A Clarification for Women (Men, You Need this Too)

This article also never got published, it was written after Sustainable Power, after the beginning of my falling out with my editor. I suppose I thought that I could write things to try and redeem myself, but then I realized that I wasn't in the wrong and did not need to be redeemed. I never had the heart to send this in to him. Let me know what you think.

Recently I wrote an article in which I described a friend of mine who was having trouble working up the courage to ask out a girl that he really liked. The long and short of the article was to tell men that there is no better time than now to ask out that cute girl in whatever class it is, because if they fail, they can remain completely anonymous on campus, and easily avoid the girl that said “no” as to circumvent further embarrassment. A conversation with another friend of mine, a girl this time, made me realize that women are clearly as oblivious as men, just in other ways.

The conversation was along the lines of: my friend, lets call her Gretchen, tells me about how she got drunk and made out with her long-term best friend, lets call him Tibor. This girl is sort of seeing another guy (they aren’t actually dating, whatever that means – I take it as a way for her to justify kissing someone else), and doesn’t want to stop doing so. Tibor is now pissed off at Gretchen because she doesn’t actually want to get involved with him (thus leaving the other guy) and is mad at her having led him on. Gretchen doesn’t understand why Tibor is so upset because she wants to remain friends with him as before. Names were changed to both protect the innocent and to let me name people Gretchen and Tibor.

Here’s the piece of information that it seems some women are missing: you have no guy friends. At least, not in the way you think. Every single guy you are friends with has either wanted to sleep with you at some point (or at least date you, but guys don’t usually stop there), or still wishes to do so at present. I’m not kidding. Unless the guy is seriously committed in a relationship, or if he’s gay, he wants to have sex with you. Why are guys nice to you? Why do they go out of their ways to help you? They want to show you that they can be the nice guys you need, and that they want to be your boyfriends (or at least go home with you).

“So why hasn’t he made a move if he likes me so much?” you may ask. The answer is simple: he’s scared shitless of you rejecting him and is willing to sacrifice sleeping with you in order to avoid being rejected. The majority of male friends (non-boyfriends) would rather worship you from afar, give you gifts, and be nice to you, in the far-fetched hope that you will one day realize that their actions are a thinly-veiled declaration of intent, than risk asking you out and losing you for good. Men are cowardly when it comes to women (see previous article), and generally feel that dejection is better than rejection.

If you ask any of your male friends whether or not they have liked you in the past, most (if not all) will deny it vehemently and secretly think “YES! Why haven’t you noticed?! Can’t you see it now?! Why are you asking if it’s so obvious?!” But, since you have never noticed anything out of sorts in the past (mostly because you’re either naïve, not attracted to them at all, or both), you believe them and continue dating other guys, unknowingly breaking their hearts.

Men, here’s the part where you come in: your female friends don’t want to date you. If they did, they would have made some sort of move (it’s 2004 now Dick van Dyke, they will do this if they are interested). The best course of action for you is either to move on to another girl, or ask out your friend and finalize whether or not she really “likes you that way”. Chances are she will say “no”, this is why you are friends at present, but at least you have some closure and aren’t pining away for something that never could have happened in the first place.

Movies are not real, guys. She’s not going to realize one day that you are the love of her life, and appear at your doorstep in a tight, rain-soaked T-shirt. Neither will you have an opportunity to save her life from the Green Goblin thus ensuring her love forever, Spidey. It’s time to give up the fantasy.

Girls, it’s time to realize that boys have crushes on you. I hope that this news is not a shocking revelation, although apparently it may be. Guys tend to gravitate towards girls they are attracted to. You can’t prevent this, but at least try not to lead them on. Constantly asking for favours, telling them how sweet they are, saying that you wish you could find a boyfriend like them (that’s just mean), these things do not help. Don’t assume your guy friends don’t like you, assume that they do and quash it before it gets too awkward.

The last thing we need are more Spider-Men.