A tapestry of relationships, He’s Just Not That Into You speaks bluntly to Aristophanes and Agathon of Plato’s Symposium and to all those who subscribe to modern translations of their philosophies on love. The nine main characters have various modern views of love and live them out in relationship with varying consequences. The main relationships are Beth and Neil, Anna and Ben, Ben and Janine, and Gigi and Alex. The main issue in every single relationship is that the people involved have different expectations about the relationship. However, these different expectations are rooted in each character’s idea of the nature of love and the actions consistent with genuine love. This film skillfully weaves together these modern conceptions of love, which, when examined turn out to be not so uniquely modern.
If one primarily examines the juxtaposing relationship between the narrator, Gigi, and Alex, one can see the extremes that modern people go to in defining Love. Gigi is a die hard romantic, there is someone out there somewhere who is perfect for her she just has to find him. The main problem Gigi faces is that she is delusionally optimistic; every relationship is The One. Then she meets Alex, a young bartender who enlightens her to the realities of the game of love, what is really meant by certain words and body language. He disabuses her of her false hopes, telling her she is “the rule, not the exception.”
However, Alex has his own paralyzing self-deceptions. He has decided that the ideal relationship will not require vulnerability from him. There is not a character in Symposium that says anything very similar to how Alex perceives love. This is probably because if Alex were at Plato’s Symposium he would have stood up and given a speech about how love makes people dependent fools, not a speech in praise of love which is the task of the Symposium speakers.
Gigi on the other hand would have been enthralled with Agathon’s speech. Love is lovely, delicate, and makes his home in people’s hearts, of course he is, she would have thought. She would have also nodded along emphatically to a translation of Aristophanes’s speech. The idea of a soul mate and that there is one person for me is one of the most prevalent modern concepts of love and yet it is not so modern because that is precisely what Aristophanes paints of love.
It seems that in films more often than not it is women who are convinced of the existence of a soul mate and that is precisely what happens in this film as well. Though Gigi demonstrates belief in a soul mate, she is mostly a victim of her own blind optimism. Anna, however, completely subscribes to the soul mate theory. When asking a friend about what she should do with her relationship with Ben, her friend says, “What if you meet the love of your life but you’re married to someone else? Are you supposed to let them pass you by?” This question encourages Anna to pursue a relationship with Ben in hopes that he will see they are “meant” for each other and that she is worth leaving his wife for. This is the deep poison of the soul mate theory, love becomes a game of finding that person who fulfills all personal needs and whom the lover can do likewise for, and conflict indicates that the relationship is not “meant” to be.
As a moment of authorial transparency I will admit that the character I most resonate with is Alex. His practical approach to relationships and realistic view of the world made sense to me compared to the starry-eyed and self-deceiving ways of many of the women in the film. Though Alex is a contrast to the majority of the other characters he is not ultimately right either. Gigi confronts Alex about his view on love.
“I may dissect each little thing and put myself out there so much but at least that means that I still care. Oh! You think you’ve won because women are expendable to you. You may not get hurt or make an ass of yourself that way but you don't fall in love that way either. You have not won. You're alone. I may do a lot of stupid stuff but I'm still a lot closer to love than you are.
Gigi then grabs her purse and leaves. She is right; Alex is truly alone. Love takes sacrifice, it necessitates vulnerability, and Alex, in his protective bubble did not see that his relationship cynicism stemmed from the fear of being rejected.
On the positive side of things, Beth and Neil exemplify love in relationship. Beth breaks up with Neil because she wants to be married and he will not marry her. He says he “doesn’t believe in marriage.” When Ben and Neil are talking about the break up Ben speaks of it positively. According to him Neil should celebrate, he is now free of the bonds of marriage; he can be with whomever he wants. Neil thinks for a moment and then says, “I don't wanna be with anybody else, I just wanna be with Beth.” He loves Beth; their relationship is not founded on mere attraction or mutual need-filling. He sees all the Beautiful in her and only wants her. This film strongly demonstrates that love is based in selflessness and that selfishness destroys love and relationship. Love exceeds the labels and boxes we attempt to put it into, and that is a reality that is a little frightening because that means we cannot pinpoint it or create a formula to describe it. In the riddles of interpersonal communication though, it seems that people are more happy seeing the depth of love as something beautiful, like Gigi does, instead of as something banal or bad.
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