Good call

Initial eye contact, a smile, a glance held across the room. The game begins. He seems interested.

We talk, laugh a bit, make conversation about work, school, life.

A pause as we each turn to our own friends and chat for a while.

As I turn back he walks nearer, followed by his friends. "Well, I have to go. See you at the wedding tomorrow."

He leaves as I say to my cousin, "He has a girlfriend." She replies, "How do you know?" I answer, "He wouldn't have just gotten up and left like that if he were available."

The following night I observe as he waves across the dinner hall from the head table. His girlfriend, soon to be fiancee, is eating at a distant table.

My friend comments later, "What a good call you made. Many women would have taken his abrupt departure as a signal to indicate the now-famous and potentially harmful, 'He's just not that into you.'"

Just one more reason I disdain that phrase....