Why He's Not That Into You

There has to be a reason he's just not that into you. You met him at a bar, the sparks flew a mile high and after 20 minutes of conversation and fistfuls of vodka beverages, he asked for your number. Before you could dribble off the barstool, your mind already had you strolling down a tree-lined street with his babies in tow. From your second home in the Hamptons to your retirement in St. Tropez, it was the perfect match -- except that he never called.

It's one of the mysteries of the universe, something that must be encoded in our DNA. Men smile at women, flirt with women, turn women into jelly. Then are never heard from again. Women have spent millennia trying to figure it out, and their theories cover everything from "he's not over his ex" to "he's afraid of commitment." Hate to break it to ya ladies, but you're flat-out wrong. Add this to the pile of vaguely misogynistic books that tell women they're not hot enough, smart enough or likable enough: You're the reason!

Which is why Rachel Greenwald wrote "Why He Didn't Call You Back," a fastidiously researched look that polled more than 1,000 men to find out what was most likely to stop a potential relationship dead in its tracks. The Harvard-educated marketing executive turned dating coach and matchmaker previously offered advice in "Find a Husband After 35: Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School."

Since her move from businesswoman to marriage maven, Greenwald has worked with thousands of women. Some spend as little as an hour on the phone with her, others put her on retainer and exchange as many as 10 e-mails a month in search of advice. Her hard-core followers head for Denver for one of her one-on-one workshops. So many of her clients brooded over the phantom nature of their dates that she decided to investigate.

"Living in a feedback culture, relationships are the one outlet where the only feedback we get is silence," says Greenwald, who has been married for 16 years and has three children. She spent a decade gathering her research and distilled the results into a host of feminine traits that turn men off faster than a rerun of "Sex and the City."

Here are five of the types that'll send a guy running.

1. The Boss Lady
Topping Greenwald's list is the "Boss Lady," a dominant creature who can be "argumentative, competitive, controlling, not feminine, too independent, not nurturing or some combination of the above," she says. A woman might think her personality is "persuasive, capable, street-smart, organized, modern, confident or forthright" -- but a guy thinks of her as a woman he'd rather hire than date.

"I had a busy day at work and I deal with a lot of aggressive people," one of Greenwald's subjects told her. "When she started bickering with me at dinner, it reminded me of work."

The Boss Lady competes "whether they were trying to win an unspoken contest of name-dropping about who knew more people in Manhattan, or who knew more about wine, or who got fewer hours of sleep after a late-night party, it didn't matter" writes Greenwald.

"When a woman tried to 'trump' their comments or stories, it sparked a competitive instinct rather than a romantic feeling. Guys didn't think 'How impressive!' nor did they say 'How cute, she crushed me at bowling!'

Take Tina Fey's acerbic character, Liz Lemon, on "30 Rock" as an example of the Boss Lady. Alec Baldwin's character, Jack Donaghy, tells Lemon she's "a third-wave New York feminist, college-educated, single-and-pretending-to-be-happy-about-it, overscheduled, undersexed, you buy any magazine that says 'healthy body image' on the cover and every two years you take up knitting for ... a week."

Lemon lacks femininity and fashion sense, and the men in her office assume she's a lesbian upon meeting her. She lacks basic social skills and has difficulty distinguishing between her professional behavior and her personal encounters. She might be funny, but she's still single.