what we're reading here in indiana

I'm staying with my friend Kathryn while I am here in Bloomington. I brought her a present: that book He's Just Not That Into You that everybody is talking and blogging about. Kathryn and I are both reading it.* The male co-author, Greg Behrendt, speaks partly with a voice of authority because he was one of those guys who went around not being into women for years but then found a woman that he was into and has been married for a couple of years. Kathryn refused to take me up on my offer to bet $100 that Behrendt will be divorced from this woman and with someone else within a decade. I say, if somebody writes a whole book whose repeated message is that if a guy's really into you, he won't let Absolutely-Anything-In-The-World-Even-Momentarily get in his way, his wife can't really expect him to let marriage-vows-and-children get in his way when he starts to feel into a secretary or publicist or groupie 5-7-10 years down the road. You can take it to the bank that it will happen. You can stick a slow-roasting fork in that marriage, because eventually it's going to be done.

Twenty pages into HJNTIY, I have one observation for any social science faculty or graduate students who are enthusiasts of this book: unless you're the type of revels in hypocrisy, you better not be one of those kneejerk knaysayers of evolutionary psychology. There are some people around here who look askance at my moderate stance on evolutionary psychology, but Behrendt is working with premises way-WAY more into evolutionary psychology that I've ever been. I mean, already he's gone on about:

Guys don't mind messing up a friendship when it comes to sex... I hate to tell you, but that whole 'I don't want to ruin the friendship' excuse is a racket. It works so well because it seems to wise. Sex could mess up a friendship. Unfortunately, in the entire history of mankind, that excuse has never ever been used by [a man] who actually means it. (p. 11)

and

We know there was a sexual revolution... We know women are capable of running governments, heading multinational corporations, and raising loving children... That, however, doesn't make men different... If you can trust one thing that I say in this book, let it be this: When it comes to men, deal with us as we are, not how you'd like us to be. I know it's an infuriating concept--that men like to chase and you have to let us chase you... It's unfortunately the truth. (p. 17)

* Kathryn insists that if I write a post about HJNTIY, I note that (a) she didn't ask me to buy it for her and (b) at least from what she's read so far, she thinks it is a mostly stupid book written around a kernel of truth.