Last year around this time I thought I was going to start a full blown romance with one of my male friends. But when it came time to make things serious, he says that he doesn't want to risk my friendship, because I was the only one he could talk to about certain things. Upon hearing this, I accepted it without argument, even knowing that our friendship would be strained because I had formed a deeper affection for him than "just friends." Besides the school year was over and I was going home for the summer, and who wants to jumpstart a romance long distance.
The summer ends and it's back to school for me. I had moved out of the college apartments that we both stayed in, but I made an effort to see him. Now the problem starts, before the summer we only talked about our attraction to each other, but on these few occasions that I saw him, he was trying to instigate intimacies, that would definitely cross the friend line. So I put my foot down, if he wanted stay friends then there were some privileges that he is not allowed. So I decided that I should stop making all the effort for us to be friends, if he wanted to see me he would do so. Well guess what? He never tried to see me, and he never called to talk to me. Which as you remember was the reason he did not want to risk our friendship. So of course I was pissed about all this. But in time, I dealt with the pain as much as I could and moved on.
So a few weeks ago he graduated and I went to his graduation knowing that this would be the last time I saw him. It was later that night while holding a conversation about the situation with my older sister, that a new perspective was revealed. You see after the year that passed it still didn't make sense to me, the whole don't risk our friendship line. But fortunately my younger brother who was there at the time was able to shed light on it.
My brother said "wow, I can't believe you even accepted that as a reason in the first place. Men are not afraid to risk friendship or anything for that matter for something they want. Do you actually think you're his only friend that he can talk to? He was just saying no but trying to spare your feelings. He probably just hit a snag." All of this insight into the male psyche comes from my 19 yr old brother.
Now both my sister and I are shocked at the obvious truth to his simple statement, but it sure felt like ripping the band-aid off a still healing wound to me. The reason for that, is because even though he said he didn't want to risk our friendship, I still felt like we would still end up together, and so I was still harboring feelings for him. From my brother's statement, it made it feel like he stopped liking me months ago, but while his white lie allowed him to move on, I was stuck romanticizing it all for months after. I don't know about you but from now on I will have my male friends interpret what men say to me, so I won't be taking their "spare me lies" at face value.
How many of you have been told one thing by a man, but later find out that in "man code" it means something completely different? How did it make you feel about the situation, that person and yourself? And men, why do you feel the need to tell these little white lies to women? What's so hard about saying what you mean and meaning what you say when said to women?
1 comment:
I can't really hate on the "man code" in this one because I have done the same thing as the perpetrator in this story, said whatever I could to get my space while still trying to not hurt that person. So I guess that's a human thing and not a man thing. I WILL say that you, dear writer, did right in seeking a male perspective. Steve Harvey had it right in his book when he said the worst thing we women can do is seek advice from WOMEN about MEN. truly (except in this case) both genders speak an entirely differnt language. When in doubt: get a FLUENT, qualified interpreter: another male. SoulfulZeta
Post a Comment