HJNTIY

Six letters.

Six letters which I had never seen before and fully confess I didn't know what they meant, or indeed gave a monkey's about.

But then someone explained them to me today - apparently this little code is the shorthand for a growing belief amongst women as to how they should conduct their lives. And it stands for?

'He's Just Not That Into You' - the title of a popular book and now a film as well.

The central premise (apparently) is that women should stop blaming themselves for mens faults, learn to recognise some golden rules to discern if someone is 'into them' and if not, simply move on. It also apparently states that men are neither complicated, nor do they send mixed messages - in other words, we're simply, primeval creatures who will indicate exactly what we do or don't want and that's that.

Now I'm not one who is particularly fond of diving headfirst into debates about either the male or female psychy - I'm just about aware enough to recognise that my own take on life is as bizarrely different to that of others as theirs is to me. But this one did get to me a bit.

I accept the argument that women should stop waiting on something that just isn't going to make them happy, and to some extent I suppose I get the idea that men retain something of a simpleness about their character in this regard.

But reducing life and love down to one simple equation whereby if a man fails to act first, foremost and always with complete, unswerving devotion to that singular goal I cannot accept. If the world was a simple, uncomplex, A to B place where nothing got in the way, where a hundred different pressures didn't gnaw away at you, and where time was an ally not an enemy. Then perhaps I could agree with the premise and indeed be happy to do so.

But it isn't. And I don't.

And yet weirdly, I believe that this argument is flawed because of one of its own premises - that if women hint the slightest whiff of doubt, then they should haul in their line and set sail for pastures new. Because it's doubt that cripples what once might have been our solid assertion that actually We Are Into You.

Primeval creatures we might be, but even primeval creatures face doubts when it comes to jumping over a gap in the rock or choosing where to rest for the night.

Doubt is the constant, and in my view healthy, companion for the majority of people. And that includes the majority of men. It's what makes a relationship, or even better, the bit before a relationship so exciting. If this whole, often tortuous, often painful, sometimes heart-breaking process was predictable or easy, then we wouldn't do it.

HIIYHJDABYIHAHFJAMEPAYD - He IS Into You, He Just Doesn't Always Believe You're Into Him And He Feels Just As Many External Pressures As You Do.

Not as catchy I admit, but closer to the truth I'd reckon, and in a way the perfect summary of why HJNTIY doesn't work - because if they really mean it and care about it, then men can never manage to say what should take six words in less than sixty.