The Vine: July 3, 2003
Sars,
Righto. So, I’m an upperclasswoman at a very small university in the South. A year ago, my steady boyfriend since high school and I broke up, leaving me single and free — free to be a complete jackass to everyone I meet, that is. I’ve recently noticed a hideous pattern in my own behavior: I’ll pick out a boy, decide I like him (or, if a boy likes me, I’ll decide to like him back), flirt and give him my number, and then immediately realize that the boy was probably putrid and I don’t want to go out with him at all. Then I flip out, reject him, or worse, just avoid him perpetually, giving him false hope.
Why do I do this? I’m not a mean person, but it’s getting to the point where my male friends are screaming at me for it — as one put it, I might as well kiss them, then kick them in the nuts and run away. I hate myself for it. Any ideas?
Not really an evil bitch
Dear Not Really,
You probably do it because you find the attention that comes with liking/flirting with a boy gratifying; it gives you an ego boost. But at the same time, you fear closeness and don’t trust yourself.
It’s just a guess, but I think that’s it. The good news is that it’s a classic conflict that almost everyone struggles with at one point or another in their lives, consciously or not. The bad news is that it’s not an excuse to act like a sixth-grader and hurt people’s feelings. The next time you find yourself in a flirty situation, either make an effort to slow yourself down before you draw the kind of attention that you won’t wind up wanting, or answer the phone the next day and tell the guy in question the truth — you enjoyed flirting with him but you don’t feel ready for dating right now.
Dear Sars,
I’ll be the first to tell you that a) the fact that I have this problem in the first place is all my fault and b) that, when put in perspective, this is a tiny teeny speck of dust that you’d have to actually be searching for to find. But, since I’m a sixteen-year-old girl and in high school, a) every problem I have is my fault and b) perspective? What perspective?
There was this school trip a few months ago. We went to Cambodia for a week. In Cambodia, I got to know this guy. We’ll call him “L.” L and I became really good friends. I mean, we were best friends. We told each other everything; I know how many girls he regrets fooling around with, he knows about my depression and the fact that I self-harm. I was closer to him than I’ve ever been to anyone. He’s the nicest guy in the world, et cetera et cetera. I started hanging out with him and his friends, and I developed a huge crush on his close friend, “J.” I didn’t tell L about this, because right at the time that my crush on J formed, L formed a crush…on me. He didn’t tell me directly, but he told about a million others, all of whom told me, and I just…I just knew.
So we got back off the trip and back into school. And in school, L and J went with their crowd, and I went back to mine. And I wanted to be friends with L, but every time he tried to talk to me, I would freeze him out and blow him off, desperately trying not to, but because I was so uncomfortable with the fact that he liked me and it was just a instinct thing. J and I totally lost touch, of course (I can’t believe I just used the word “totally” when I’m trying to convince the world that this is a bigger problem than those of most sixteen-year-olds!), and L and I drifted apart completely.
I still really like J, four months later. I feel like I’m not good enough for him and that there’s no chance that he would EVER like me back, especially because of how I treated L. And I feel terrible about L. I hate myself so much for hurting him like I must have. I ruined a great friendship and a possibility of a relationship with a guy I really, really like.
I don’t know what to do, I don’t even know what my question is. I need to apologise to L and I don’t know how to do it. Please help.
Caity
Dear Caity,
Just apologize. Do it in person, send an email, whatever. “I’m sorry about how I acted back there; I just got freaked out and handled it really badly, and I hope you can forgive me, but if you can’t, please know that I fucked up and I feel terrible for hurting your feelings.” It’s not fun, but it’s over fast.
As for J…leave that alone, I think, at least for now. Intense bonds form on these trips, but in the final analysis, you got close to the guy in a week’s time and you really haven’t hung out since. That suggests to me that 1) your liking him might have less to do with him as a person than with him as an unattainable ideal and 2) he’s fine with “just friends,” since he hasn’t approached you since the trip either.
Yeah, he might like you back; yeah, he might hate you for acting weird to L. Regardless, don’t complicate the L situation by dealing with J just yet.
Hey Sars,
You provide the world with a unique service — a grammar clinic where the insufferably pedantic (like me) can gripe with impunity! Hurrah! I beat my friends on the arrangement of consonants in the word “anemone,” the appropriate use of “implication” versus “inference,” and the evil tendency that thinks there is an “a” in “definitely,” but there is one battle we can’t seem to resolve. If only I had a nice meaty personal problem, I’d get on with fretting about that, but as it is this stuff genuinely bothers me.
Say you go into someone’s, um, kitchen (to pick at random) and are surprised that it’s actually bigger than you had at first taken it to be. Would you describe the kitchen as deceptively small, or deceptively large? Does “deceptively small” mean “actually smaller than it looks” or “actually bigger than it looks”? I’m in total confusion here! What is it that’s supposed to be deceptive — the appearance or the reality? Is it that the “real” kitchen commits the deception, or the appearance that is deceptive? Clear this up and I’ll be free to go and apply my neuroses to my personal life…
Yours,
Deceptively Trivial
Dear D.T.,
I usually have to stop and think about that one before committing it to speech, myself — and I always wind up going with a workaround like “deceptively small-looking,” which is what you really mean anyway — but if it’s bigger than you initially thought, and you don’t want to append “-looking,” then you want “deceptively large.” Why? The largeness is deceptive, because the kitchen doesn’t look large, and yet it is large. If, on the other hand, the kitchen seems big at first, but then it feels crowded with three people in it, then you’d use “deceptively small.”
At least, that’s how I’d break it down, but I don’t feel too confident about it, which is why I tag a “-looking” onto it. None of my reference books has an entry on this specific usage fillip, so…your call.
Dear Sars,
My stepsister is getting married in a few months, and she asked me to stand up in her wedding. Even though we’ve never been close, I said yes.
Dammit.
At the moment, Stepsis isn’t speaking to me. I made the mistake of saying the bridesmaid dresses look a little outdated. I didn’t realize “I really want your opinion” actually meant “tell me you love it OR DIE!” My bad. Matching gloves and pumps rock!
Okay, so yes, that’s kind of mean. But when I saw how upset she was by my criticism, I apologized. Too late. The damage was done. Two weeks later, she still won’t return my calls or emails.
I keep asking myself why I’m in this wedding. Sitting here adding up price tags, it’s getting hard to swallow. I’m a single mom who lives paycheck to paycheck, Sars. At one point last month, I had 27 cents in my bank account. With the shower gift, wedding gift, bachelorette party, travel and hotel costs, I was already looking at a staggering amount of cash. Tack on a $200 dress and this wedding is kicking my credit cards’ collective ass.
Thing is, I think I’d be okay with shelling out that kind of dough if I didn’t feel like she asked me to be in her wedding out of obligation. We’ve never really gotten along, we see each other maybe three times a year, and she has EIGHT other bridesmaids. Now she’s mad at me on top of everything else.
What do you think, Sars? Is there a graceful way to get out of bridesmaid duty? Or am I in it for better or worse?
Sign me…
One Assbow Away From A Meltdown
Dear Meltdown,
You said you’d serve as a bridesmaid. Then you insulted her choice of bridesmaid’s dress. Now you want out? I mean, I feel you, but just because you have an emotion doesn’t mean you get to put it in play — especially when it comes to weddings. If you didn’t want to do it, you should have said no up front, but a wedding isn’t a cocktail party; you don’t get to just change your mind.
I do think the bride is overreacting; if she didn’t want to hear the answer, she shouldn’t have asked, and anyway, it’s not like you stomped your foot and bellowed that under no circumstances would you wear those rags (…I assume). Send Stepsis another email. Apologize again for offending her. Tell her that you don’t think it’s nearly this big a deal, but that if she’d rather have another woman in your stead as a result, you will understand. Close by pointing out that, whatever she decides, she should drop the silent treatment and let you know — soon. Mention that, if she doesn’t reestablish contact with you in, say, a week, you will assume that she doesn’t want you in the wedding party anymore, and proceed accordingly.
If she wants to sulk, you can’t do much about that, but given your financial situation, I think you have the right to ask what the sulk means as far as your participation in the wedding goes.
So, there’s this guy. I met him about a year ago, and we immediately became close friends. We shared interests and passions on every level you can imagine. Suddenly, I was spending every day with him. At first, things were just dandy, as things always are…at first. We began the slow downshift from friends to “dating.” Things continued on their merry way. If you can handle the gag factor of it, we even got cast as romantic interests opposite one another in an independent film. I know. Kill me.
But it was weird. Weird like…we’d been “together” (according to him — more on that later) for about two months, and no more than kissing, and not so much of that. Now, I like to take things slow, but I really liked this guy and wanted to further express myself physically. Also, we never talked about “US.” In fact, I was unsure that we were even dating until I heard him talking about his “girlfriend” to some castmates of his. Um, okay…nice of him to tell me that. So, things continue this way. I was, admittedly, stupidly reticent to have A TALK about how I was feeling (neglected, unwanted, et cetera), but he consistently avoided the subject. We’d established going into it that neither of us wanted anything incredibly serious, but in my book, one conversation does not last for months at a time. I didn’t want to freaking pick out china patterns with the dude, but if he’s going around calling me his girlfriend…I’m on a need-to-know basis. Because, at the time, I was still seeing other people.
This is getting lengthy, so let me hurry things along. We finally talk; he flips, saying I want more than he can give; and we break it off. I tell him I need some time completely away to sort out my feelings. Meanwhile, we get cast once again as romantic interests, so during our “break”…we get to kiss on camera for hours. How lovely and not awkward at all. I really missed our friendship, so slowly…I got to a point where I could be around him and be okay with us just being friends. Then one night he kisses me. And things start all over…until they stop in a similar fashion, only this time I’m way more attached and much more hurt by the break-up.
Enter our careers once again. We are forced to work together. Things go from awful to bearable to “hey, now I remember why I liked this person in the first place…let’s be friends.” I was still hesitant, because deep down I still had a lot of feelings for him, but I really wanted him to still be a part of my life.
Then the DAY came. The day he took me on a walk and basically told me that there was a point when he thought he was falling in love with me, and he could picture himself with me…but that two years ago he’d had a relationship with a guy…and didn’t know what he wanted, and didn’t want to drag me through all that, but now that this was all out in the open, wasn’t it great and now we could be bestest friends forever. He was so sure that this revelation “explained” everything to me.
Um. Okay. I care about Guy a lot. I have no problem with the fact that he’s sexually confused. Things never got to a point physically where it would have been a health issue for me to know his past, so it’s not like he put me in danger…but…ouch. I feel lied to and used in a lot of ways. Suddenly, it was very clear to me that throughout our relationship, I was present when a “GIRLFRIEND” was useful, and not otherwise. Let me reiterate: It is NOT his sexual orientation that I have a problem with. I would love and support any friend, or person for that matter, in whatever choice they feel will make them happy…but I need time. Time and space to heal this broken heart. Time to adjust my view of who and what this man will be in my life. Time to let the dreams die.
Guy…not understanding this so much. He cannot see why I can’t just jump right back into our friendship. He complains that I am sad and distant. Well, yes. Probably I am, from him. I feel awful, because I know that he is going through a lot right now, and needs his friends. Quite honestly, though, if I’m to go about this business of getting on with my life, I can’t be there right now.
The question, oh Sars of wisdom and wit, is: Is it selfish and wrongheaded of me to cut Guy out until it doesn’t hurt so much to see him? Or should I suck it up and be the “good friend”?
Your advice would be oh-so-appreciated!
Getting Over It
Dear Getting,
No, it isn’t selfish — it’s exactly what you should do, and you should tell Guy exactly what you just told me.
I would leave the bearding accusations out of it, because if he did set you up for that, it’s possible that he didn’t do it consciously, if that makes any sense. But the fact remains that he jerked your chain, repeatedly, and he had his reasons, but…see my answer to today’s first letter. A reason is not necessarily an excuse. He has a lot to figure out, but historically, he has done that at the expense of your feelings, so he can rely on other friends this time around.
If he reacts badly, okay, but don’t let him guilt you into supportive-friend duty if you don’t feel up to it. He hasn’t proven himself as a friend to you yet, really. Take the space you need and let him suck it up.
[7/3/03]
Tags: boys (and girls) grammar the fam
