch deck ready this feels like the opposite of of he's just not
00:53:18.340 that into you this is what this is why i'm i'm i'm choosing this to show you is because like
00:53:22.580 the movie doesn't even believe in its own premise enough right he's just not that into you and then
00:53:26.660 you give him like a two-second speech and then all of a sudden he's like desperately in love
00:53:29.800 it's like that's exactly the thing the book is saying does not happen you can't you can't give
00:53:33.780 somebody a new piece of information and they like suddenly like you it's like the whole point is to
00:53:38.060 free yourself from that and be like he's just not that into me i'll move on but this movie is now
00:53:42.840 saying oh if you say the magic words he will be into you that's what relationships are all about
00:53:47.620 is just crafting the best speech for when you get rejected.
00:53:51.460 There's also a whole weird plot line where Bradley Cooper is married to Jennifer Connelly.
00:53:57.800 Jennifer Connelly's in this? 0.99
00:53:59.120 Dude, this movie has like the most stacked fucking cast. 0.99
00:54:01.540 Chris Christopherson, Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore. 0.99
00:54:05.840 The cast is like, this is the most wasted cast we've ever seen in my life. 0.99
00:54:09.180 Damn, this is wild. 0.99
00:54:10.060 So they're married and then she finds a cigarette in the backyard 0.99
00:54:13.520 because he has been back there smoking with Scarlett Johansson,
00:54:16.280 who he like picked up at the grocery store she's like i found a cigarette in the backyard does this 1.00
00:54:20.420 mean anything and he goes oh well there's illegal immigrants here all the time what the fuck because 0.99
00:54:25.020 they're remodeling their kitchen so he's like there's illegal immigrants here all the time 0.99
00:54:28.020 so so that's why but the audience knows he's lying like the audience knows he was back there
00:54:31.820 with scar joe but that's a pretty good it's a pretty good excuse also even if you're not 0.71
00:54:35.340 remodeling your kitchen just be like there's illegal immigrants back there but then there's 0.94
00:54:39.020 a scene where then jennifer connelly like confronts sort of like the foreman of the crew it's louise
00:54:44.260 Guzman and she's like are you guys smoking out there and he's like no it's like you told us not
00:54:48.500 to smoke we're not smoking out there and she like immediately starts crying and she's like are we
00:54:53.500 friends friends have to trust each other and she makes this like huge meltdown I guess it's supposed
00:54:58.660 to be funny like every scene in this movie you're like I guess this is funny I think I'm supposed to 0.99
00:55:04.220 be laughing at her for correctly surmising that her husband is lying to her like she is correct
00:55:11.160 but all of the humor is sort of at her expense that's i think an important part of comedy is
00:55:16.520 something horrible happens to a woman yeah and then she cried that's literally the comedy i don't
00:55:23.000 like the thing about the he's just not that into you premise is i'm not sure you can make a movie
00:55:29.340 about it because the whole like the whole rom-com dynamic is like yeah maybe like there's a source
00:55:35.140 of friction between the two people but they end up together the whole premise of he's just not
00:55:39.800 that into you is to like understand implicit rejection and move on it's this very weird
00:55:46.340 almost like time travel paradox where we have decades of romantic comedies being based around
00:55:53.920 this premise that like somebody who seems like they're not into you is like actually secretly
00:55:59.320 into you or can be convinced to be into you right which isn't really something that ever happens in
00:56:04.400 real life it only happens under the scriptures of a like three-act screenplay like something
00:56:09.760 where you need like a little twist at the end. That's why every fucking romantic comedy like 0.98
00:56:13.620 ends at the airport. Yeah, yeah. This trope shows up in a million romantic comedies. 0.99
00:56:17.620 It eventually sort of trickles into actual culture where people start interpreting human
00:56:23.400 behavior under this completely false rubric, right? After decades of this, we then have
00:56:29.580 this TV show and this phrase that just kind of cuts through that. It's like, yeah, we were all
00:56:34.700 raised on romantic comedies, but 99 times out of 100, if somebody seems like they're
00:56:39.800 not into you, they're just not into you and you need to move on.
00:56:42.520 Like, that was why the phrase really resonated.
00:56:45.040 But then the movie based on this premise comes out and repeats the trope that the phrase
00:56:51.480 was pushing back against.
00:56:53.160 Right.
00:56:53.700 And the people who wrote the movie, who are not the authors of the book, don't seem to
00:56:58.280 like get that.
00:56:59.000 Well, what they could have done is the classic, there's a really hot guy and she is trying
00:57:06.980 to date him.
00:57:08.440 He's not that interested. 1.00
00:57:09.360 But there's an incredibly disgusting guy who she thinks is a total fucking loser, played 0.99
00:57:16.540 by a man who's actually an 8.5 out of 10. 1.00
00:57:19.360 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.99
00:57:20.060 She learns over time that the hot guy is not that into her, but the dorky loser is, right? 0.78
00:57:25.780 I don't know that you get the Love Actually array of storylines that way. 0.77
00:57:30.680 But that's a classic rom-com setup.
00:57:33.260 So we should also talk a little bit about Greg Barrett and what happened after this book.
00:57:37.320 He recently wrote a memoir and he's given a bunch of podcast interviews.
00:57:41.840 And one thing that's kind of weird about him or interesting is that he came up in the kind of alt comedy scene.
00:57:48.480 So he was like roommates with David Cross.
00:57:50.260 He was friends with Patton Oswalt.
00:57:51.420 he was part of this like kind of progressive edgy indie comedy scene in LA in the 1990s. And I even
00:57:57.780 saw his standup a couple of times in the, in the nineties when I was a high schooler. And then he
00:58:02.160 gets on this TV show. He issues this kind of pithy phrase at a meeting. He then writes this massively
00:58:08.980 bestselling book and all of a sudden becomes like a dating guru. And then he writes a couple
00:58:13.320 follow-up books, none of which are anywhere near as successful as the first book. He talks about
00:58:18.860 how once this happened, they tried to give him a talk show and the talk show was canceled after
00:58:23.820 like a year because it wasn't very good. And immediately afterwards, he couldn't really go
00:58:27.740 back to doing standup comedy because all of his previous fans thought he was a huge sellout. 0.99
00:58:31.900 They're like, you're on Oprah giving fucking dating advice. I don't want to watch your edgy 0.98
00:58:36.180 quasi-political comedy, right? And then whenever he would do standup shows, it would all just be
00:58:41.580 middle-aged women with dating dilemmas. And they were like, why are you doing standup comedy to me? 0.93
00:58:46.800 He's, like, in between these two audiences.
00:58:48.980 Right.
00:58:49.300 He ended up doing, like, getting addicted to painkillers.
00:58:52.760 This then was, like, a 10-year period where he was, like, addicted to opioids.
00:58:56.420 He talks about, like, it threatened his family.
00:58:57.800 Him and his wife had to break up for a period of time.
00:58:59.540 They ended up getting back together. 0.94
00:59:01.040 It seems like this made him absolutely fucking miserable that he ended up with this public persona that just, like, wasn't really him.
00:59:07.700 His mistake, obviously, is that he didn't keep going. 0.91
00:59:11.180 Yeah.
00:59:11.840 Lean in. 1.00
00:59:12.500 you have to you have to keep churning out this fucking garbage it's also kind of funny because 1.00
00:59:17.540 it's almost like the fact that greg seems like a sort of a decent guy is kind of what tripped him 0.99
00:59:23.100 up in the end because he easily could have extended this to like yeah he's just not that into you at 0.92
00:59:27.380 work but the fact that he never really believed in it anyway and he sort of knows how dumb of an
00:59:30.920 idea it is like that's what kept him from cashing in ultimately yeah so the real problem with airport
00:59:35.560 bestsellers is that they they ruin the life of any good faith person who does them yeah there's a
00:59:40.560 There's sort of a Rubicon you cross when you hit a certain level of airport bestseller success.
00:59:46.060 We call it the tipping point.
00:59:47.700 And once you get past that.