I have great friends. I’ve mentioned it before on here… just a few times. But my great friends have one glaring blind spot. They love me.
Before you wonder why in the world that would be a bad thing, let me explain….
Even though I write a blog about dating, I have my days where I am just plain old flummoxed about the behaviour of the opposite sex. A guy does something completely incomprehensible and I am just as in the dark as anyone else. It’s that whole “can’t see the tip of my nose because it’s too close to my face” thing. Well that, and when I get emotionally invested in someone, I can pull out the *dumb girl* card just as easily as the next person if I’m not careful.
So what do I do when a boy confuses me and it’s not the kind of situation where I can just go to him and get clarification? I’ve learned that my first call can be to a close girl friend or two but that my go-to guy always gets the next call. Why? You’d be right if you said that it makes more sense to ask a guy about a guy issue, but I have another reason that hinges on that dreaded blind spot issue. It goes something like this…
- My girlfriends love me
- My girlfriends want the best for me
- If I like a guy, my girlfriends want him to like me back
- Since they want him to like me back, they will often fit the facts to their hypothesis (that I deserve a great guy who adores me like I adore him so, of course, he must like me too) instead of fitting the hypothesis to the facts (that he may not be that into me.)
My go-to guy? The total opposite. He, too, loves me and wants the best for me, but his way of getting to that end point is to objectively look at the facts and THEN create a hypothesis about the guy’s behavior. He doesn’t like hurting my feelings, but we have an understanding — he has free range to tell me what I don’t want to hear without me getting emotional about it. I actually have two girlfriends who can do the same, but our busy and often conflicting schedules make it tough to connect with them in a pinch.
It’s taken me years to understand why some of the worst advice can come from some of the people closest to you. I think it’s because their prejudices about what the story SHOULD look like, lead them to push the facts into alignment with the desired story instead of letting the story come from the actual facts. Not many people want to tell a friend something that friend doesn’t want to hear. And as much as I’ve delivered the news “he’s just not that into you” to my friends over the years, it never gets any easier to say or hear.
So… what kind of friend are you? Do you deliver the facts or avoid telling a friend something they may not want to hear? What kind of friends do you have? Do you have someone willing to tell you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it?
Just tell it like it is in a tactful sense.
Why wouldn’t or couldn’t you go to him and just ask him….what would you have to lose?
you know I’m pretty quick to point to communication first, but there are times when you just are smarter not to say anything and let it play out. In my opinion anyway.
Wow. Hang on to a friend who:
a) tells you the truth
b) you trust enough to ALLOW them to tell you the truth without you being devastated by the answer. Part of the reason you get an honest answer from him is that you give him “room” to do so.
yup — I agree. I don’t think guys deal with this as much as girls — that could totally be my own experience talking and not indicative of the sexes at all… but in my experience girls really want to paint a certain picture… hence the book “he’s just not that into you” being so wildly popular — that guy said what all their girlfriends wouldn’t.
Personally, I don’t tend to get emotional about bad news when it comes to casual dating… maybe why I can deliver it… but not everyone feels the same way about giving and receiving opinions from other people. Another friend sent a private email about all of this and said “your right about friends love making them less than objective..
and I’m not sure any friend’s analysis can help unless they actually know the person reasonably well and/or were there to see the person’s behavior…..” which is an excellent point
Too few of us are hanging out with friends and potential dating partners at the same time. The result is that friends don’t get to know our friends (or acquiantences) of the opposite sex until we make all the moves ourtselves or we tell them about them. in the latter case, most friends simply agree with you as its terribly difficult to present dating possibilities in an indifferent light.
Good point about lack of community. I think it’s also why it can be so hard to spot the potential liars, etc… no way to verify the story.
true — most of us really only get 1/3 of the story since there is his side, her side and the truth.
Great points, and so true!! I find myself justifying the confusing behavior of guys to my girlfriends if I know the girls like them. Or telling them how awesome they are, even if they’ve acted crazy with a guy. It comes down to the “you go girl!” complex, I think.
Kelly — great way to nutshell it… I think you are absolutely right!
LOL — perhaps we all need to be better about calling out the “crazy chicks” since they are giving the rest of us a bad name!