For context refer: Part 1: Being Miss Congeniality Doesn’t Help
Continuing with my girl friend’s story. After all those hints that she had drop for the guy, still he did not get the signs. He must have thought it’s part of the courting period.
Let’s analyze this:
- She went out with him on lunches and dinners (dinner would consider a date).
- She went out with him on her birthday when he invited (he must have thought if she’s not interested why would she want to spend her birthday with him)
- He texted her every alternative night and chit chat like he was her bf. There wasn’t a sense of rejection there. If she was rejecting she would not have bothered replying.
- She still went on a birthday dinner with him on his birthday (he must have thought this is the day i’m going to make the move). Probably during dinner, he did not feel the chemistry coming from her.
She’s not exactly giving out the right signs if she’s not interested. The guy has every right idea to think she was giving him a chance. Who can blame him. My friend told me she didn’t want to entertain him anymore and asked me for help on how to handle the situation. One of our guy friends said, why not go lunch with him like usual and bring a guy friend and pretend he is your bf. I told him, no way that’s too impolite. I suggested that she bring a girl friend instead without telling him.
Why?
If we are all friends why can’t i bring another friend of mine? It’s to show that i treat you nothing more than just a friend. As it turns out, luck was on her side. There’s another of our dancing friend that has just started working in the same company. As usual, he would ask for lunch once a week on Wed. She said ok, without telling him that the friend would be coming along. She waited for him at the front like usual and when he was walking to the direction he saw 2 girls standing there. He was wondering what was going on. Of course he also knew the other girl another mutual friend from dancing. My friend said, she just joined the company and since you called, i thought we can all do lunch together. He was caught in the moment, had nothing to say and just went along. But during lunch you can tell that he was not too happy with it. In fact he even ask my friend why she didn’t tell him before hand? and she said, we’re all friends i thought you wouldn’t mind. That was a subtle way of delivering a message 
He stop communicating with her for awhile, until one day he call to ask for dinner again (the dude just won’t give up). My friend just want to stop, can’t take it anymore. Still with that subtle message he is still not getting it. We need something more straight forward. I suggest that, why not tell him ok, but you will be bringing me and my bf along like a double date. My bf and him get along quite well. Basically we want to create just a “friendly” environment. Friends having dinner together. At first he said ok. On the day that we’re suppose to do dinner, he text her in the late afternoon saying that he had stomach ache and he’s going to skip dinner.
Ding!
Look at it this way, having dinner with me and my bf actually says a lot.
Let’s analyze this:
- He always had one on one dinner with her, what’s with the change lately?
- I was her good friend and now she wants to bring her good friend along with her bf?
- Obviously he knew that i knew he was courting her and did not want to get into the risk of her turning him down after that. If he would have went to dinner with us it would just prove that he was courting her and things did not work out and me, and my bf was there. We knew the whole story.
It’s in the nature of any guy that they will protect their ego and save face. Good news after that, everything stop. She finally repelled him, hehe! What happen after that? After sometime, all of us went dancing one night and we saw him. He came to say hi to me and my bf and totally ignored her. What the??? Ya that’s right! He ignored her. Why? He probably felt played by her. By his actions of ignoring her just shows that he was disapproving her (i don’t want to see you, get out of my sight). It’s been like that ever since.
What i am trying to say is, at times when the girls are just trying to be nice doesn’t mean she’s interested. At the end of the day things may end up sour and awkward. So girls, if you are not interested just don’t try to be too nice cause guys may see it otherwise. For the guys, don’t have to be pushy all the time. Read the signs right and stop giving excuses to the girl so that you can make yourself feel better. Avoid the embarrassment and move on to the next target if she’s not the one. Where is your pride when you are suppose to have it? Same goes for the girls if you are stuck on a guy. Leave with pride and dignity who knows what lies ahead.
Till next time…
Asian with a new yorker attitude. Born in Malaysia and grew up in New York City. I was a shy baby, mischievous teenager, curious adult, passionate entrepreneur, smart mouth wife and now a loving mom ^_^ Had the greatest time from East to West and all around the world. Love to travel and i believe the world is just too big, don't under estimate anything. Have an open mind and you never know what it can bring or take you. When you are old, you can reminisce and said to yourself, you have done it all. Live your life to the fullest and with no regrets! This blog is about what "inspires me" and what i'm passionate about. My fusion and not so conventional ways of child care and my passion for makeup. Sharing my experience and thoughts. I'm still overwhelm that i'm a mom now and i'm an aspiring make up artist. i like to call it "baby & beauty blog
When guys are nice also, doesn’t mean they are interested. I was in this shoe before – for someone who asked me out 3-4x a week and spoke on MSN everyday even when he’s overseas. It meant nothing but merely a sincere friendship. Luckily I am not the perasan type.
I think as mature people, we just need to tell the person frankly if we are not interested. Since he doesn’t read subtle signs, might as well, go straight to him and tell him in the face. I like you as a friend and nothing more. Let’s just be friends. My two cents worth.
Haha!
The girl always want to be the “nice” one. It makes me wonder if she’s not interested, why is she leading him on? What are her intentions? In another angle it makes me question her motive. Even though she might want to come out looking like the nice girl but in another angle she came out looking like a bad girl with bad intentions.
No one wants to get played by someone they fell in love with. Don’t do to others what you don’t want others do to you.
*sigh*
To receive affirmation of self is a very powerful emotion. The girl received this when she was courted by the boy. She knows he is courting her, even though she protests to her friends he is just a friend. This can be seen in the fact she went for both the birthdays dates and being told she was special. One cannot really blame her for going along to see if this can develop into something for her.
You also cannot blame the guy for thinking she felt the same attraction as he felt for her. She accepted all the signs from him, didn’t she? To the guy, if she has not accepted these signs and gone along, he knows there is nothing there. He would not feel as bad as being rejected after all the signals from him were accepted.
I feel the girl, as most girls do, could have handled this better. She could have said at the beginning to him that she is going along to see how it develops, and to be fair either can break off anytime, or to indicate to go steady and exclusive if it comes to that. That way, the boy is not left in doubt and boys usually appreciate such a direct approach.
You see, guys are not like girls – they are very bad at taking hints and cues, while girls are never direct and always drop hints and cues. That is why there is always so much miscommunication.
I am not surprised the boy ignored the girl later. The girl could have handled the break up better too. Although from her point of view it was ‘subtle’, let me tell you this – from the boy’s point of view, he was humiliated in public.
For the girl to have accepted being ‘special’ for the birthday, etc – the boy could have told his friends he was succeeding – not boasting, but sharing some good news about his objectives. Now, for the girl to bring a third party unexpectedly to lunch, and disclose there in front of the third party that they are just friends – that is public humiliation.
Not only that – not being told that she was just having a ‘look-see’ at the beginning, he now feels that he has been examined and found ‘defective’, not up to standard – and just cast away after all his good intentions and efforts. From the boy’s point of view, he has just being insulted – and in public too.
As you can see, there is so much difference when you view things from the girl’s point of view vs the boy’s point of view. The girl thought that was the ‘subtle’ way, the boy felt the knife going in, in public view!
She could have phoned him and say ‘sorry, it’s is not working’ – I think for all his efforts, he deserves this courtesy, don’t you think so? It is just plain courtesy, that is all.
At the end of it all, I don’t think girls are naive to being ‘just being nice’ and ignore the signals from someone who is clearly going after her.
I think these girls are just going along to see if anything good develops; plus the self affirmation that goes with all this attention.
There is nothing wrong with this, but these girls need to articulate to the boy that this is ‘look-see’ period. If it comes to nought, have the courtesy to tell him nicely. After all, if she can accept all those dinners, etc which is courtesies from the boy, she should return the courtesy – don’t you think so?
Unfortunately, people nowadays are not taught to mind the little courtesies in life, and so they are viewed very badly by others.
It is the little things in life that makes life bearable…and enjoyable for everyone, after all.
In many cases, both parties has fault in it. They are the ones that choose their own actions. They’ll have to just live with it
Richard,
Firstly, no offense. My reply is purely argumentative, and I hope to spark a debate on these differences in opinions, if any.
I feel there is a little too much generalization on the girl’s behaviour in your comment. In the beginning, I, too, thought the girls knew the guy is going after her, and leads them on to feed their own ego, but after hanging out with them, believe me or not, sometimes the girl really just doesn’t realize that the guy is going after her, and thought he is just being a nice friend. Trust me on this, I realize this when I get girls asking me if the guy is interested or he’s just being a nice friend, and I had to say “Huh? Isn’t it obvious?”. It’s obvious to me, but to the girls, apparently it wasn’t.
Also, the guy is not totally innocent, he pursued her and asked relentlessly when she first refused to go, and offers no exit clause.
I agree that the girl probably could have handled it better, but the guy too could’ve handled it better on his part too. He should have offered an exit clause to see if the girl snatch the bait. If she does, she’s not interested. It’s as simple as that. Sometimes, as a guy, if you don’t offer an exit clause, and the girl feel as if she had to entertain you, she will entertain you as a polite gesture, and unintentionally send the wrong message across, preparing both for a difficult time from then on.
You mentioned the assumption that girls drop hints and cues, but I beg to differ. I agree that guys and girls differ, but it is this mythical assumption that drives guys crazy – because they think girls like to drop hints and cues, they tend to over-analyze every single move of hers. Sometimes the girl just want to go out and enjoy herself, and there’s nothing to analyze. She goes out with you today, she goes out with another guy the next day, it doesn’t mean anything. She’s single, she’s free, she’s just out there to have some fun. There’s nothing to analyze at all.
You also mentioned that the guy has not been told that she was just having a “look-see” at the beginning, and he feels that he has been examined and found “defective”. To that, I have a question, why is it that the guy need to be told that the girl is having a “look-see” everytime? Shouldn’t he realize by now that ALL girls have a “look-see” attitude ALL the time? Unlike other species, on average, the human female is the attractive one, and it is them who usually have the choices in their hands. Wouldn’t it make sense that they have the “look-see” attitude all the time since they’re the one who’s going to finally make the choice? Who’s at fault now, the girl who doesn’t tell the guy she’s just looking, or the guy who doesn’t realize that all girls are just looking? Why is the girl at fault for the guy’s own ignorance?
I agree with you that some actions taken by the girl could be “subtle”, but interpreted differently (knife going in and twisted irreversibly) by the guy, but seriously, dude, he could’ve managed it better.
I have to totally disagree with “She could have phoned him and say ‘Sorry, it’s not working’”. Have you tried rejecting someone before? If you have, I don’t know about you, but having done it before, it sure seems like rejecting someone must be the most difficult thing to do ever. And for the girl, who has so many guys going after her, does it make sense that she has to do all the rejecting work all the time just to make it easier for the guys? Everytime a guy approach, “oh man, I have to reject another one if it doesn’t work out again”. What if there’s 10 guys approaching in a day? That sure sounds like a lot of work just to filter the suitors out!
Why does a girl have to feed a guy’s ego when he’s the one trying to win the prize? I’m sure you heard of the phrase “No pain, no gain”. If he wants something of value, he must have thought it worth the effort earlier, so why when it doesn’t work out, shouldn’t he be the one bearing the consequences and all the pain that comes with it? If you work hard to gain something, and after long years of hard work, and you still don’t see any returns, is it our Creator’s responsibility to let you know that it’s not working out? Shouldn’t it be, since you make the gamble gunning for the prize, that you alone bear the consequences? Why blame the prize for your gamble? How can you say, that shit 1 million poker chips.. costed me 300k poker chips.. it should’ve told me I was going down.. why didn’t it warn me earlier?
No sir, you want the prize, you need to be able to handle the pain if you don’t get it.
No worries, pekingduck – no offense taken at all.
Everyone has different types of friends, information, experiences, etc in these matters.
There is no one type, information, experience, etc that fits all. This is because everyone is an individual, with different personality, perception of things, maturity, etc.
The good thing to remember in relationships is – don’t find fault, don’t blame anyone, don’t point fingers. It is just endless and non beneficial if one goes down that path.
Rereading my own post, I realise it can be understood as blaming the girl. This is unfortunate. I could have written it better, I suppose.
All I wanted to do was to highlight why the boy behaved the way he did ie ignoring the girl, and that the communication could have been better.
Aside from that, everyone can have their own take on this – no problem.
Yup, all’s fair in love and war.
Er..sorry, I didn’t mean that – “all’s fair in love and war”.
I meant that I stand by my posting and it remains my opinion, and others can have their own opinions of the subject matter.
As for “all’s fair in love and war” – my opinion is this: war and love are at opposite poles, so they do not share the same things. All may be fair in war, but not in love.
I won’t enter into a debate, because it is quite obvious why love does not share this with war.
No problems.. to each their own then. I’m okay with that
I guessing the term ‘all fair in love and war’ is a ermm.my english not that good….lacking of the exact word, contradiction. War is not fair and neither is love. In war, the loser gets killed and loses everything and winner, well wins all.. its not fair but it happens. Same applies to Love. If one side wins, the other surely loses it all. In the game of War and Love, you do whatever tactics you deem necessary to achieve your objective. Its a mind game, a game of resources, its like chess where you move your pieces to lay out your elaborate plan. Its’ rare to have a ceasefire and both side draws…(leaving peacefully)
Actually, it depends on the definition of “fair”. From what I understand, “fair” in that context means that if you are willing to take the risk to go to war gunning for the prize (terrority/loot/freedom), then you must be able to take the losses (death/imprisonment) if you lose.
Same goes to love, if you take your chances and go for the prize (the girl), then you must be able to deal with rejection if that happens. If you get the girl, all is good, if you don’t, don’t say it’s not fair. How is it not fair then?
In another perspective, there’s no fairness in war, because war is usually a result of greed, not by the people who’s actually in the front lines, but people who’s standing or sitting all the way back behind their cannon fodder soldiers, or in the comfort of their castles miles away from the battle or war. In this context, what I deduce is that during a war, when you zoom in to a single battle that neither party made any decisions to go to war but some upper authorities, “all’s fair in love and war” means that nobody present in the battle made any decision to be there to kill the other party, and they are there on the same equal footing, under someone else’s command and their objective is only one, to win the battle, therefore all is fair.