{"id":2726,"date":"2009-08-21T00:09:03","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T07:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=2726"},"modified":"2009-08-21T00:09:03","modified_gmt":"2009-08-21T07:09:03","slug":"a-case-of-the-human-condition-why-he-didnt-call-me-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/a-case-of-the-human-condition-why-he-didnt-call-me-back\/","title":{"rendered":"A Case of the Human Condition: He Never Called Me Back . . . Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bookBy Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

The book’s cover\u00a0was fuchsia, its title blunt:\u00a0 Why He Didn’t Call You Back. <\/em>Wow. Just what I needed. Not now. But back in the 60’s and 70’s when I was young and single and hopeful in New York and San Francisco . . . when I was doing a lot\u00a0of dating and a lot of wondering why so many guys would take me out once or twice — then disappear without\u00a0explanation. Gone.\u00a0Evaporated.\u00a0Poof.<\/p>\n

\"Barbara
The New York me. And, yes, I’ve edited a guy out of the picture. Photo by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And now, years later, the mysterious rejections still rankled. Why hadn’t those guys (and there were dozens of them) ever called me back? I still wanted to know.<\/p>\n

The book was sitting on a\u00a0shelf\u00a0 in\u00a0the Chicago Midway airport bookstore. I had some time before my flight left for Oakland.\u00a0I picked it up and started to read.<\/p>\n

The author, Rachel Greenwald, explained that as a professional dating coach\u00a0she\u00a0was puzzled by the large numbers of attractive\u00a0women among her clientele who weren’t getting called back after the first date.\u00a0To find out why, she\u00a0located some actual men,\u00a0 hundreds of them, and\u00a0talked<\/em> to\u00a0them. She asked\u00a0each\u00a0one why he hadn’t called\u00a0various women back after\u00a0the first date. Greenwald\u00a0then analyzed their responses and compiled the rejectees into categories.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t stop reading, but it was time to catch my flight,\u00a0so\u00a0I\u00a0plunked down $24 and took Why He Didn’t Call You Back <\/em>with me to the gate. I wasn’t buying\u00a0this book\u00a0for my own improvement, I told myself. I was buying it for my daughter, who\u00a0was single and\u00a0would be\u00a0turning 26 soon.<\/p>\n

Somewhere over Iowa, still wondering why all those guys\u00a0had never called back, I cracked open\u00a0Greenwald’s book, studied\u00a0her\u00a0categories and took her little quizzes. Which\u00a0kind of loser had I been, really,\u00a0as a young something all those years ago? Greenwald\u00a0outlined more than a dozen possibilities, some of\u00a0which maybe applied to me:<\/p>\n

\u2022The Blahs<\/strong>. A major turn-off, Greenwald states, is the Blah woman, the one who doesn’t say or do much on the date. Definitely not my problem, I was pretty sure. I was a big talker as a young woman, a sharp dresser, a good dancer, and a flirt.<\/p>\n

\u2022The Psychobabbler<\/strong>. Another big turn-off, according to Greenwald. But no, that wouldn’t be me either.<\/p>\n

\u2022The Wino?<\/strong> No. Not that\u00a0I remember anyway.<\/p>\n

\u2022The Ex Factor<\/strong>. This is the woman who talks too much about her ex. I never got far enough to have an ex.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The young and single me in San Francisco a few years later — smoking! Photo by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2022The Boss Lady<\/strong>. The career woman who takes charge, one-ups her date in conversation, expresses opinions with finality, and generally acts like this is a competitive job interview\u00a0rather than dinner with a new and interesting\u00a0friend. Hmmm.\u00a0That<\/em> could be me.<\/p>\n

Dicing women up into types objectifies them, of course. But the idea that a woman, nervous on a first\u00a0date,\u00a0can unwittingly fall back onto stereotypical behavior is a useful one. And Greenwald has lots of suggestions for tweaking one’s\u00a0conduct to avoid giving misleading first impressions.<\/p>\n

The woman who is a jock, for example,\u00a0can\u00a0bring out\u00a0her feminine side\u00a0by wearing\u00a0a skirt or jewelry. The talker might do some heavy listening. And the woman who’s sure she wants to marry a Jew or a Catholic or a virgin or a\u00a0New Englander\u00a0would do well to keep a lid on her opinions long enough to find out whether that\u00a0divorced Unitarian from Kansas City might actually be Mr. Right.<\/p>\n

Greenwald’s best advice, however, had nothing to do with types, and it\u00a0came as a surprise to me. The\u00a0quality most appreciated by the men Greenwald interviewed was simple human\u00a0kindness. Men\u00a0notice and appreciate\u00a0a woman who shows\u00a0consideration\u00a0\u00a0for the waiter, the\u00a0cabbie, the ticket taker, her date.<\/p>\n

Some women\u00a0have found Greenwald’s book irksome. That is, they have found the men\u00a0in\u00a0her book irksome. They read the men’s criticisms of\u00a0their first dates\u00a0as further evidence that\u00a0guys are basically arrogant bastards and not to be trusted.<\/p>\n

Which makes me wonder\u00a0whether a lot of single women (my young self included) aren’t too inclined to find fault with the male of the species and behave accordingly — all too ready to fire the first shot.<\/p>\n

I read this book to\u00a0its end, wishing\u00a0somebody had given it to me when I was young and fearful. My daughter got it for her birthday.<\/p>\n

Why He Didn’t Call You Back<\/em>, by Rachel Greenwald<\/a>, Crown Publishers, 2009, $24 hardcover.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note: Rachel’s book is now titled “Have Him At Hello: <\/strong>Confessions from 1,000 GUYS About What Makes Them Fall in Love… Or Never Call Back.”\u00a0 To tell the truth, I’m not sure\u00a0the new\u00a0title would have riveted me at the Chicago Midway bookstore the way “Why He Didn’t Call You Back” did.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wondering how I got out of my single woman predicament? Find out at “The Day She Popped the Question<\/a>.”<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"book<\/a><\/p>\n

The book’s cover was fuchsia, its title blunt: “Why He Didn’t Call You Back.” Just what I needed years ago when I was young and single and wondering why so many guys would take me out once or twice — then disappear without explanation. Gone. Evaporated. Poof. Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,50],"tags":[386,34,387,55,82,388,389,390],"class_list":["post-2726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-openers","category-on-writing-reading","tag-career-women","tag-dont-miss","tag-first-date","tag-family-stories","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-rachel-greenwald","tag-singles-dating","tag-why-he-didnt-call-you-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}