He's Still Just Not That Into You

Liz Tuccillo is a former story editor for Sex and the City and the co-author of He's Just Not That into You. The 2004 book offered women a shocking revelation: If a man doesn't jump at your end-of-date invitation to come in for "coffee" he's probably not interested.

It was an immense bestseller that got translated into a bunch of languages and changed women's lives forever -- groundbreaking stuff. "You mean," we said "that if he doesn't call he's not interested?" And we were floored.

Because women will tell ourselves anything and make up any excuse (He's commitment-phobic because his mother smothered him. He's really busy at work. He must have lost my number...) to avoid admitting that maybe we just don't really turn his crank.And now, four years later, as He's Just Not That into You is being released as a feature film starring Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore and Ben Affleck, we still don't get it. Not really. Partly because we don't want to.

Being single is confusing, particularly in this day and age when we are constantly bombarded with mixed messages from our peers and pop culture. One voice whispers that we don't need to be part of a couple to be happy while the other warns that we're going to die alone. Our friends praise us for being independent individuals with one breath and bully us into blind dates with the next.

And then there's the endlessly annoying question: Why are you single? Tuccillo aims to subvert this question in her latest book, a novel, How to Be Single.

In it, plucky protagonist, 38-year-old Julie Jensen says, "A human being's desire to mate, to pair up, to be part of a couple, will never change. But the way we go about it, how badly we need it, what we are willing to sacrifice for it, most definitely is changing."

"So, maybe the question isn't anymore "Why are you single?" Maybe the question you should be asking yourself is "How are you single?It's a big new world out there and the rules keep changing."

And so we explore the lives of Julie's friends -- Serena, a modern day ascetic; Georgia, who got dumped by her husband for a "whore/samba teacher"; Alice, who quit her job as an attorney to date full time; and Ruby, who substitutes relationships with cats for human ones -- and how they are single. And we follow Julie on a trip around the world as she explores how women are single in different places.

It's a trip Tuccillo actually took in real life, travelling to countries that included France, India, Italy, China, Iceland and Australia and talking to both men and women about the experience of being single.

Here she discusses some of her thoughts and discoveries:

Lavalife: So, you became an expert on being single through working at Sex and the City.

Liz Tuccillo: Isn't it awful? People are always saying, as an expert on dating we would like you to tell men what they should get their girlfriends for Valentine's Day. And I'm like, really? Because I'm actually not an expert on dating. On being single I guess you'd call me an expert.

LL: So, how much of this book is autobiographical and how much is fictional?

LT: None of the stories, none of the shenanigans, are true at all. But what the women said and their points of view are all true.

LL: So, it's representative of a true story.

LT: Yeah.

LL: What inspired you to take off and travel the world talking to single women?

LT: Countries all over the world had bought the rights to He's Just Not That into You and France still hadn't. And it was so irritating to me. It became like the guy who doesn't like you so you like him more. I became obsessed with why France didn't want my book. And then I became interested in what it is that goes on in France that they don't think the book applies to them. I realized they don't have a single culture there. They don't have Bridget Jones' Diary books or films. They have films about love and marriage and infidelity but not about the single girl. I started wondering why that was. So, in a nutshell, France didn't want to buy my book. It really annoyed me. I wanted to find out why and that started this curiosity about how women are being single in different parts of the world.

LL: So, why do you think France doesn't have a culture around being single?

LT: When I went there, there was just a complete, innate sense of self-esteem and entitlement among the women. Their mothers already told them they're great as they are, that they should never chase a man and that they always need to have pride. They said 'Why would I need a book to tell me a guy's not into me if he hasn't called me?' They thought it was the funniest thing. "So, you made a lot of money writing a book that tells women that when I guy doesn't call her he's not into her?"

LL: Single culture is confused between trying to not be single and finding intrinsic value in not always being in pursuit of the other.

LT: Talking about being single is by now a very well-worn subject. And yet the reason why it's still an interesting one is because it is filled with so many contradictions. The obvious example is Sex and the City and this is one of the reasons the show was so successful -- it was celebrating women being single and at the same time none of them really wanted to be single. So, on one hand you're saying we're empowering women to be single and have a good time. At the same time there was no moment when the women were like "I don't need love." They were always in pursuit of love. And it's that contradiction that makes everything very complicated in our society.

LL: It's very pervasive in our culture.

LT: Actually, I saw that volatile mix of ideas more in other countries. China, for example. Sex and the City is so big there. These women are just crazy for it and they get it all on bootleg. There's this excitement of this new sexual revolution there and things changing so much and women having all this freedom. It's all really new and exciting for these women to realize, "I don't have to settle down. I don't have to get married. I can get a job. I can date." But then you scratch a little bit deeper and you see that it's still a communist country and they still have incredibly strict rules, such as women are not allowed to adopt. So, you put that kind of Sex and the City mentality in a world that doesn't give women a Plan B. These women are running around having a great time, and what do they do when they're 34, 35 and they haven't met anybody? They can't actually adopt. They can't get pregnant and have the baby. The baby won't be acknowledged. So, that to me is where the worlds collide. At least we have that option.

LL: What about the idea that we've raised the bar and that makes things more difficult?

LT: I was joking with somebody recently, saying, "The minute we started working it all went bad." And it's really kind of true. I see that in India, you know, talking to women in arranged marriages. If a woman really needs a man for her survival, actually to put food on the table, to have a roof over her head, you're really going to have a lower bar of what you'll accept in his personality. If the main things you need from him are food, clothing, children, a home. But the minute you take that out of the equation, all you're left with is that he needs to be your soul mate -- charming, funny, sensitive, warm, smart. The minute we didn't need men, the bar immediately got raised.

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If a woman really needs a man for her survival, actually to put food on the table, to have a roof over her head, you're really going to have a lower bar of what you'll accept in his personality.

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LL: Are there places in Western culture where the search for perfection is less stringent?

LT: No. I think everybody in Western culture has pretty much bought into the idea of romantic love.

LL: And some take it to a whole nutha level. Which country is it where the women are constantly slapping their men?

LT: Italy. My favorite question to ask people was "If you found out tomorrow that you would never have romantic love in your life ever again for the rest of your life what would you do?" In Denmark they'd say "Well, I'd be very sad but I would make sure I had good friends and family and a great job," but in France and Italy the men were like "I would shoot myself in the head right now!" They were very "What? There's no romantic love? Why bother living?"

LL: Do you have specific advice, as per the title of the book, on how to be single?

LT: You can think about it and start asking yourself serious questions. Do I want to be a mother? What do I believe in? How do I want to handle my singleness? Do I want to go on a date every night of the week? Do I want to just not think about it and be OK just hoping love comes to me? I think it's about constantly asking yourself questions that will help you have clarity as you go through the journey.

By Elizabeth Bromstein for Click By Lavalife