The Vine: May 31, 2000
Hey Sarah,
Okay, so here’s the thing, I was very good friends with this boy, Ben. We talked about everything. We used to spend hours on the phone telling each other our deepest, darkest secrets. I was going out with his friend Luke at the time and one day Ben told me he had feelings for me. Well that just totally blew me away. I had no idea. I loved Ben to death but Luke was my boyfriend and I was crazy about him.
So I continued to go out with Luke for the next ten months. Ben had a few girlfriends over those months. Me and Luke broke up and just a few weeks ago I was hanging out with Ben and he told me he still felt the same way about me. Well, seeing as I was single now I knew that being with Ben would be great. We were friends, we got along great and we had so much in common . . . but he had a live-in girlfriend. I told him I liked him a lot too but the whole thing with Angela meant that we couldn’t be together right now.
So I have this online journal thing and I write about everything in it. I don’t use names [but] I don’t censor anything. I tried that before and it didn’t make for a very interesting read. I wrote about everything that was happening with me and Ben, and I said how it felt like he was only telling me that he still liked me so that I would wait for him until him and his girlfriend broke up. I said that I thought it wasn’t fair for him to expect me to just sit around and do nothing.
Ben got terribly pissed at me for thinking and writing that on my webpage. I know I shouldn’t have said so many harsh things but I was hurt and confused. Now I feel horrible and more than anything – more than I want to be his girlfriend – I want to be his friend.
What should I say to make things right between us?
Thanks,
Little Miss Big Mouth
Dear Little,
When you keep a online journal, you have to accept the fact that certain people in your life won’t appreciate showing up there, and you have to decide whether to respect their wishes.
With that said, I think Ben’s kind of a git for continuing to yank your chain, especially behind the back of his live-in girlfriend, but if you wanted to let him have it, you should have done it in private first. He’s just worried that Angela will get wind of it and write him a well-deserved one-way ticket to the curb, so tell him that you’re sorry he’s upset, you apologize for not taking it up with him first, and you hope he can get past it.
And while you have his attention, let him know that if he’s not prepared to act on the “feelings” he has for you, you don’t want to hear about them again. I can see Ben’s point about taking the situation public, but really, the guy needs to fish or cut bait.
Tags: boys (and girls) etiquette
