Saturday, December 6, 2008

Sage Advice

Continuing my trip down memory lane, I present some wisdom garnered from my friend R. A quiet and genteel soul, R. was occupied our freshman year, as many of us were, with finding that 'special someone'. Honestly, how much of college is devoted to book learning and how much is devoted to trying to mack on the cute guy/girl? What follows are ruminations upon dating: A student's favorite pastime.

Guys, have you ever spent a lot of time with a girl just hanging out, being friends, and gotten the feeling that she really liked you? You agonize over asking her out, pondering such questions like, "Will this affect our friendship/relationship?"(thoughts totally foreign to men, as we usually never think). You finally work up enough courage to ask her out, and she says, “I don’t like you that way.” OR “I just want to be friends.”

No single sentence carries such soul-crushing power. Do women have any idea what the does to a guy? I understand that it may be the true in some cases, that girls really do want to jus tbe friends, but lets be honest, most of the time, you don't. And that ruins it for the times you do mean it. So do us a favor, next time, just lie. Say you are interested in dating another guy. Or you are going to be a nun. Or you are allergic to their favorite color. Something. Anything. Just not that. What you are saying could be interprited this way: “I love hanging out with you. I love your personality, and everything about you. Except for you. If you were someone else, we would totally go out, and maybe even kiss. But your not. So, thanks for stopping by. See you Friday for lunch and a side-hug.”

It is like going to a job interview and hearing, “Wow, I gotta be honest; you are everything we are looking for. You fit the job completely. Your resume is perfect. But, we are not going to hire you. We are going to hire someone else. But you will be pleased to know that we are going to judge him (and everyone who comes after him) by by the standard you have set. And if it’s all right, we would like to cosult with you all the time and complain about the guy we did hire. Is that all right with you?” Thanks for your inspiration R.

Looking back with close to 8 years of life experience, four of those being happily married to the bestest girl, it is still sound advice. On the whole though, I think we were just whiners.

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