Dear Eloise,
I think we’ve all been here. Caught in the cross between trying to play by the rules, make all the right choices and be “the girl” in the situation. I feel your pain as I too have been recently wondering if everything I’ve ever been taught about playing by the rules is even worth my time.
I’ve started seeing someone again after a checkered past and a year of not speaking. Despite a handful of attempts, we could never get ourselves on the same page at the same time. One or both of us would be dating someone else or one of us just wouldn’t be into the idea of getting involved again. After I kept finding myself thinking about him over the past month, I decided to send one, just one, innocent text to see if he was even willing to get back in touch with me. He was and the past two weeks have thrown me way off of my normal, stable path.
Caught up? Great. Now we can get to the reason I’m writing in response to your current issue.
This boy that I just told you about, well, he doesn’t play games. I’ll give you a minute to sit down and process this. (Let me know if you do cause I sure haven’t yet.) He’s also disturbingly straightforward and says kind, sweet things. He just puts everything right out on the table. Keep breathing, El. There’s more. He doesn’t even let me play my own perfected games. I tend to use a lot of sarcasm in the early stages of boy situations mainly because I am pretty sarcastic and I need to know he can handle it.
I also do it in order to protect myself and make sure he knows I-don’t-care-nope-not-at-all-couldn’t-care-less-about-you. That way, if and when he leaves the situation I won’t look like the pathetic girl left behind. Brilliant, right? He doesn’t think so and his newest approach to getting me to cut this out is by sincerely responding, “I like you so much” every time I accidentally/on purpose say something slightly mean or sarcastic in the name of self protection. If all of this wasn’t enough, he even calls me. Forget about texting entirely because this boy wants to be able to verbally say goodnight.
Because of all of this I’m trying my hardest to let go of all my preconceived and instilled rules about dating. For example, we both have awful schedules that don’t allow us to see each other outside of 10 pm to 10 am. Normally, I would never spend the night at a boy’s house when we hadn’t even been on a date yet but I shrugged off my rules and found out I like waking up with him. I also hold fast to the idea that if you fool around with a guy too soon then “they get what they want” and will no longer find a need to chase you and will therefore end things.
Upon explaining my chasing theory to this boy he retorted that he never chases solely to just chase and only chases things and people that he wants in his life. Furthermore he told me the more involved we become, which of course includes physically, the more he will want to be around me.
This sounded like a foreign language to my bitter, cynical ears. Honestly, I spend more time staring at him with my mouth hanging open trying to process what he’s saying than I do actually speaking.
However, I’m slowly starting to believe him - which is nauseating.
I think all women reach a point where they’re simply too afraid, confused, or angry to allow themselves to trust or be vulnerable. But isn’t there some saying about closing your eyes and just jumping so eventually you learn how to fly? Or maybe it’s don’t call the pot black while leading a horse to water? Something like that.
Eventually, one of these guys will turn into the right guy but none of them will if you’re keeping yourself guarded, unavailable or confined by rules. I say go for it. This guy isn’t in your life yet and if he doesn’t have any interest in becoming part of it then what are you losing? Forget about being coy or dropping hints because El, you know as well as I do, boys can be a little oblivious. And by a little I mean massively, incredibly oblivious and unaware.
Plus, boys are just as unsure sometimes. He might have noticed you and just doesn’t know what to do. Playing a whole bunch of games and sending mixed, girlish, over analytical and way too well thought out messages probably won’t help this but being straightforward could.
So make a move. Introduce yourself, strike up a conversation or just ask him if he wants to go out sometime. There are millions of boys in the world and if this one passes then another one will show up roughly five minutes later. Besides, it’d totally be his loss.
Maybe from now on the only rule worth following is doing what we feel is right and doing what makes us happy. So figure out what that is and make it happen.
Love,
K
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