No bashing men.
I know that last post made the men I've dated look bad. But I don't think they did anything that wasn't human and understandable. Those examples I gave? One guy fell ill enough to be hospitalized. The guy at the party left to come over, stopped by a friend's house and met the girl he married. They're inseparable. He and I weren't ever gonna be inseparable and if I'd met someone who was, I'd have blown off the party-guy too. People get unsure and reluctant and put off calls they don't know how to make. I've done that and regret some of the times I've let things drop. People mean well but are only human. So I don't condemn any one case, 'cause I've acted the same, but after the aggregated experience, I can't let myself expect a call.
I thought of another cost. At the end of the date, when guys say they'll call, I give a cheery shrug, smile and "Sure!". I bet it sounds insincere. It isn't that I don't want them to, it is just that I don't believe. They will or they won't, but it has nothing to do with the words they just spoke. I don't even think it has anything to do with their intent in the moment. I can't muster a genuine response to words I've learned mean nothing. They don't even reliably mean the guy won't call. They just mean nothing.
I thought of another cost. At the end of the date, when guys say they'll call, I give a cheery shrug, smile and "Sure!". I bet it sounds insincere. It isn't that I don't want them to, it is just that I don't believe. They will or they won't, but it has nothing to do with the words they just spoke. I don't even think it has anything to do with their intent in the moment. I can't muster a genuine response to words I've learned mean nothing. They don't even reliably mean the guy won't call. They just mean nothing.
posted by Megan at 4:14 PM
11 Comments:
I haven't mustered the ability to be this way, but I think I should be less believing of a guy's enthusiasm for me when it's more pronounced. I think often when a guy seems smitten early on it is because he wants to be smitten: he's trying to convince himself he wants to be in this, that I'm the girl and this is the time and he wants to do things this way. And of course that's important - it's impossible to have a good relationship with someone who wants to be alone, no matter how crazy about you he is - but it's not enough that he wants you to be the girl. You have to be the girl, which might take longer for him to realize, and might be subject to his own natural skepticism and fear of commitment and desire to not jump in too fast or come on too strong and ruin things.
When you shrug and say "Sure!" in a way that's slightly insincere, a guy may also interpret that as a signal that you're not interested, but don't want to come out and say so directly.
(I'm just guessing here... of course it also depends on how you two interacted before that point.)
yk:
I know. I'm very mildly worried about that, but I can't get that interested in incremental changes that may barely influence whether boys call.
I act as interested as I am the entire time. I'm pretty much done with pretense, because, what the hell, I don't believe they'll call anyway. Since I am often interested, I think it is probably OK.
*******
HEY! Are you Anand's friend yk? Married to Princess?
Um, no, I don't think so. I don't know Anand or Princess. I'm just an ordinary imaginary person on the Internet. Should I use a different pseudonym?
Anyway, I still think there must be a better response than "Sure!" Even if you're jaded.
Instead of "sure" how 'bout some eye contact, a smile, and an "I'd like that.". It doesn't require belief he'll call, but if you'd like him to he should get that.
-dithers
I'm definitely with dithers. "Sure" could definitely deflate a non confident suitor, or at least make the call harder, and push him over the edge of procrastinating on it too long.
Do you ever call them? Not a bad idea.
yk:
Nope, stick with what you like.
All:
I'll be more encouraging than "Sure". Although it doesn't matter.
10:23 Anonymouse:
We covered this last year, too. I'll ask out boys the first time, but I won't call them after a date, because of my deeply held belief that if you chase ambivalent boys you risk catching them. Ambivalent boys eat your soul.
I have a special and intense dislike for "sure!" because there are so very many tones and contexts where it means "not really, no, but I'm not going to argue."
you also lose the boys that are terrible at figuring out if girls are interested. Can't you call once and then not again to screen out the ambivalent boys?
Why is it the guys are left in our society with the requirement to actively solicit the rejection?
10:23 Anonymouse:
We covered this last year, too. I'll ask out boys the first time, but I won't call them after a date, because of my deeply held belief that if you chase ambivalent boys you risk catching them. Ambivalent boys eat your soul.
I kinda could't agree less. I'm not saying you need to be persistent to the point of arm twisting with an "ambivalent" boy to get that second date, but I can't see how some sign of enthusiasm on your part, outside of being your charming self on date number one and any preceeding planning for date number one, could hurt. I think it might fall into the category of admitting you're interested and opening yourself up to rejection in a more obvoius way (him not calling no longer looks/feels like a rejection to you quite the way your calling to say 'another?' and him saying 'no thanks' would be.
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