He's Just Not That Into You and Why Relationships are Complicated

There's a film coming out based loosely on the book He's Not that Into You, and its given me some good raw material for thinking and writing.

Why do guys tell us they like us and then turn around and live like they couldn't care less? Why do girls act clingy, needy, and suddenly lame when they get into a guy? Why do so few men ask women on dates? I personally don't think a date is that big of a deal, and the worst that can happen is that the girl says no. I am one of the many single women in DC who is frustrated with the status quo, frustrated with the lack of men with enough guts to ask women out, frustrated with the lack of interesting men in the first place.

Is it this city? Perhaps, but it's part of a larger problem: we were designed for a certain type of relationship but as a result of the fall of man we can't quite grasp it for all it was intended to be. And so, we idolize people of the opposite sex, we date and break up, we get into bad marriages, we (women) lead men on because we just want attention. Meanwhile, guys with good intentions create things like "the friend zone" in hopes of shielding girls' hearts; doubtful. And girls reject perfectly good guys because they don't want them to read too much into a date; and so, the same guys who have the guts to ask girls out start having low self-confidence because women won't take them up on their offers.

All of this makes me sad, and it doesn't give me a ton of hope for the future, but I have enough hope to know that it can work and it can be good if two people will commit to love each other in a covenantal sort of way. Admittedly, I can't really do this subject justice, but at the same time think we need to talk about it more openly. I spent last night talking to a friend who was working through yet another grey relationship, a friendship with a guy who texts her regularly but doesn't have the guts to pick up the phone and call her. Lame. Men, stop leading women on. If you aren't that into them, then leave them alone. If you are, then grow up.

I know it isn't that simple, but why can't it be? Can we work towards a better sense of relationship between the sexes?