He Isn’t Talking to Me… He Must Hate Me

            “Can I ask you a question?”  Bea asked as I start to cut my Panini.

            “Sure, what’s up?” I said pulling the two halves apart gently trying not to pull the melted cheese out from between the pieces of bread.
            “Does Jake hate me?” 

“No why?” I asked tilting my head sideways.

“Because I saw him yesterday and, well, he kinda ran away” I couldn’t stop the bubbling laughter from rising from me.  Within seconds I was in stitches.  Bea became even more panicked “What? Does he?”  I had to control myself Jake had been in love with Bea ever since I had introduced them a year before by this point.  She had lived across the hall from me and whenever he would come over and she was there doing homework with her door open, he would say hi to her and then come into my room, turn on ESPN and periodically check up on her through the peep hole.

Since then, I had tried to get him to talk to her and invited her to group events.  I’m not gonna lie it would have been pretty awesome if they had gotten together.  They were both two of my favorite people and who doesn’t want to see their friends happy.  However, Jake was nervous around girls, especially Bea.  The day before, however, I had seen Jake while walking to a meeting and he ran up to me rejoicing “Guess what? I talked to Bea!!!!”

“Really? What did you talk about?” I said jumping up and down with excitement with him.

“Oh you know just generic stuff like hello you know” Jake said.

“Well that’s great!  I have to run cause I have a meeting, but I have lunch with her tomorrow so I’ll see if she says anything ok.” I said racing off with a smile on myface.  It had finally happened.  Jake had talked to Bea!  Or so I thought, unfortunately Bea saw it as he was avoiding her and even worse hated her.  Through all my laughter I had to break down and tell her the truth. 

“Jake doesn’t hate you, he’s had a huge crush on you for ages” I said laughing.

“Oh really?” she said screwing up her nose.  Clearly her concepts of how guys function had just been shattered.  After I spilled the truth about everything, I realized just how much it contradicted my own stereotypes.

Since the creation of the movie He’s Just Not that Into You, and even possibly before that, we girls tend to think if he isn’t constantly attempting to make contact with you, he isn’t interested.  Jake had just proved us all wrong.  Jake was in fact very much into this girl, but to the point that he had crippled himself, because guys, like girls, get those butterfly feelings and Jello replacing their knees and a heavy weight of sandstone replacing their tongue when they are around someone they are attracted to.

Since then I have actually started paying more attention to my guy friend’s reactions to girls (why it took me until Junior year of college I don’t know), but I have realized something shocking.  Ok girls ready, if you’re standing sit down, because: They are just like us!!!

This may sound ridiculous because of course they are human we are human, but let’s get real here, we ladies put a lot on a little in our world.  I mean they don’t give us much to work with half the time, but we expect a lot from the male species.  We expect them to give out subtle signs of attraction and boldly put their emotions out on the line for us to pick and choose from as we please.  In all honesty it’s probably our own faults, I mean who amongst us has not purposely ignored the obvious signs of flirting from a guy we respect, but can’t date for whatever reason.

Since, my discovery I have decided a new rule don’t force him to stick to rules, they aren’t getting you anywhere.  The two day rule doesn’t even hold true anymore, because at least in my group of  guy friends including far more than just Jake, two days stands as the limit between the amount of time when you last saw her and when you feel that it’s now creepy to try talking to her.  Of course, for some girls too soon also appears creepy.  Over these digital years, we have created a massive labyrinth for guys to dance through before they become important in our lives.

So when you are thinking about what the latest guy who asked you for your number and then never texted you again is thinking, just remember that he is not only human, but has also probably been trying to navigate this foggy labyrinth for years.  Beyond that, hopefully he has a life of his own.  He should have friends and work and other things he is trying to keep up with so as much as I’m sure he would love to spend the day writing poetic text messages to you, get real girl, you would be freaked out if he did.

Some final words of wisdom, when it comes to guys you like, proceed with caution in all directions, your lust fogs your vision too.  Let him get close and maybe you two will find each other through the murky haze.  If he doesn’t end up liking you back, that’s alright, there is always another one around the corner.