This, I promise, is exactly what he said to me: “Right, I’m calling you tomorrow and you’d better have your diary with you. I absolutely adore you. I have to know when I’m seeing you again.” Word for word. All this by the end of only the second date.

Sure enough, my phone rang the next morning at 9am. Except it wasn’t him. In fact, it was never him. Ever again. After that evening, complete radio silence ensued. Not even a note about the invitation to a big fancy party he had asked me to, the kind that involves high-level security clearance (he was a Tory MP), a party that he’d made much of adding my name to the list as his companion.

No, I didn’t call him. What self-respecting woman would, after such affirmative parting words and no action? After 48 hours, I thought it seemed odd. After 72, I’d written the whole thing off. Well, I thought, that’s just how it goes. It is, after all, a dating jungle out there. No surprise if you come up against a gorilla. Maybe he was the ill-mannered moron my friends said he was. Or, maybe, he just wasn’t keen — despite his specific words to the contrary.

For here is the modern gal’s conundrum. The dating world these days seems to come down to these six words: He’s Just Not That into You. Ever since the phrase first aired in an episode of Sex and the City — followed by a bestselling spin-off book — in any dating scenario where the guy isn’t acting like a lovelorn loony (or, possibly, a stalker), the stock response from friends is: get over it. Can’t you see? HJNTIY. And now it’s the basis for a movie, starring everyone from Jennifer Aniston and Drew Barrymore to Ben Affleck and Scarlett Johansson.

And what a depressing, misogynistic movie it is, peppered with unpleasant characters and whiny, pathetic women who act as though having a man — any man — is the be-all and end-all of life. Throw scruples, personality and character to the wind, just as long as you have a man, however uninspiring or cynical he may be. It is almost completely devoid of romantic hope, and women are presented as time-warped idiots from the 1950s, submissive bits of fluff who have to wait around for a man to decide they’re worth the effort.

I also take issue with the premise of HJNTIY. Sure, some guys aren’t that interested and we need to be able to read the signs, stop doodling the wedding dress, call time and walk away. Not every guy we meet is destined to become an epic love story. Yet, surely, the opposite extreme — that you should ditch a guy and move on if he isn’t clubbing you over the head and dragging you down the aisle — is insane. “There is a lot of truth in that book, and a lot of humour,” says Jo Hemmings, the relationships expert and author of Be Your Own Dating Coach. “But it is also misogynistic. It gives the impression that men are saying: this is the way we’re going to run it, and we want you to do what we say. So it’s a win-win for men and a very backward place for women.”

Besides, I do know people for whom it has worked out, even when friends told them otherwise — and these are true success stories, not merely urban dating myths. There’s one girl who was not much more than a shag buddy for the object of her affection, but, after six months, she woke up one morning to find that, for no apparent reason, he now considered her to be his girlfriend. Six months later, they were married.

Then there’s the one whose boyfriend was so unreliable and commitment-phobic, when she hired a van and arrived at his place with her belongings — ready to move in with him, as agreed — he locked himself in his flat and hid in the kitchen until she went away. Yet she persevered, despite all advice to the contrary, because she had a gut feeling that this was something worth fighting for. They, too, are now blissfully married (although she does admit that, 10 years on and as a successful woman in her thirties, she would not put up with that kind of behaviour now).

It is not only us Brits who object to HJNTIY. “The book is depressing and not very accurate,” says Jaci Rae, a San Francisco-based psychologist with her own dating website, winningromance. com. “It was fun fodder in Sex and the City and a great marketing tool, but it’s not about accuracy. The fact is, a relationship takes work, and that is what I’ve found to be disregarded. It’s a problem we have in such a throwaway society. We don’t even give relationships a chance to work. One little mistake and we cut them off, when they could have just been having a bad day — the man or the woman.”

In other words, nothing is black and white. “Women can sometimes be in relationships and say they don’t know where it’s going,” says Hemmings. “But I ask them, if you’re driving it somewhere, are you going to be happy when you get there? Why don’t you stay around for the pleasure of being with someone and enjoy it for what it is, rather than trying to get answers to impossible questions.”

Ah, the questions. That can be the most frustrating part. We don’t understand how a guy can go from red hot to ice cold. So I e-mailed my Tory date to tell him I was writing this article. He called me back straight away, struck with a frantic anxiety about being named, and insisting everything he’d said was off the record. Still, he answered my questions. He had been very into me, he said. He didn’t recall his dramatic declaration (yes, I agree, sounds like a dodge) and said he was waiting for me to call. He’d called twice to organise those dates and wasn’t used to having to call at all, not when he’d given a girl his business card. (How vain!)

So, maybe the time has come to chuck out all these dating books and bring some equality to the situation. Everyone agrees that men like the chase, it’s just they think they’ve done that after one date, maybe two. Most won’t hang around for as long as Rhett Butler. So as long as you’re not feeling belittled, don’t sit back and wait for him to call and follow up. Pick up the phone and dial.

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