A fellow recently wrote to NiceGuy using the nick "Tisdall." He wrote about his disastrous love life. His letter could have come from me twenty years ago. I found myself reading through what he wrote, nodding my head and wanting to tell this guy everything I've discovered in twenty years. So, I asked him for a copy of the letter, and added my own comments, which are in italics. The part in plain text is his letter, unedited.
I don't want to come across as some kind of smug, snotty know-it-all who has been through all of this and thinks that he knows exactly what to do in every situation. The very fact that I decided to marry Mrs. Buster should tell anyone reading this that I'm not a relationship guru. Please read my comments, if you will, as advice I would have given myself when I was in this guy's situation, knowing what I know now, if I could go back in time and talk to my former self. I hope that my "advice" here isn't facile and trivial, although in places it may turn out to be. Probably in twenty more years, when I've lived even longer, I will have still different advice, but this is what I have to offer now.
Dear NiceGuy,
I realize you're in Japan and have little time to update, but I'm hoping you'll post my experiences as further proof that NiceGuys finish last with American women. Your site was referenced to me via a multi-university online forum on relationships. Incidentally, it was posted by an uninformed schmuck of a girl who undoubtedly scanned what you said and deemed it unintelligent. Summarily, it was dismissed by a few others on the forum. Well, they be wrong. Real wrong. And hopefully frightened. Everything you've written about hits home. Hard.
An odd coincidence, but I will be studying in Japan either this summer and/or fall. I'm looking to learn more taiko, try some kendo, maybe butoh (hell, anything ending in an 'o'), some dance-theater. And yes, yes, yes...maybe find a girl.
Note: If you must post just one of the following stories, post She-shit's (the second). Otherwise, just post it all, I'm begging you.
Me: I am a nice guy. And I'm not a boring dolt who doesn't take risks to meet girls. I'm a half-Chinese Jewish nineteen-year-old college sophomore with an intended double major of dance and theater, a passion for drawing, pop culture, 80s metal, skiing, humor, and modern warfare. As you can see, my interests vary widely in terms of taste ... makes for great conversation.
I've been told by unrelated people of varying ages, cultures, and both genders that I am indeed "a nice person" and bear a resemblance to Keanu Reeves. Friends of both sexes have told me I am attractive and an extremely interesting and have a crazy sense of humor. I am non-aggressive (and no, not even passive aggressive); I don't use people. I am sensitive to others feelings and my own. I do not seek to make myself depressed or self-destructive. I don't drink, smoke, or take drugs, and never will. I'd say it's a good indication that I'm neither a bawling puddle, nor a big dumb male asshole. So, I'm a heterosexual with the sensitivity of a (granted, stereotypical, but without the lisp and wrists) gay male. You'd think with the ballet and modern and taiko I'd be considered sexy or attractive or interesting? WELL, NO!
Well, no. I'll get into exactly why later, but if I were to walk up to a woman who found me attractive and said, "I don't drink, smoke, or take drugs, and never will," and "I'm a heterosexual male with the sensitivity of a... gay male," and that I'm into ballet, I can guarantee it would be a turn-off for her. She may say over and over again that she wants a sensitive, kind man who will do right by her, but in fact it's one of those situations of, "Be careful what you wish for... you may get it." What she thinks she wants and what she really wants once she gets it are two different things. Women, like men, don't know what they want until they get it, for the most part. This means that their frequent protestations and claims about what they do want are bunk.
I'm not coming down on Tisdall here. His description fits to a tee how I was ten years ago. I even tried out ballet, too, and had a host of interesting hobbies. All I'm saying is that the assumption that women find sensitive, straight-arrow men attractive is pure feminine PR. They say that, but when it comes to choosing a boyfriend, this type of guy—the type of guy I am and Tisdall is—always ends up being the "friend" and never gets any.
You'd think I'd be able to find a wonderful, well-adjusted girl.
Total number of girls I've met who could have been a girlfriend since high school: 5.
Only relationship I've had: 1
Duration: Less than three weeks.
Sexual experience, encounters: None.
Times kissed: Three.
You ever wish you had Marty McFly's DeLorean? You know, so you could just accelerate to 88mph, and go back to any of these moments when you first met them? And then in slow motion, scream, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" and tackle yourself (or bodycheck the psycho away)?
Chronicles
Neurotica
Following a ridiculous crush where I sat transfixed and too dumbfounded to say anything, I decided in 9th grade to actually talk and meet a girl. Boy, did I pick the wrong one. She was pretty, though. Tall, blonde, shy, extremely intelligent. I was the only one to whom she talked, really. I made her laugh and enjoy herself. We didn't try to jump each other's bones, but just enjoy each other's company. She eventually developed an enormous crush on me, and I on her. Nothing materialized out of it that year.
Come 10th grade, she turned evil. Her family was extremely neurotic and dysfunctional. She claimed guys were always hooting at her, that teachers had something against her, that she was far too smart for anyone, that I was getting immature (huh?). She shied away from physical contact, which made me uneasy and hesitant to even give the girl who had a crush on me a hug. Not even the slight brushing of hands. She looked scared as hell of any physical contact.
This may seem counter-intuitive, but this was your first mistake. This isn't damning criticism: I did the same thing all through high school and university. The air was humming with the anger of women over men who "just wouldn't take no for an answer" and who "were thinking only of one thing," and I was determined not to be one of those men. I was determined to give women what they wanted, and then I would get more of what I wanted, which was female company. Made sense to me. Sadly, it doesn't work that way. Shy, skittish women want their man to come on to them, to pressure them just a little bit to go farther and try "dangerous" things like fondling and sex. They want sex as much as any other person. They want to be touched, caressed, grabbed, and humped just as anyone else does. However, they're scared stiff of the whole subject. So, what they want is a man who will press the point, so that they can say, "This isn't my idea. This isn't my responsibility. All of this stuff we're doing, it's on your head if it goes sour. I wash my hands of any part in this sex thing, because it was your idea." When you back off and give her space, and refuse to press for what she says or suggests that she doesn't want, it doesn't tell her that you're sensitive. Rather, it tells her that you're as much of a weenie as she is, and that as long as she stays with you she's never going to get any, because to get any she will have to take the initiative, which means that she will be responsible for any problems, which is exactly what she's scared of. So she dumps you for another, more aggressive guy.
Now, I must add to this that she doesn't want some brute to rape her. What she wants is a delicate balance in which the brute is at one extreme, and you, the sensitive guy, are at the other extreme. She wants someone in between: someone who understands the subtle dance in which he is supposed to press her for sex... but not too hard... and in which he knows when to go for it and when to back off. She wants sex, but she also wants an iron-clad alibi, such as "I said, 'I don't feel like it,' but he kept on going anyway." She wants to preserve her virginal reputation, even if she wants to lose her virginity. As I said, it's a very delicate dance. Too much pressure and it becomes "harassment" or "rape." Too little pressure and she dumps you because she figures that you don't have the balls to go against what she says and in so doing give her what she wants. If you go for it and screw it up, you're a brute. If you don't go for it you're a wimp. Striking the balance is not easy.
The trick to all of this is to either learn the dance, which involves making mistakes, which involves possible arrest, or searching out girls who are more direct and not so nervous about their reputations. However, your spectrum looks something like hers: nervous, shy girls are bad news because they put all of the responsibility for "naughtiness" on your shoulders. Wild, uninhibited girls are poor company because more often than not they're psychos who don't know when to turn off the wild behaviour and act like civilized human beings. Something in the middle is best, but it's hard to find a girl who can strike the balance. Once or twice I've heard of girls who are shy in public but rip their clothes off in private; this is the same as it would be for her to find a guy who knows just exactly how to play her, the way she wants to be played, and only when she wants to be played. Those are few and far between.
Finally, I should point out that I'm not some Neanderthal bad boy who grabs every girl he sees. On the contrary, I'm much like you, and my approach to girls has always been slow and cautious. I loosened up a bit in the years before I met Mrs. Buster, because I began to recognize that as much as women say that they hate being bothered by guys, they hate initiating even more. Mrs. Buster herself is a case in point: if she wants something, she will never tell me outright. She will hint and suggest, and then pout and sulk if she doesn't get what she wants. She wants me to suggest the thing she wants and won't talk about, so that if anything goes wrong it will have been "my" idea. She doesn't do this with sex any more, but now it's buying sweaters, or going on trips. If we're in Mexico and we're blowing our trip budget, she can always say, "Well, this was your idea," even though she sulked for three days before I finally suggested a vacation in Mexico. It's all part of the same feminine phenomenon.
So, she called me immature. Because I made her enjoy being with me. Because I made her laugh. Because I was the only one who sat and talked to her (in retrospect, this should have clued me in...but how was I to know, being in 9th -11th grade?) To have a sense of humor - to have wit, be it ironic or low brow, to be able to gauge people's moods and make according jokes that cause them to laugh and feel better.
No, she called you immature because you didn't know how to pressure her into doing what she wanted to do anyway. You weren't mature enough to make her immaturity irrelevant. By backing off and being her friend, you reminded her not of a man but of a boy. This isn't a slap against you. She wasn't being reasonable: she should have said what she wanted and worked with you to get it. You know: cooperation. However, saying that she "wasn't being reasonable" doesn't mean that most women ever become reasonable in this way. Your only hope, then, is to try to work around this kind of irrational behaviour. Part of that learning is not taking it personally. When a woman calls me names, I just assume that it's a woman talking, and that she has her own agenda (I find that women hardly ever say what they say plainly—there's almost always an agenda behind their words). Part of being a masculine male that women find attractive is becoming less sensitive, looking out more for what you want and rarely changing yourself for what someone else—particularly a woman—wants. Again, what women fall for is often the opposite of what they say they want.
Neurotica abruptly came up with the claim that my crush had developed because I was stalking her (she has since denied it). A sidenote -- there's the way the women use the word "stalking." Stalking, huh. Holy shit. Are you nuts!? Stalking is flat-out bad. Why the hell would I stalk somebody?
Yet another example of how women throw accusations around for effect, rather than in serious consideration of what these things mean to the person on the receiving end. Most women (certainly not all, but most) want attention, particularly attention from their girlfriends. They get this attention in several ways, one of which is to play up their "victim status." "He bugs me" sounds trivial and ordinary. "He's stalking me" sounds life-threatening and gets a great reaction from friends. The fact that "He's stalking me" is a serious accusation with potentially serious repercussions pales in importance beside the "Oh my God" points she scores with her friends. As well (and in all conscience I must say this), it may not be her saying it. Her friends may be trying to score points with their friends by saying, "She's being stalked!" I've noticed this with Mrs. Buster and her friends: it doesn't seem to matter how outlandish or improbable are the stories they tell each other, so long as they get an appropriate reaction from the listener.
Neurotica then became progressively hostile. I was called unpleasant things while she went on about how she had met this great guy online...
Holy obvious behaviour, Batman! She had decided that she was finished with you, but still had feelings for you. To protect herself, she started slagging you, and inventing new "boyfriends" in order to: a) stop you hanging around, and b) convince herself that she could find another guy easily. This is not female behaviour: it's human behaviour. Everyone does this, because people rarely break up with their romantic partners because they hate their guts. A woman will stay with a man (or vice versa) while things get worse and worse, until the bad far outweighs the good. Then comes the break-up. Then comes the sinking realization that although she got rid of this guy she didn't get along with, she's now alone, so it wasn't an improvement, just trading one kind of unhappiness for another. This when the "denial" phase sets in: "The guy I was with was an asshole [he wasn't, but it feels better to believe that]," or "I could get another guy far better than him at the drop of a hat [she can't, but it feels better to believe that]." It's part of the grieving process, if you want to use pop-psychology terms. This can manifest itself in the ways you talked about, or she could yo-yo back to you for a few days or weeks, only to break up with you again, and again, and again... or, it could manifest itself as...
She then developed an eating disorder and a stressed-out complex that made her menstrual cycle malfunction in a life-threatening manner. She went to the hospital for a month or so.
...totally going off the deep end.
I was confused.
So was she, but that shouldn't be your primary concern.
I called her and told her I was worried about her and she was important to me - this served to disturb her even more.
A fine sentiment, but what you did there was show yourself to her as a friend. You also demonstrated that you're a pushover: she mistreated you, and you came back for more. As I said, very noble, and God will reward you for your noble sentiments, but as far as making yourself happy, this isn't a good way to go about it. That said, neither is there any point in being vindictive and saying, "Good!" or "I couldn't care less." The best gambit here is to be coolly sympathetic, as in, "I'm sorry to hear that you're in rough shape. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I hope you get better soon." No tears, no heartfelt admissions. You want to show that you're not inhuman, but that you have the good sense to save your heartfelt emotions for someone who better deserves them.
She finally got better physically, returned to school and lo -- was nastier than ever.
Now she hates you even more, not only because she likes you and she doesn't want to, but also because you showed yourself to be such a nice guy even after she treated you like shit. You've wandered into a curious girl territory that I'm only just learning about with Mrs. Buster. If one girl is mean to another, the one who got the shaft may be nicer-than-nice to the mean bitch who shafted her. This is, in the feminine world, an attack. It's saying: "You sure are a bitch, but I'm not. You treated me like crap, but I'm better than you, so I'm going to be nice to you just the same. Take that, bitch!" Not only did you make her feel indebted to you, she now feels that she's not as good as you are, and it's harder for her to rationalize treating you badly, because she still doesn't want you around. That, in turn, made her really cranky!
I finally stopped talking to her and avoided her for the last half of junior year. Maybe I was in denial about her misery?
During the summer between junior and senior year, I received a lengthy letter about how sorry and wrong she was and that she had been so horrible.
You weren't in denial about anything except the fact that this relationship sucked from your end and there was no way to fix it. For her part, she finally got far enough away from the whole thing and calmed down enough to apologize for being a bitch to you.
I forgave her, started talking to her, only to watch her go nuts again.
Sure, because she wrote the letter to make her feel better, not to restart your friendship / romance. She still didn't want to see you; she just wanted you not to think of her as a bitch any more. In a way this is understandable, but a problem with women: she should really have written, plainly, "Look, I still don't want to hang with you, but what I did last year was over the top and uncalled for. I'm really sorry that I hurt you and was such a bitch, and I hope you feel better now, but no this doesn't mean that we can be friends again." However, women are, on the whole, lousy and being direct and forthright. She wanted to clear her name, not be friends.
In college, it's much easier keeping my distance - the time away has given me some perspective on the neuroticism of high school. She still talks to me occasionally about her latest crushes on horrifically neurotic guys or her obsessions with some interest or hobby that comes and goes in the blink of an eye. I make sure to keep my distance. She's poison.
For you, she absolutely is poison. Some other guy might be able to handle her the way she wants to be handled, but you can't. There's no shame in that. I've met lots of incredibly attractive women that I knew weren't for me. They're now mostly married, which is always sad (I always feel a pang of regret when another door closes), but I have to accept that some personalities just don't mesh. My Japanese ex-girlfriend is a perfect example: we were almost compatible, but not quite. I don't hate her guts (just some of the things she did). I hope that she meets some great guy and gets married some day. I never want to hear from her again, but I don't wish her ill. We just didn't fit, that's all.
Whether she's a neurotic freak or just a slightly flaky girl that didn't connect with you, the outcome is the same: the two of you don't fit. Cut your losses, give up on the whole thing, and look elsewhere.
She-Shit
I met this artistic, poetry-inclined girl my senior year of high school at a Prospective Student Weekend at Small Elite Liberal Arts College X back in March or April.
Oh dear. The pretentious, artsy, faux-intellectual ones are always trouble.
She started talking to me first and she seemed like a really nice girl. From Hong Kong, but moved when she was a small child. We watched a movie together, hung out on the lawn, went to various activities, walked around. I was definitely pleased and surprised after all the crap in high school. When I got home, she e-mailed me promptly, and we started a long e-mail dialogue. It seemed like she was very interested in me, the way she flirted in her letters and said how great I was and things like, "We definitely have to just lie on that quadrangle lawn and look at the sky." She seemed quite dreamy, very different from Neurotica (how wrong I was) and all the other girls in high school.
Women and girls play at romance. It's fun for them, like video games are for guys. When women get all romantic on you, never forget that they get all romantic because they love romance. That's fine, let them have their fun, but never imagine that this is all because of you, because you're striking a chord with them that no other man could strike. At the beginning, at the most romantic state of the relationship, the romance is almost entirely in her head. She isn't falling for you; she's falling for the romantic dream. You're just acting talent playing a role. You may be better or worse than other guys at acting the part, but if you start to believe that it's all your doing, then it will be your undoing.
So, I reciprocated similar comments and compliments.
Fine, but if you're anything like I was, you meant the things you said. She was having fun, but you were trying to really fall deeply in love. Bad idea.
I wasn't trying to get in her pants or anything. I felt I should take my time, and I think I did.
But were you doing that because it's what you thought she wanted, or to protect your reputation, or for your own enjoyment? In the end, women hate guys who are constantly preoccupied with what the women want, and they hate guys who are concerned for their own reputations. So you have to ask yourself what's the point? I know, you're probably conditioned that way, and I am too, but you have to ask yourself what's the point?
In addition to the frequent e-mails, we occasionally talked on the phone, and I told her about my aspirations and annoyances and faults of my life, and she did the same for hers. I told her I'd like to be a more understanding, affectionate kind of friend. I told her about my past experiences with failed attempted relationships. And she agreed (perhaps not, in retrospect...or maybe she later changed her name) and sympathized.
By doing all of that you were turning yourself into a friend. Yeah, I know. Women keep talking about how they want to be best friends with their lovers. Then again, men keep talking about wanting women with big tits, but when they find one with big tits who's a ball-busting bitch they suddenly reassess their priorities. Women who want to be best friends with their lovers, and then have the opportunity to make love to their best friends, usually pass on the opportunity. Friendship they can get any time. Sex they can get any time. What they want is the rush of romance, and part of that is making the game challenging. A man who will open up and tell all is not romance material because he's no challenge at all.
Sometimes she would criticize herself for being a lousy friend to people, always brushing them away and expecting them to be waiting for her when she returned. I, in my stupidity, told her she was wrong -- she was a good, caring person who deserved to be treated well and with respect.
I should have listened to Mrs. Buster when she told me that she had "bad character." She wasn't lying. She does. Self-critical people are usually right about themselves. Take their criticism to heart and dump them. Yeah, I know: easy to say; difficult to do. Nonetheless, I've never come across a situation in my life in which a woman said to me, "I'm bad company," and she turned out to be wrong.
And, well, we communicated well -- I felt that she was definitely a potential girl with whom to have a relationship.
In your mind, yes, but you'd already opened up and turned yourself into her friend, so she probably wasn't thinking that way any more, or was at least uncertain.
Remember this -- I wasn't going to force it, but rather let things take their course - if nothing ever blossomed, fine, that's okay. I'd still have a good friend. If a romantic relationship did blossom, that too would be fine and wonderful and delightful and flowers and cakes for all.
Sorry, but wrong approach. She's waiting for you to move in on her, to take the initiative. She will never take the initiative, and only very rarely do romantic relationships "blossom" or "just happen," and when they do it has nothing to do with the relationship's likelihood for success. (Most often, it has to do with stupid coincidences. Relationships can "blossom" between totally incompatible people, while compatible people can miss the boat waiting for something to "happen.")
We had discussed getting together over the summer, and eventually it was decided I'd fly out for the weekend for her birthday in July (she didn't live too far away by plane and the ticket price was very reasonable). But, two days before I flew out, she called me up and exclaimed in a worried voice, "W-What are your feelings on me!?"
She's suddenly realized that she has participated in a romantic overture. Flying out for the weekend is romance stuff. Relationship stuff. Far from forcing you to take the lead, she went in with you and cooperated in it. Now maybe a relationship will start and she loses deniability. She can no longer say, "This wasn't my idea." On the contrary, you could claim, "But this was your idea!" She feels trapped. What if you come on to her and she changes her mind? How can she say no? She's panicking and wants clarification.
"Pardon?"
"What are your feelings on me? On us?"
I caught on. I said that she was the nicest girl I've ever met (Christ, how many had I met at that point?), and that while we were friends, I could easily be romantically inclined towards her.
Her reaction was, "Oh. Oh, no ... That's not what I wanted. You're nice, but I'm not looking for a boyfriend or anything ... I don't want that! I still want you to come out, though."
Trouble is brewing here. Again, women rarely come out and say directly what they want, and they often say things they don't really mean in order to save face. "You're nice, but I'm not looking for a boyfriend or anything," really means, "I'm not interested in you. Period. However, I'm adding 'You're nice' so that I don't sound like an asshole."
The last sentence is a face-saving measure. If she tells you that she doesn't want you come out then she sounds like a bitch. She doesn't want to sound like a bitch. So, even though she doesn't want you to come out, she says that she does, so that she doesn't come off looking bad. Meanwhile, she is thinking, "Please, please, please say you're not coming out. Please tell me you don't want to bother any more. Please." Again, she won't say it, because then she comes off looking like a jerk. As well, women rarely take the initiative. She wants you to call it off.
So, I was confused. I wasn't trying to get her to be my girlfriend at all. I said, "Of course I'm still coming to visit." Meanwhile, I thought -- gee, well, why did you lead me on like you were interested in all of our discussions and e-mails? That, and why did she just shut it off any sort of relationship.
She "led you on" because a relationship sounded like a fun idea. It was fun for her to dream about how things might be, make plans, and think romantic thoughts. (Here I use "romantic" not just in the love sense, but also in the sense of "fun and unrealistic.") However, when she couldn't push reality aside any more, she started to think of everything that could go wrong. I mean, the two of you weren't really, concretely "together," but here you were going to come and (gulp) meet her family. Now, here is where Chinese culture comes in. Family is huge in Chinese culture. Huge. Well, you said that you're Chinese-American, so I don't need to tell you that, do I? Bringing home a guy to meet the family is a big deal. Suddenly she realizes two things: 1) that the two of you have never really nailed down your relationship, and 2) that by having you fly in and meet her family she will be starting in motion a chain of gossip and assumptions that may lead who-knows-where. Before, corresponding with you was a romantic fantasy. It was fun. Now it's poised to become serious, and she'll definitely lose control of it. She probably feels trapped.
Mrs. Buster does this all the time. She makes plans and then nags me to follow through on her plans. If I raise practical objections, she gets angry or pouts. I'm learning that when she comes up with an idea, it's just a bit of romantic fun. She wants me to play along, but then never really do anything about it. She can then rag on me later for not following through, but if I actually do follow through, it's just as bad. If I take her plan and try to run with it, she will immediately dig in her heels and refuse to cooperate. Sound weird? Sound illogical? Well, it is, until you realize that the fun thing about her idea was not making it happen, but dreaming about how much fun it could be. For women, romance is the fun part. When the idea starts to take shape... that's when the romantic sunset fades and she starts thinking in practical terms, and realizes everything that could go wrong and what that might mean. So, she digs in her heels and resists. It was fun dreaming about moving to a farm, but now that we're poised to do it, she realizes that she'll be miles from her friends, stores, the buses, and have nothing to do all day but feed chickens. She liked going to sleep dreaming about the smell of hay and the morning mist on the fields, but now that we're talking about buying she remembers the smell of cow shit in the barn, cold drafts in the house, and getting up at 5:00am and it doesn't look so good any more. If I back off and say we won't move, she'll immediately switch back to romantic mode (because now reality doesn't matter), and get angry at me for abandoning her dream. If I press on despite her objections, I know that whenever she has a bad day on the farm, she'll blame it on me for "making us move."
Women love romance and romantic ideas. They love to dream about how things could be. If you decide to be a white knight and realize her dreams for her, you place yourself in a no-win situation: your implementation can never be as good as the dream. Reality is never as romantic as romance, because romance is reality with all of the bad, boring bits taken out. If you try to implement her dreams and then listen to her objections and back off then you're a jerk, because you said you would realize her dreams and you didn't.
Most guys, the "Neanderthals," get around this simply by paying no attention to their women's dreams. They then have to listening to whining complaints that they aren't being "romantic," but it's better than the alternative. Most men who aren't "romantic" have learned the hard way that it's better not to be.
So, I flew out on the weekend, and she didn't even recognize me in the airport (granted, I had a haircut). I recognized her instantly (and she had a haircut). Kind of sad. And she just said, "Hi." And I felt like crap. Totally awkward. What the hell was doing out here? I didn't even feel like myself.
Men experience romance, too. Again, reality is never as much fun as the dream. I've lost count of the number of times that I dreamed about how much fun it would be to go on a date, or do something with a girl, only to find that the reality of being there, face to face with her, was nowhere near as much fun as I had thought. Before, I would wonder to myself, "What's happening here? Why isn't it like my dream? What am I doing wrong?" I would balls-up the situation even more by going silent and introspective. I now skip that stage. I just say to myself, 'OK, this isn't what I thought it would be, but given what it is, what can I do with it?' I've found that I can save the situation if I just go Zen and let it happen and adapt my expectations according to what's in front of me, rather than what I had hoped for.
Sex is a good example of this. Almost all young men live with a constant desire for sex. Oh, you can suppress it, wallpaper over it, and otherwise try not to, but in the end all you can do is run with it ("jerk") or live in opposition to it ("nice guy"). It's never a neutral force. However, now that I'm married and I have sex on a regular basis, I must say that it's nowhere near as good as I had hoped. In fact, it's pretty boring.
The best metaphor I ever heard of for sex was that it's like air: it's no big deal unless you're not getting any. I would extend the metaphor to say that if you've lived your life in a stuffy dungeon, all you dream about is sweet, fresh, mountain air. You think that when you get out of the dungeon, you will relish every breath of air, every smell. You think that very place you will go you're going to breathe, and thank God for how good the air tastes. When you first do get out of the dungeon, this is exactly what you do. After a few months or years pass, however, you relish the air less and less. You just breathe like everyone else. Only the very best, very sweetest air gets your attention. Every other breath is just everyday breathing.
I used to dream about how great sex would be, how my wife and I would have loving, gentle sex, sweaty, hot sex, forbidden sex, and how it was the only thing I lacked in my life. After I got married, I realized that, like the air, sex is never as good or important when you get it as you think it will be when you're not getting any. What all of this says is that both women and men romanticize, and both can be disappointed when reality is inevitably less than the dream.
She had to prepare for her party -- cooking, cleaning, etc. I tried to help out a little bit, but she was totally ignoring me. Plus, out of nowhere, she seemed to get this idea that I was ignorant of her Chinese identity or something...
"This is my grandmother. She's making egg and scallion pancakes...have you ever had them? (Yes, I thought) Here, eat."
"Okay." I'm actually not hungry at all. I eat one anyway and thank her grandmother for it, whereupon She-shit looks at me quizzically, asking "Why aren't you eating? There's still plenty."
Time passes while She-shit scoops melon balls for her party.
I had a similar experience with my Japanese ex-girlfriend, although her issues were with her coworkers, not with her family. That was a cultural difference. (Japanese culture is not as family-centred as Chinese culture, as you probably know.) However, the problem was the same: she was terrified that if any of her coworkers met me, they might talk. She-shit was probably terrified that you would do or say something that would become an anecdote and spread throughout her family. She was acting weird because she was now living out a romantic idea, and she was terrified it would blow up in her face. She was scooping melon balls, thinking, "Please, please, just sit there and don't do or say anything stupid. You're here. There's nothing I can do about that, but please don't make me look bad." All that stuff about Granny's pancakes wasn't for your benefit: it was for her family's benefit. She's putting on a show for them, not trying to make you comfortable.
"Are you sure you don't want me to help?"
"No, no. You just sit on the couch."
I guess she had other things on her mind, so I just sort of stayed quiet and watched. She took the time to walk around the neighborhood with me for five minutes, and I we sit for a moment and suddenly her head finds my shoulder... while she's doing this, she reiterates her "I'm not looking for a romantic relationship...not only that, I don't believe in marriage."
I ask her if she's ever been romantically interested in me at all.
Now she's playing with you. The two of you are alone, so she doesn't have to worry about putting on a show for her family. Does she want a relationship with you? No. Does she like to dream about having a relationship with you? Yes. Romance again. She's having a nice, fluffy pink dream and you're a prop. She's using you like this because you've demonstrated that you're a Nice Guy whom she can use and you won't object.
"No. Never."
Well, shoot. Okay, not a problem. But why are you ignoring me?
Of course she had been romantically interested in you, but if she said so she would have to explain. No woman puts her head on the shoulder of some guy in which she's never had a romantic interest. However, now she's just messing around, being silly. It's also an ego boost for her that you're romantically interested in her. She doesn't need to follow through on anything. She doesn't need a relationship, or sex, in order to get an ego boost. All she needs is to know that a relationship could start if she were to give the green light.
This is, by the way, why women "attract and resist." It's why they make romantic overtures, flirt, and drop big hints about love and sex, only to deny it all in the end. This is why they pass you little notes in school but then turn you down when you ask them out. This is why they smile at you, act shy, lead you on, and then say they were never interested. This is why they go on one date with you, act like they had a great time, but then never go out with you again. The rush, for them, is knowing that you want them, that they could have you if they wanted you. It's the female equivalent of the guy who gets into his date's pants and then dumps her. Girls don't need sex to boost their egos. They know they could have sex with almost any guy they wanted. They lead guys on to get a reaction—even a glance, a look—that tells them that they still have "it": that they're still attractive. Once they know that, they can take or leave you because they have what they want.
So, she had her party, and her friends came over. And I was getting the feeling her two closest friends (the cynical, highly opinionated, arrogant fast-talker type who are out to show everyone how much they know) hated my guts. Any attempt to talk was basically met with a derisive sneer. Ouch. What did I do?
Nothing, other than being a convenient target. They already knew that she didn't want you there because she had told them before you arrived, so they knew that they wouldn't jeopardize their friendship with her by using you for target practice. In fact, they might even have scored points, since she didn't really want you to be there. You might as well have had a big target on your chest saying, "Shoot here."
And the girl, being a poet of sorts, had a poetry reading. And it's pure, unfiltered masturbatory teen angst bullshit poetry...to try to lighten things up, I try reading a bawdy anonymous 14th-century English limerick, and get smirked silence and a sneer or two from her best friends-4-evr...Dammit.
Oops. Bad move. Just as a piece of advice here, never forget whose party it is. If the party organizer reads some bad poetry, then it's bad poetry night. Sit back and pretend to be interested. If you try to "lighten things up," it'll be interpreted as trying to grab the spotlight from the Homecoming Queen. Resist the temptation. (Not that I haven't done this a dozen times myself, but I'm hoping to spare you the anguish it took me to learn this point.)
And here's where the controversy really begins. She breaks out her journal, and a lot of people start looking at it...while she's in the room. And she has no problem with them looking at it. Keep in mind these aren't her ultra-close friends. So, I wonder what the people are reading, and I walk over and look at it for a moment, and then she says to me, "No, don't look at that."
Big flashing sign: "I wrote something about you in here that I don't want you to see. I'm fine if my friends see it, because I didn't write anything unbecoming about them, but as much as I don't want you here, I still don't want anyone—including you—to think I'm a bitch, so don't read it."
"Okay." And I walk away and don't bother to press the issue.
So, we do some stereotypically angsty shit. Everyone has to watch "The Joy Luck Club"...and then listen to "Dreams" by the Cranberries ad nauseam...holy shit, no wonder her mood isn't cheerful.
I used to be so into faux intellectual angst. Now I can't stand it. There's no one so vehemently anti-smoking as an ex-smoker, and no one so disgusted by faux intellectualism than an ex-intellectual-wannabe. I still have my Depeche Mode CDs, though.
Later, she says to me that she has to drive a friend home, on account of it being so late. I ask if I can tag along, and she says, "No, just stay here -- it won't be that long."
Uh...what the hell? I take it I'm not wanted...
No, you're not. She wants to talk to her friend. About you. Not very subtle on her part. Not very mature, either, but then the poetry reading was already a big hint there.
So, I'm sitting on the couch, alone, and see her poetry journal sitting on the coffee table. I wonder if I should look at it -- I remember other people looking at it, with her approval, so I open it up. Realize that I'm sitting on this couch, confused, worried, and damn near close to tears. I'm not trying to be a malicious male asshole - I just want to know why she's acting like this. So, I open the book up...
...and I see her sketches of her pet chinchilla (cute), some travel writings, and some rough drafts of poems, as well as some of her own thoughts. One of the entries is dated right after she called me, two days before I flew out to her house. She described herself as a jerk for doing that to him, and how guilty she felt. And it was an emotional outpour of criticism of her actions. Sadness, compassion welled up in me ... I started crying and I just wanted to hug her and tell her she was still a good person. (STUPID! STUPID!)
Um, yeah, stupid. I mean, I don't mean to slam you: I've felt the same way a hundred times, and only recently learned to get past unwise compassion. I now try to avoid telling Mrs. Buster that she's a good person because she obviously doesn't believe it, and hearing it from me doesn't convince her. I tried. Rather than believing in herself, she just stopped believing me.
By the way, you weren't an asshole (or a male asshole, or a malicious asshole) for reading the journal. She was an asshole for 1) putting it out for all to read, then telling you not to read it, and 2) leaving it there like a ripe plum while she went out. She wanted you to read it, otherwise she would have stowed it away out of sight. Huh? She told you not to read it, but wanted you to read it? What's up with that...? Well, lots of people have conflicting feelings about things and aren't sure what they want. Women are especially prone to this. Drives me nuts.
So, she got back a few minutes later, and I told her immediately I had looked in her journal, and I explained why. She took it very well -- she nodded blankly and said she understood, so I felt that I had gotten through that I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I was just worried over what was bugging her.
Next time, don't tell. Never, never tell. Wait a day, and then say, "You seem really upset and self-deprecating this weekend. I'm concerned about you. You don't seem to be yourself. If something is eating at you, I would be happy to listen," or some such rot. The point is to react to the contents of the journal without letting on that you've read it. If she asks, point blank, "Did you read my journal?" I would counter with, "I'm offended you would think I would go back on my word." I would leave her thinking that either I was incredibly perceptive and sensitive, or lying, but not really sure. Sneaky? Yes. Underhanded? A bit. Feminine? You bet. Likely to leave you looking good? Almost certainly. I never learned to be a typical, insensitive male, but I have picked up a few tricks from women.
So, the next morning, I thought we were going to just hang out, the two of us. She was going to show me around her stomping grounds...instead, her bitch-friends came and did the sneer-at-him-if-he-opens-his-mouth routine while I sat in the car. We went to a used bookstore, some oils and scents and soaps place, and then a Chinese restaurant.
"This is tofu...have you had it/do you know what it is?"
What. The. Fuck.
"Yup."
"Why aren't you having any?"
(Because your behavior makes me nauseated? Because there's not much and I'm willing to let others eat it? Maybe because I don't fucking like tofu?)
They proceeded to take up all of her time while I sat there with a blank look on my face, mentally slamming myself in the forehead.
This is the point at which it dawned on me that God was trying to teach me something. I've been in the same situation dozens of times. I start off being sensitive and gentle, then she started taking advantage of my gentleness and sensitivity, but I didn't object. Then I started to find that I wasn't enjoying our time together, but I didn't object. Then I found that I was having a truly rotten time, but by then she had learned that she could get whatever she wanted, and if I objected all she had to do was tell me I was being insensitive. Finally, many, many iterations later, I'm learning to object, and you know what? They don't leave. They don't scream, or swear, or hit, or even sneer. They like it. I'm learning that women like being told where the boundaries are. Oh, they complain about it, but of the two alternatives, being nice and gentle or being firm and standing up for myself, it's the latter that turns out better.
I flew back home. I e-mailed her promptly, thanking her for the party and how it was good to see her and what fun we would have at college. I didn't hear from her for a week, at the end of which I received the e-mail -- "I haven't written to you for two reasons. 1. I've been exhausted from my summer job. 2. Every time I think of you, I think about what you did at my house -- you read my journal, and that fills me with distrust, disbelief and hatred. And then I just can't sit down and write to you."
Here's a life lesson. It doesn't matter what you do or don't do. If a woman wants to blame you, you she will go over and over events in her mind until she finds something—anything—of which she could accuse you. She will then pursue that line forcefully and confidently, hoping that you will take the bait and question yourself. In your case, she chose the journal as the incident to use, but the journal thing doesn't really matter. You didn't betray her. However, she has rearranged history to turn you into the bad guy, so that she won't have to be the bad guy. Don't take it personally. She's doing nothing but manipulating the past to make herself feel better.
Okay. I was totally honest with her. I read it for the aforementioned, justifiable reasons.
Even if you just read it because it was there, it's still the same. She left it out. She let other people read it in an open fashion. She then left it there with you and took off with her friend. If she had carefully tucked it away in her room and closed the door, and you had gone in searched for it, taken it out, and read it, I could see that she has a case, but you didn't. You shouldn't try to justify your actions, because that just justifies her ridiculous invention that you did something wrong. She's using the event to manipulate you, pure and simple.
Other people were reading the journal. It was in plain sight. I already told her I read it. Why does she suddenly hate my guts?
You have the order wrong. She didn't want you around, but couldn't freely express that because she didn't want to look bad. You supplied her with a thin excuse for expressing those feelings, and so she is doing exactly that. She doesn't "hate your guts" because of the journal thing. The feelings came first; the excuse for feeling them came later.
I thought of defending myself, but I took the spineless route and called her back and simply said, "You're right. Those were your private thoughts and they should have stayed private. I had no right to go ahead and read them." And suddenly her tone of voice was understanding and mellow...she had a totally different persona in real-time than in e-mail.
She mellowed out for three reasons: 1) she was talking to you face to face; almost everyone is braver in cyberspace than they are in person; 2) she was trying to establish emotional superiority by beating you up over the journal thing, and you surrendered, so she didn't need to attack any more; and 3) as paradoxical as it may seem, women want to establish emotional superiority without feeling as though they hurt anyone's feelings. Women are often emotionally vicious but want to maintain the illusion that they're kind, caring, and sensitive. Maintaining these opposite truths means that she will always stop short of hurting you so much that you might tell her that it hurts. She wants to be in control, but she doesn't want to know about the damage she does, because then she wouldn't be "nice" any more.
And she wrote me back and told me that it seemed she had been romantically interested in me because oh, she swore I had told her the first time we had met that I was gay.
WHAT!? Somehow I think that was an excuse for any feelings she had before (that is, if she did). And if I was such the homosexual, how come she knew my sob story about Neurotica, which would indicate that I am a heterosexual? And why the hell would she call me up and worriedly ask about, "us", if I were indeed gay? LIAR!
Yeah, yeah. Mrs. Buster does this too. Things I tell her, things her friends tell her, and things she sees on TV all get sort of woven in together and suddenly she's telling me that I did or said such-and-so. Normally she gets away with it because she has a good memory for details like what people were wearing or what day we did something, and I don't, but occasionally I do remember precise details and I catch her in a lie. Is it a lie? Or is it simply someone so used to being right (or at least not being questioned) that they feel they can blurt out whatever their memory tells them and it will be taken as truth?
Even if she's mistaken and not lying, don't bother trying to correct her. I find that when it comes to remembering the past, women are convinced of their own infallibility, either because they generally have good memories for detail, or because they're so used to reassessing and manipulating the past to suit their current moods that they no longer know or care what really happened.
So, we still e-mailed each other, although she e-mailed me less. And the times she did e-mail me, she often reiterated how she didn't want a relationship, how she we was tired of expecting things from people, how she would get so bored of people, how she didn't want to expect anything from anyone ... and she acknowledged that she could be brusque, selfish, and that the world had to revolve around her, indeed. She justified it by saying oh, well, that's the way she was and "knowing all this, do you still want to be friends with me?" On occasion, she brought up the fact that she still couldn't trust me because of the journal.
The answer to "Do you still want to be friends with me?" should always be "No!" Take this from a man whose fiancée asked him that question early on, when alarm bells were going off in my head, and I did the same thing you did: I insisted that she was a good person, and I married her. Bad move. She turned out to be right.
Another life lesson: when after a romance or a near-romance a woman tells you that she "just wants to be friends," or some such thing, what she really means is, "I don't care if I never see you again. I'm just calling you / e-mailing you / talking to you so that you won't think I'm a bitch. Please treat me like a friend, not because I enjoy your company, but because I don't want to be made to feel like a bitch for having dumped you."
In my stupidity and good-nature, I insisted that she was a good person (I think she interpreted that as me simply not listening to what she was saying), and that I did indeed, still want to be friends with her.
I had an ex-girlfriend use the "let's just be friends" line, and I too was confused when I tried calling her and dropping by to see her, only to get a distinctly un-friendly response. She didn't want to be friends: she just wanted to not have her old relationship (me) get in the way of her life, and of any new relationships. In effect, "Let's be friends," means, "Be a good boy and run along."
I arrived at the college a couple of weeks before her -- I was a student invited to a fabulously wonderful and enlightening week-long multicultural incoming student seminar, and I described what sort of discussions and things happened. She-shit replied that issues such as Asian identity and race and such were not important to her, as she was secure in her own identity (Bullshit. She-shit had gone on about how she disliked America and missed being British in Hong Kong ... British? British!? Why the hell would you associate with the people who had occupied your land and imposed their values on you? Is it 'hip'?...she also had gone on about how in freshman year of high school, she had dressed in the ghetto-style and tried to associate with the lifestyle. Huh...sounds confused to me).
Lots of people in lots of stages of their life think that they're "secure in their own identity." The things you've told me about She-Shit tells me that she wasn't. The whole faux intellectual thing, in particular, is a huge giveaway. People who are secure in their own identities are not so pretentious.
As well, racial and cultural identity is always important. You can live in harmony with your cultural background or in opposition to it, but someone who says, "It doesn't really affect me" has an inflated impression of their ability to rise above their environment.
I still was willing to talk and make conversation, to make the effort to know her. But her e-mails lessened and became briefer. She explained, "Well, who wants to hear about what's going on in my life? It's just routine, and there's nothing to talk about." Wow, what happened to the poems, advice, humor, musings, etc.?
She's either saving them for someone more worthwhile (in her opinion), or she's depressed.
I e-mailed her, asking if she was okay, if she was worried about coming to college for the first time or leaving home for the first time, because she sounded kind of curt. I told her that the experience had so far been a good one and that she deserved a nice welcome on arriving, and we would finally get to hang out, etc. In retrospect, I was putting my penis into a high-speed blender.
Her reaction was to write me back an e-mail with the header "Don't Waste Four Miserable Years on Me." The message contained such statements as, "I'm anti-talk now" and how I was wrong about her, that I never listened to what she was saying.
She's depressed. However, she's still right about the wasting-time-on-her part.
How she didn't want affection. Or rather, she did, but not from someone she just couldn't trust (although she said she was over the whole journal incident).
She's trying to push you away, and you're not getting the message. She's using the journal thing as an excuse, as a mechanism. Beyond that it doesn't mean anything.
The most shocking thing was what she then said at the end of the message (and this is absolutely verbatim, as it will forever be seared into my brain) -- "I am a strong, loved, beautiful, yellow woman. And if you ever try to put your hands on me again, I will fucking mess you up."
Like I said before, women revise history. Young women, and particularly depressed young women, spend hours and hours—with their friends and alone—going over and over every word you said, every thing you did, trying to reinterpret history so that she comes out seeming reasonable and you come off being to blame for everything. Or, at least, so that she takes the fall for the things that she thinks are her fault, and you take the fall for everything else. This is one of the great fictions of femininity: women think that it is they who get to decide what is fair, and what is unfair, what is moral and what is immoral, who is right and who is wrong. Women truly, deeply believe that if they decide someone is wrong, then that person is wrong. "That person" may be the woman herself, nonetheless she still thinks that it's her place to decide right and wrong. Men, on the other hand, learn early that even when they think they're right, sometimes it doesn't matter. When you get married, you learn quickly to apologize for things that aren't even your fault, unless you want hours and hours of nagging and grief.
Obviously, in her conversations with her friends, she seized on some minor incident, some moment when you bumped into her, and wove it into near assault. I wouldn't pay any heed at all to her "accusation": there's nothing you could have done or can do to change her mind. Nobody could ever be perfect enough to survive the revisionist scrutiny of a group of females. That's why so many men just give up and do whatever they want to do (which often involves being crude and annoying), because they know they're going to catch shit anyway, so they might as well have fun and deserve the criticism. The "strong, loved, beautiful, yellow woman" part is just her trying to pump herself up out of her depression. The sad part is that she knows that they're just words, and that she doesn't really believe them. Pathetic.
I was shocked. Shocked. Everything went numb and rubbery and my breathing got shallow and I had to lie down. What the hell? What the hell did I do? Touch her? What? Huh? When? I think the only time I put my hands on her was a half-assed hug she initiated when I left.
And the whole "yellow" thing...implying that I just couldn't understand what it's like to be Chinese...well, shit. Maybe I should have just replied that I was an empowered chink-kike? Why was she portraying me as some sort of oppressive man-beast?
So, she came to college, and I made the mistake of trying to talk to her. I, still reeling, nervously approached the door. I was ready for her to do anything violent to me, including shooting me or screaming "rape"... I knocked and she opened it and left me standing in the hallway while she went, "If you want to talk, talk. Can I get you anything?"
I'm guessing that she's really annoyed now. She's been trying to tell you—without telling you—for some time now that she doesn't want you around, and you haven't gotten the message. Not your fault, of course. If she were a man, she would have just said, "I don't want to see you any more, thanks." However, being a woman, she wants total deniability.
One of my most forthright, sensible female friends was going out with an overbearing, clingy European guy who kept flying in to visit her. "I told him to stop coming, that I didn't want to see him any more, but he keeps coming," she told me. "Did you say that? 'I don't want to see you any more?'" I asked. "Well, not really," she admitted. "You have to say exactly that," I told her. She did, and he stopped coming. And she was a sensible one. Just imagine how vague the silly ones can be.
And I'm standing there thinking of something to say, "Well, why don't I come back later, when you're not unpacking ('Can I get you anything'? You're gonna offer me a fucking Snapple after you threatened me)."
"Sure."
And as I leave, I turn and shut the door, which happens to shut loudly due to loose hinges, heavy weight, and a draft (the doors are like this in the dorm).
She'll use that as another excuse to try to push you away. Remember: she doesn't want to get rid of you for what you did. She's using what you do as an excuse to get rid of you.
Later that night, when I came back, She-shit was nice enough to give me two minutes of her time, saying, "I'm kind of busy [during pre-class orientation!? When there's no work to be done?] and I have to go shower." I asked her why she hated my guts. The reply was essentially, "Well, you're the one who's being violent about it. I mean, you slammed my door!
She's using the door as another excuse. Surprise, surprise.
Regarding the whole 'hate your guts thing' oh, I don't hate your guts.
Translation: I don't want people to think I'm a bitch, so no matter how I feel, I'm going to say, "I don't hate your guts."
You just don't understand me whenever I'm trying to say something. You don't listen and you were never listening to me.
I chuckle whenever Mrs. Buster says this. Notice how she revises history: "...you were never listening to me." Of course, at the time, she swore you were listening to her and she loved talking to you, but now, looking back on it all, and discussing it for hours with her girlfriends, she's decided that it was all different. Again, there's nothing you could have done differently. This is her revising the past to fit with her current emotions. The syllogism goes like this:
I do not like Tisdall right now.
I feel that Tisdall does not listen to me.
However, Tisdall and I used to talk a lot. I used to tell him a lot of things. I used to say that he listened to me like no one else.
Tisdall has not changed what he is saying.
Therefore, either Tisdall is still listening to me, or Tisdall never listened to me. In other words, either my interpretation is currently wrong, or Tisdall has never been a good listener and I was mistaken.
If my interpretation is wrong, then I must be nice to Tisdall.
I don't feel like being nice to Tisdall.
If Tisdall has never been a good listener then my interpretation is correct and I am right.
I want to be right.
Therefore, Tisdall was never a good listener.
Feminine logic, and all that. Don't bother arguing. She will never admit that you were a good listener, because admitting that will mean that she is being unfair, and she can't admit that.
So, are we okay, then?" Then she left, leaving me on the bench.
A power move. The person who gets up and walks away is making themselves feel powerful by leaving the other person when they want to leave. Mrs. Buster does it all the time. It's an ego-boosting thing. It also pisses me off.
One of her friends later told me that she thinks I'm creepy and hard to get along with.
Okay. Creepy? I'm creepy? I'm sorry, that's just fucking wrong. What the hell. I've tried to be nice. No, fuck that. I was nice. I have never lashed out at her, never even attempted to touch her in an appropriate manner.
I assume that you meant "inappropriate" there. Sorry, but in feminine land, that's "creepy." One of my friends (Chinese, by coincidence) is very sympathetic, kind-hearted, slow to anger, and cares far more about other people's feelings than about his own. His hugs are always a bit half-assed because he's concerned about coming off as being too aggressive. However, he's over-concerned. He's a bit too sympathetic. Several women I know have described him as "creepy" or some such thing. He's not, of course. He's just not too confident. However, women feel comfortable around confident guys. Over-concerned guys like my friend bother women because they don't know what he's going to do, and they don't know whether his hug is supposed to be friendly or romantic, because he's a little nervous about it himself.
Again, this is a matter of personal taste. A girl who likes you will find your mannerisms refreshing and even exciting. Of course, she can always mull over the whole relationship, revise history, and categorize you as "creepy" later. The only way to deal with any of this is to work on what you want out of life, decide what you want to do, and pay less attention to women and what they want. It sounds paradoxical, but women interpret this as more "masculine" behaviour and they like it better. It makes you happier, too.
I have never followed her around. I have always been honest with her. And every time I saw her, it just feel like somebody's stabbed me in the chest. It really does hurt, to see her walking around campus. And I think of what could have been, and why the hell she really does hate my guts.
I doubt that she hates your guts. She just doesn't want to care about you. She wants to move on. One person doesn't have to hate another one in order to be rude and dismissive. All that's necessary is that they not want that person around, which isn't as strong as "hate." There is nothing you can do about this. Nothing. She has made up her mind. In a way it would be easier if she hated your guts, but there it is.
November, a conversation on AIM:
I leave her alone for several months, and realize I genuinely miss the conversations we have. I wonder what she's up to, so I nervously IM her out of the blue. She seems normal! Success? We talk about school, intended majors, extracurriculars, plans for break...I ask if we could possibly talk in person, maybe take a walk or just sit down without all the (her) grudges and misconceptions...and lo, she says, "Sure, that'd be fine."
And we talk for another half an hour or so, and things seem good. And suddenly she goes (verbatim), "You should know...I'm just not feeling it."
Feeling what?
On impulse, she thought that sitting down with you could be fun, that the two of you could talk about old times without baggage, or what for her was baggage, getting in the way. That you could start from scratch and have fun again. Then she thought about it for a while and realized that whatever it was about the two of you that for her was "broken" wasn't going to go away, that seeing you face to face would just put the two of you back where you were before, which she tried so hard to end.
She's right, because you don't know what it was about the two of you that set her to thinking that she didn't want you around. So, you can't help but do the same things again next time you meet. Anyway, it never works out. Whatever it is about you that she's decided she can't tolerate, you could never change yourself enough to make her reconsider. Oh, maybe if the two of you meet at some reunion in thirty years you'll have changed so much that you'll be able to reconnect, but don't bet on it. Besides, you're you. I know it seems tempting to change yourself so that some woman will like you. I tried it dozens of times, but it never worked, and it was always the guys who didn't change themselves that ended up with the cute girls.
For now, the thing is broken. Whether you understand why or not (and I don't), she has decided that you're not for her, and she doesn't want you around. Don't press the point. Don't bother with her. As the old saying goes, "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig." You could amend it to say, "Never try to rekindle a dead relationship. It wastes your time and annoys your ex."
"The whole walk-and-talk thing...sitting down. I don't think so. Bye." And she signs off.
What the hell? Didn't you just agree to meet with me, like, in the same conversation? 'I'm not feeling it?' Is she implying I'm trying to hit on her or something? What the hell!?
That was the last I've spoken to her.
My confusion and pity has since turned to a desire for vengeance. People simply should not jerk people around like this.
It sounds to me that what you were subjected to consisted of three parts: 1) the normal misunderstandings and indecision that surrounds a romantic or maybe-romantic relationship; 2) the ways that females usually act, which aren't always very nice, understandable, or helpful for men; and 3) someone with a bad personality who jerked you around. I think you'd be surprised by how much of her behaviour fits into the first two categories. Women do not think the way that men do. They often make no sense, and what they do is often hurtful, although they hate being reminded of that fact.
It's hard to drop the whole thing and move on when you're living on a small campus, passing by her at least three times a week, and she happens to work in the library where all the books I read happen to be on reserve.
Life lesson to take with you into the working world: this is why you never, never date a girl you work with unless she works for another division, in another building, where you can avoid her if you must. I made the stupid mistake of dating a girl I worked with. (Well, I got my girlfriend a job where I worked... it was complicated.) Anyway, we had a messy break-up, and she started going out with this other guy in my same department one week later. We all three worked together and I had to see her every day. I ended up quitting a good job in a good company in order to get away from her. I tell you, no matter how hard up you are for company, dating women you work with is too risky. Yes, some guys pull it off. Then again, some guys get laid every weekend and their girlfriends wait on them hand and foot. I know that I'm never one of the lucky ones, so after that experience I refused to date women at work. Only in one case do I regret not giving in to a woman at work who was after me, but even in that case the memory of the mess I left behind at my old job kept me from accepting the offer.
Hard to study when there's fury and rage in your body. What's more irritating is that She-shit practically stole friends I had made from the multicultural seminar at the beginning of freshmen year. A couple of understanding girls - my friends during this pre-orientation week, had told me they didn't like what she had written to me, and they would make sure to give her a piece of their minds if they ever met her...well, they did. And guess what? Now they're all best friends and rooming together.
This always happens. Women are natural networkers. If you had become her boyfriend, she would have pushed away most of your friends and hung out only with her friends and friends you had made together. Then, when you break up, your friends are all long gone and all of your mutual friends stick with her. Sorry, guy: that's the way it always goes. It's happening to me right now, and I'm not sure what to do about it. In two years I won't have any contact with my friends at all: Mrs. Buster doesn't like them, or doesn't find them stimulating company. We have lots of mutual friends, but in the event of a break-up I know that they would either side with her or back out.
As well, chromosomes are thicker than water. Women will commonly take the side of another woman just because she's a woman. It's this whole Sisterhood thing. Even if a Sister is wrong, she needs support. Think of a couple married ten years. If one of her new friends tells her that her husband is sleeping around, she'll believe the new friend sooner than she'll believe her husband of ten years. Happened to a guy I knew: a girl his wife didn't even know accused him of sleeping with her, and his wife believed her over him and divorced him.
She-shit still writes incredibly contrived stereotypical Asian-American college student poetry (even though she claimed to have no issues with Asian American identity)...
So she says. Like I said: you can't escape your culture, your family, or your past. You can live in opposition to it, but you can't escape it. All of her stuff about "not having issues" was just wishful thinking. We all have issues with who we are and from where we came.
...things about "grandmother's worn and wrinkled hands"..."sweet-talkin' playas" trying to get with her...rejection by others...Absolute masturbatory trash. And apparently her angst-ridden letters she writes to her snotty bitch-friend back home also constitute readable literature at least according to the school publication...
Art and politics are odd. Once you're "in," you can write / paint / sculpt any kind of shit you like, and it's "art." Angst-ridden, shallow, immature drivel is "art" if it comes from someone whom the art world has already labelled an artist. Go figure.
With the phone call the night before the fateful party, I think she had already made up her mind to not even have me as a friend.
Bingo.
Reading the journal, a dumb move on my part, merely provided a catalyst.
Not a dumb move. It was a reasonable thing to do. The dumb move was telling her about it. As for it being a catalyst, you're right. Well, maybe more of an excuse to do what she wanted to do anyway.
Was she looking for a jerk, willing to view me as one despite all evidence pointing to the contrary?
She wanted to make you out to be a jerk to justify dumping you. Justify it to herself, her friends, and even to you. It doesn't matter whether you really acted like a jerk or not. The point was to paint you as one in order to justify her own feelings and actions.
I'm not sure I ever had a chance to prove myself.
From the very beginning? Sure you did. At the end? No, none at all.
While I would never do any physical violence, I am now willing to ahead and yell and scream and be as frightening as possible. I'd like to see She-shit terrified and suddenly aware at what the hell she does is just morally vacant. I want her to realize she is not a decent human being.
Don't bother. She isn't worth the effort, and all she will do is believe even more conclusively that she was right and that you're a jerk. Resist the temptation to do what women do all the time: try to make the other person clearly demonstrate that they feel at least as bad as the jilted party feels inside. You can't. All you'll do is just tie yourself up in more knots.
You're better off to break away from the whole situation, and bury yourself in your hobbies and your studies. Yeah, you have to see her from time to time, and that makes life tough, but fill your time with other stuff as much as possible. Try to improve your own life, make yourself happy in your own right, without a woman. It's weird, but if you can move toward that goal, you'll find that more women will find you attractive.
Finally, if you're still struggling with this a while from now, consider counselling. I did. It helped a lot. The bonus for you is that some universities offer it for free. It's not for crazy people: it's for people having trouble with some aspect of their lives. I had the same problem you do: breaking up with someone who jerked me around, and whom I had to continue seeing on a daily basis. Going in with a specific problem like that is good, because it means you have something specific to work on.
What the hell do girls want me to be? A goddamn jerk!?
As I said way back at the beginning, they want you to take all of the initiatives. They want always to be able to say, "This wasn't my idea." That way they stay "good girls," but they still get some fun and excitement. Whether it's parachuting, socialist revolutions, or sex, girls want to be "dragged" into doing what they secretly want to do, so that if anything goes wrong they can hurl the accusation that none of this was their idea and it's all your fault. In return, you get sex. Sorry, but that's the deal, in general.
Finding a well-adjusted, pleasant girl should not be an exercise in excruciating emotional pain.
But it always is. I could go on for ages about this. Suffice to say that well-adjusted, pleasant girls turn into confused bitches as soon as they get the idea that you're a "boyfriend," or if, God forbid, you marry one. As soon as your status with respect to them changes, they haul out a whole whack of dreams, preconceptions, and tactics that they've been saving for their "boyfriend" or their "husband." Suddenly you go from being taken on your own merits to playing a scripted part in her play. Most of the next years are spent trying to smash her stereotypes of how love, marriage, and life together "is going to be" and getting back to the point where she sees you as you are, not as some actor playing a part in her romantic fantasy.
So yes, you may find a well-adjusted, pleasant girl, but she probably won't stay that way.
SomeGirl
I met a girl at college, very cute. Little in common. Talked to her, conversed with her over e-mail. I had some vestiges of hope. Happened to reply to an e-mail at 1am and sent it to her timestamped at approximately 1:38am. The following e-mail from her asked, "Hi, are you trying to scare me? Did you really write that at 1:38am in the morning?"
Holy fuck. People can be up at 1:38am...how can she not realize this?
So, I withdrew from that really quickly. I didn't want to make the effort to meet someone who clearly didn't understand me.
AlohaPunk
A Hawaiian punk-girl, just so cute... I met from a neighboring all-girl's college, went to the same multicultural seminar. Later told me she had an enormous crush on me during the weeklong event. I was very flattered. We spent all night talking - we have many of the same interests, and I gave her a massage (woop.) Things seemed grand. It looked like we would hang out lots together.
Sounds promising.
I heard through the grapevine from a friend at the college that word spread about through some of the girls that I apparently stalk or stalked her.
Holy shit. Stalking? This stupid claim comes up again? What the fuck!? Why do girls throw this word around? Do you have any idea how serious that sort of thing is? How in the fuck do you get off, accusing someone of stalking a girl - a girl they never see and to whom they rarely talk!? I rarely get off my own campus, much less to hers! Better yet, yeah, that's me you're accusing of stalking a girl. Twice. Two different girls. And yeah, it's a coincidence, you jerks. Yeah. Me. Gee, that wasn't very nice. See, stalking is immoral. It's bad. You don't get in the way of someone's privacy. You don't follow them around everywhere they go. Yeah, way to make me into a creep, you assholes. NEXT TIME, WHY DON'T YOU FUCKING MAKE A CREEP OUT OF A REAL CREEP, INSTEAD OF A REAL NICE GUY!? BECAUSE HE DOESN'T SOUND NICE RIGHT NOW, DOES HE!? Excuse me...
Girls say a lot of stupid shit. They say it to score gossip points. They say it to make their lives sound exciting. They say it to manipulate. They say it to sabotage. Who knows who first started this one. Some chick who thought she could ratchet herself a couple of notches higher on the social scale? Some girl who hates AlohaPunk and wanted to alienate you? Somebody who knew She-Shit and just repeated the claim? Try not to let it get to you. It doesn't mean anything, and there's nothing you can do about it. The more you try to quell the rumour, the more steam it will gather.
Of course, it's not important as she said she had never heard anything about it and why the hell would those girls do such a thing...?
Since then, Alohapunk occasionally talks to me over IM on her terms and talks about how guilty she is that she doesn't talk to me as much, as I'm so interesting and attractive and yadda yadda. She then complains about her 'sort-of' boyfriend, an "asshole" living several thousand miles away who doesn't care anything for her. If I suggest we meet up or something, she says, "Oh, no...I'm too busy/girl's night out/other shit."
All that stuff about you being interesting and attractive is just more "don't think me a jerk" babbling. Don't believe a word a girl says. Judge her by her actions. If you ask her out and she's always too busy, if you ask her out and she's busy and doesn't suggest an alternative date, then she's no longer interested in you, no matter how interesting she says you are. I would recommend expending your energy on more accessible women.
I play CaptainFreeTherapist and reassure her she's a good person, she also tells me not to spread myself too thin. I'm bound to find someone
They always say that.
(yeah, on a campus of neurotic psycho harpies). I'm not worried, I have plenty of vile hatred to spew, so ahead and use me, ladies!
They won't. They want you to use them, so they can claim later that it wasn't their idea, even though it was. It's hardly fair, but girls can have sex any time they want it. All a girl has to do is walk up to a guy—any guy—and say, "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?" Three times out of four he'll say, "You bet!" Girls don't care about sex, any more than you would care about something you can get whenever you want it. What girls want is to be noticed. She wants to know that she still has "it," where "it" is the ability to convince that cute guy over there to lavish her with gifts, praise, and attention at the mere hint that she might consider sleeping with him someday. For that, all she needs to see is him looking at her in a certain way and she knows that she could have him if she wanted him.
Sure, they want sex, but they want you to do all of the work of setting the pace, setting the tone, so that they can just drop the whole thing whenever they like, because none of it was their idea. They want to know that they can still elicit slave-like behaviour from men. Nice Guys are no challenge, because they're nice to everyone. A jerk is a challenge because girls figure that if they can turn him into a lap dog then they really must be some kind of hot stuff.
Mousy
I don't have anything against her, but the fact the relationship died a stillborn death while I was on top of the world was horribly painful (and still is). She was absolutely beautiful, had a great sense of humor, very intelligent. I suppose we didn't have an incredible lot in common, but I think I seemed a breath of fresh air to her - we talked for hours and hours and other predictable things like that. And I made sure not to smother her with too much attention and clinginess ... on the small campus, I saw her just maybe once during the week, and once during the weekend ...
Good idea. It's good to let her come to you sometimes. If you give her the impression that she doesn't have to put in any effort in order to see you on a regular basis, she'll decide you're not a challenge and go looking elsewhere. As I said once, girls are pack animals. If you're constantly calling her, she figures that you're desperate and that no other girl wants you, which means that she doesn't want you either. If you're just a little bit hard to get a hold of, then she figures that maybe there are some other women in the mix and she wants to be the one to "win" you. Strange but true.
The problem was the fact she was working too damn hard and trying to do too many classes at once. So, when she called me and said in a quiet voice that she didn't have the time for a relationship, I thought for a moment. I could argue and plead, but if she did relent, doing so would force her into a miserable relationship and she would still feel stressed. So, I reluctantly agreed with her and said, "I understand. Do you what you have to do for you to have less stress. I hope I made you happy. You've made me the happiest I've been since I can remember. Thank you."
Aargh. Don't ever say that. I always used to say that. I later learned that it made me sound like a doormat, and it never failed that she then proceeded to use me as a doormat. Things got better when I replied to this with, "I understand. Best of luck to you. Have a nice life." I didn't get angry, but just let her know that if she was too busy for me then I had no time for her. Cool chicks who really were busy were fine with that. Neurotic, needy women who were just playing me to see what I was like usually didn't take it well, but by then it was too late.
I then proceeded to curl up into a fetal ball and groan miserably for about two weeks every time I went to bed.
I was so like that in university. Carbon copy. I would be gallant and tell girls that I wished them well and hoped that they were happy, and that I was OK, and then would cry for weeks. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it differently. I wouldn't go ballistic on all of those girls, but I would be direct. "I understand, but I'm terribly disappointed. I really enjoy your company. We had a lot of fun together, and I thought maybe we had something here. I want to keep seeing you, but if you really don't have the time, I'll go my way. Under protest, but I'll go my way." Something like that. I wouldn't get abusive, or get angry, but I would tell her I wasn't happy with the arrangement.
God, how many girls pushed me aside like that? I lost count many, many years ago....
Here's the stab in the urethra -- She had said, right before she hung up -- "Let's be friends, really!" and I said I certainly would. All subsequent attempts to meet with her or talk to her have ended in her evading and shying away and me looking like I'm this big creepy asshole who's trying too damn hard.
You are trying too hard, at least from her point of view. The "let's be friends" thing, even when it's "Let's be friends, really!" is just a ploy to make you treat her nicely after she's given you the cold shoulder. She just doesn't want to suffer any fallout from giving you the bum's rush. I have never, ever met a woman who wanted to be my friend after breaking up with me. Don't ever buy it. Say, "Yeah, absolutely. Call me whenever," and then never call her. I can guarantee that she'll never call you.
I met a couple of Australian girls once while travelling. I had the hots for one of them, but her friend was running interference for her, and I was too shy to manoeuvre past her friend. Anyway, while I was talking to them, she mentioned that she liked some other guy who had been travelling with us, but that he was a "try-too-hard." She actually used that term. Remembering that helped me try less hard, and be happier as a result.
Well, I got the picture after two or three times and it feels pretty shitty, frankly. I thought "let's be friends" means exactly that. But apparently it means "I'll never speak to you again, nor you to me."
No, it means roughly this: "I don't want to be in a relationship with you, but I also don't want to deal with you being obviously crushed and being shitty toward me and causing trouble for me. So, I incant the magic phrase, 'Let's be friends!' and now you have to be nice to me."
On the grand scheme of things, I meant very little to her - she had had several short-lived boyfriends in the past. But, wow, do I miss the conversation and her face and the cuddling and the emotional fulfillment and...gah.
What I learned from the experience - a healthy relationship (at least, what I perceived it was until she pulled a fast one) feels great and, among benefiting the other person, benefits one's self -- I had less stress. I had more focus in my work - I felt motivated, inspired. I had something and someone to look forward to on the weekends.
Having a girl around is great. The trick is knowing how not to get all romantic and dreamy about it, and when to pull the plug. I think that you're like me: I always held on too long. I never dumped my girlfriends when they became annoying, then overbearing, then bitchy. I let it go until the last, excruciating, painful moment. They guys I know who are happy with their girlfriends / wives don't take crap from women. When they were dating, if she turned into the Wicked Witch they just said, "Have a nice life," and ditched her. They weren't jerks. They just stood up for themselves, for their own happiness, and said, "If you treat me well, I'll stay with you and treat you well. However, at the first sign you're a bitch, I'm out of here."
My Brother Turns into EvilGuy
My older brother, attending college at a large university, somehow got a girlfriend for a couple years, who suddenly went, "AUGUGAGAHUGAHG NO!" and terminated the relationship and wouldn't give a reason why.
Some people just don't like where their relationship seems to be heading, don't know how to steer it, and so just jump from the moving bus to avoid what they see as a fatal ride. They may not know themselves what it was about the relationship that made it so unattractive, but there was something. When men do this, women sneer and call it "fear of commitment," but it's often an intelligent reaction to a relationship gone bad in subtle ways that the man can't put his finger on.
What with losing such happiness after a lengthy depression in high school, he turned into an EvilGuy and he's enjoying every moment of it. Some stories related to me:
High school:
Unattractive girl upon hearing my brother speak, "EvilGuy, you're bitter."
My brother: "___, you're fat."
She cries.
Girls, and then women, seem to have this odd impression that they're the moral arbiters of society, and that they have the right—or even the duty—to judge other people. They sure don't take it well when it's thrown back at them, though.
A pre-emptive strike:
"So I'm at a party, right? And there are a ton of cute girls everywhere. So I decide to talk to one of them. And we're conversing when I suddenly realize that she's just totally boring and not interesting and not a good person, so I say, 'Uh huh...uh huh...yeah, listen. I'm going to go hit on someone more interesting than you.' And then I leave her standing there."
OK, that's evil.
Shutting Up an Uppity Girl:
"We're having a party in our frat house, right (he had to join a frat to get housing in this city...they're more of a crazy, Animal House frat, as opposed to a jock frat)? And there's this one girl sitting with an extremely drunk guy on our brand new couch. I'm standing on the stairs above them when I notice he looks like going to throw up, so I caution them, "You better go outside or to the bathroom if he's going to throw up."
They ignore me, and he looks like he's getting even more green in the face. The girl is half comforting him, half trying to get in his jeans.
"Look, don't throw up on the couch, okay? It's brand new—"
The girl gets up and confronts his suggestion with, "Hey! Don't you tell us what to do! Who do you think you are that you can—"
Oh. Reasonable warnings ignored and thought to be hostile? Fine. Meet Angry EvilGuy:
"NO, DON'T YOU EVER FUCKING TELL ME WHAT TO DO! GET THE FUCK OUT! NOW! GET THE FUCK OUT BEFORE I FUCKING KILL BOTH OF YOU AND EAT YOUR INTESTINES! GET THE FUCK OUT!" and my brother, not the biggest guy in the world, storms down the steps like he's a seventy-ton tank. They leave in a major hurry.
Wow. I never did anything that evil, but it would be fun to try. I've done other apparently weird stuff, like stayed mad at everyone at work for a day just to see how it felt. It's cool to explore other ways of relating to people, including screaming at them, being rude to them, but I draw the line at threats. Anyway, it's cool to try out these other behaviours and see what happens. The funny thing is, you don't lose all of your friends, even though you would think that you would.
Try being just a bit evil some time, just as an experiment. I guarantee that it'll be an interesting experience, and you'll learn a lot.
Thus endeth my e-mail. Hope you enjoyed it. I look forward to Japan.
