"She usually makes very sweet comments when she calls. I'm not saying I don't like her like that; I just don't know. But she's visiting me soon!"

Benny- Here's a question for you.

There's a woman who lives very far away from me. She's a friend from way back. She's a wonderful person and is apparently very good-looking, based on what other people say about her. (Sometimes, I find her attractive; sometimes, I don't- plus, it's hard to make a decision based on photos). We talk a lot- I texted her once saying that I was bored on Valentine's Day being around a bunch of couples (I have to admit that I wrote her first, wishing her a Happy Valentine's Day and such). She texted back saying that that wouldn't be if she were here. She usually makes very sweet comments when she calls. I'm not saying I don't like her like that; I just don't know. But she's visiting me soon!

Am I worrying over nothing? Am I being conceited? Am I leading her on? And how do I figure out my feelings for her, while, at the same time, toeing that line of a friend?


-Tom Cat on a Midnight Spree


Dear TCOAMS,


Actually, I'm just going to call you Tom.


Anyway, Tom, thanks for being the first male to submit.


 I'm going to start by answering your concluding questions directly.


-Am I worrying over nothing? 


Yeah, pretty much. 


-Am I being conceited? 


Conceited? Not necessarily. Narcissistic? Maybe. I think that many of us sometimes have a tendency to blow situations out of proportion when somebody is interested in us... particularly those of us who have felt unpopular or "unfuckable" at one time or another.


We often have an almost-involuntary reflex of a voice that says, 'This girl is into me, so I better do this right or else I'll be a loser.'


Oftentimes, this reflex continues no matter how many situations we've been that in theory should serve as proof of our "fuckability."


We get this question in our heads: 'What am I supposed to do?' And that question often trumps another more important question: 'Do I want her?'




-Am I leading her on? 


You don't appear to be leading her on based on your account. If you were to say, 'I can't wait to see you, I have a crush on you too,' that would be leading her on. If you were to have sex with her while still being this iffy about her, you would be leading her on.


Another tendency that many of us who suffer from the "Chronic Unfuckable Blues" have developed is to assume that other people are as lonely as we are at our worst.


Let me explain. When I was at my most shy and lonely, I very rarely acted on my feelings. It seemed like such a huge step even to banter with a girl in a way that would demonstrate my attraction. So when did I act on my feelings? Only once my interest had developed into a massive overpowering crush. Only when I'd been admiring her and thinking about her for months on end. I held it in and then let it all out in a massive explosion of emotion only after it had become far too intense to hold in.


A history of this type of introversion can obscure an important fact: many people don't operate like this at all. 


Most people actually operate more like this:


'I'm kind of into this person. I'll let them know. OK, this person likes me. OK, let's see how it goes.'


Or this:


'I'm kind of into this person. I'll let them know. Oh, they're not that into it. OK, good to know. Move along. Next!'


Here's what I'm getting at: You're probably not doing anything as powerful as "leading her on," with all the negative connotations that has because, seeing as she hasn't spent all that much face-to-face time with you, she's probably only very mildly into you.


-And how do I figure out my feelings for her, while, at the same time, toeing that line of a friend?


Hang out with her. Maybe make out with her. Don't have sex with her unless you decide you actually like her. In fact, don't even let her suck your dick unless you decide you actually like her. (I guess that stuff passes for casual among daredevil middle school girls, but, let's face it: most girls who aren't daredevil middle schoolers will only do it to a guy they really care about or  a guy they desperately want to manipulate.)


My take on this girl is that she either A) is really intensely into you in a long-distance, idealized way or B) is kind of into you and doesn't have anything else going on, so she figures, hey, I'll sweet talk this faraway guy I'm going to see soon, and maybe it'll turn out cool.


If A is the case, then she could be bad news, and you should be cautious. If B is the case, then just take it as it comes.


Also, say to her what you said to me. At some point when you are hanging out with her, say, 'You're attractive, but I'm not sure if I really like you yet.' 


I also want to call our attention to another thing you said in the message: 'She's a wonderful person and is apparently very good-looking, based on what other people say about her.'


What other people say about her should not matter. When you see her, stop asking yourself if she's hot or not. That voice will probably be there, but turn it off. Let the situation develop however it is going to develop. That voice that's questioning your attraction (or lack of attraction) to her will only distract you from what matters, which is the quality of the connection you have (or lack) with her.


In Improv comedy, one of the first things they teach you is to trust the other person to provoke "the funny" rather than attempting to constantly create "the funny." The idea is that comedy comes from truth and truth comes from genuine reactions. I'm not certain exactly how this relates to your situation, but I'm pretty sure it does.

A brief follow-up for RUA

I'll get to Tomcat on a Midnight Spree soon, but first, I want to add to something  I said to Receiver of Unwanted Attention in the last post.


Many people took issue with two of my suggestions. (Although they did it by email, not in comments which I wish they would do so that I could look popular.)


The suggestion people took issue with was, "Tell him that you can't make out with him because you'll get too emotional." Several people said to me, "No, that will make the guy want you more."


That may be true in many cases, but I still think that it will work on some guys.


I was more or less trying to make and re-make the point that making yourself less mysterious will make people less likely to obsess over you.


Guys have a tendency to idealize girls. We also have a tendency to be unprepared to actually deal with the kind of emotions you need to deal with when you're in a relationship.


Those things tend to go hand-in-hand: idealization and emotional cluelessness.


I look back and notice that the girls I've had the most enduring crushes on were the ones whose romantic lives I knew the least about.


In many cases, I changed once I really got to know a girl: I either stopped crushing on her or decided to actually make an effort to pursue her.


Back to you, RUA (Hope you're still reading me from out there in internet land!). What I mean is, If you want to make guys into friends, encourage them to see you as much like a friend as possible. Let them see the aspects of you that you're careful about showing to guys you like. Call yourself crazy, or fart, or goofily-drunkenly-casually make out with them, whatever snaps them back into the reality that you are a human being, you're not the manic pixie dream girl who's going to save them, and you're never going to be in love with them.

"I know some of the nicest guys, who I would love to be friends with and hang out with, but after a while they always start getting a bit flirty."

I have your first question. This happens to me quite a bit. I know some of the nicest guys, who I would love to be friends with and hang out with, but after a while they always start getting a bit flirty. I know they're secretly interested, and I know that I'm not, but I still really want to be friends, because everyone knows that guys are more fun to hang out with than girls. These aren't the sorts of guys who would say anything, so should I just let them flirt and try not to flirt back? Is what I want impossible? Can girls and guys be just friends. Help me, Benny!




Sincerely,


Receiver of Unwanted Attention.


P.S. I would follow you of course, but I imagine being the first asker of a question AND the first follower would defeat the purpose of commenting anonymously.


Dear RUA,


First of all, thanks for your question.


Second of all, thanks for giving yourself a name that lends itself easily to a phonetic abbreviation. In fact, rua is the word for "road" in Portuguese, which is awesome.


Third of all, thanks for keeping it anonymous. I'm speculating about your identity and I'm enjoying the mystery of it more than I thought I would.


Fourth of all, I'll actually get to the subject.


Now, ask yourself the following questions:


1) "What do these boys want from me? Do they want to make out with me once and then go back to being friends? Or do they just like to flirt?"


There are plenty of boys out there who will just have weird crushes on you, but, nonetheless, one thing that some girls don't seem to understand about boys is that, no matter how much you're in a boy's "friend zone," he'd probably still make out with you.


It's not that boys and girls can't be "just friends." That's a common misperception very much perpetuated by When Harry Met Sally and other pop culture artifacts in which a girl's best boy friend inevitably turns into either a boyfriend or a rejected depressed boy. So yes- boys are capable of seeing girls as "just friends." It's just that, for a boy, "just friends" means, "But I'd still make out with her." And because of that, sometimes we have days where our friends just start looking like good makeout material.


So, next time you start to think, "Ugh, does my friend have a creepy repressed crush on me?" also ask yourself, "Or is he just horny?"


The thing is, if a guy is genuinely just horny and/or lonely and periodically wants to make out with you, he'll be likely to give up when he sobers/feels less lonely/makes out with another girl/has a girlfriend. In that case, he'll eventually leave you alone at some point.


There's also a significant demographic of boys who, like girls, express friendship by flirting. I have a small handful of friends with whom I seem to have a weird mutual understanding that we're always going to flirt and compliment each other, but never, ever get physical. (More on that later.)


But for the purposes of the second question that I think you should ask yourself, I'm going to assume that these boys are not flirtatious and/or occasionally horny friends, but are indeed "secretly interested" in a more dangerous way.


2) "Do I actually wish these guys would leave me alone, or does part of me enjoy his unfulfillable crush on me? Am I a RUA or am I actually a RWA (receiver of wanted attention)?"


I have a friend, Erica, who has a lineup of boys who would do anything for her, and she encourages it. I thought it was sickening and I confronted her about it. She said, "I know what I'm doing. It's just that they never leave me alone so I have as much fun as I can."


When she said that, my opinion of her completely changed. She knew what she was doing and she acknowledged it. Situations like that can get a bit toxic when a girl convinces herself that she and the boys are good friends without acknowledging that the entire dynamic is based on the boys' pathetic infatuation with her. But if you can admit to yourself that the boys aren't friends as much as pathetic dudes who you continue to toy with because it's easy and it's not like they'll leave you alone anyway, then I think you'll be fine. It only gets bad if you pretend that it's a genuine friendship when it's not.


I guess my point is this: figure out whether you actually like these guys as friends or if you subconsciously enjoy their unrequited crushes on you.


And now, finally, I will *attempt* to teach you how to transform a boy who's interested in you into a boy who can see you as just a friend. In many cases, it will not be possible, but in some cases, it might be.


Basically, I've thought of several friends of mine who I have had crushes on but have come to see as just friends and how it is that it managed to work out that way, and based on that, I've come up with three suggestions.


1) Open up and/or lie about how crazy you are and what a bad idea it would be for the two of you to make out.


When a girl says, "I'm sorry, I can't make out with you, I'm just not into you like that," it hurts. But when a girl says, "I'm sorry, I'm a nutjob and you shouldn't make out with me," it hurts much less, because it doesn't insult the guy, it also lowers your sexy aura of mystery a bit, and it makes the guy feel respected.


If you're super brave (or if this is the truth), tell him that you wish you could have just a one-night stand with him, but you know you'll get clingy, so you don't want to risk that.


Basically if you make yourself appear less mysterious and more crazy, it will remind the boy of all the things he doesn't like about getting close to girls. Then he'll appreciate how nice it is to be just friends with you.


2) Flirt with him in a way that makes him feel good about himself but that he won't take too seriously.


As an example, I'll give you a list of facbook comments my friend Rasa (who has a serious long-term boyfriend) has recently left on photos of me:


"I'm so glad all my friends are good-looking."
"If you keep dressing like that, you're gonna get did."
"You remind me of Michael Cera. I have a crush on Michael Cera. OK fine I have a crush on you."


Her flirting is so playful and over-the-top that she never crosses the line and makes me think "Oh shit, she wants me to bone her" (which, by the way, is how all boys' interior monologs sound).


Flirting in such an over-the-top manner sends two messages: 1) You're an attractive guy, 2) I feel comfortable enough around you to say, 'I want to do you,' and 3) I don't ACTUALLY want to do you.


Making over-the-top sexual comments, like #1, can also succeed at putting a damper on your sexy aura of mystery.


Sometimes, this kind of OTT flirting is superior to simply not flirting back. For one thing, it's friendlier. But, more than that, simply not flirting back can sometimes lead the boy to flirt even harder, and in some cases it can kick the boy's insecurities into gear. If you give a boy the cold shoulder, be prepared for him to start saying things like, "Why do you hate me?" or "I'm so sorry, I'd never want to make you uncomfortable because I care about you" (as he attempts to jam his tongue down your throat).


3) Drunkenly make out with him. Just do it.


I sense that you'd probably rather not do this, but I'm going to put it out there anyway. If there's a lot of sexual tension there, making out with him just once might alleviate it, and, once making out with you is no longer an unattainable holy grail, he may chill out. Be sure to somehow make it clear that this will only happen once, whether that means being blunt and saying, "I'll never make out with you again," or by saying, "Haha, isn't it funny how I get drunk and make out with my friends."


If he "gets weird" afterwards, don't get down on yourself. Many girls get down on themselves for "letting it get weird", and they shouldn't. Many girls think, "I should never have made out with a friend! It's my fault!"


It's not. It's his fault.


The thing is, a one-night-only drunken make-out can actually be a good litmus test of whether a guy is even worth having as a friend. If he treats you with respect and friendliness after the makeout, then he's a cool guy.


If he expects more making out or treats you with less respect, then he would never have made a good friend in the first place.

In any case, this is only a good idea in a minority of situations, but I thought it was worth throwing out there anyhow.


To further emphasize these points, I'm going to invoke the movie Say Anything. If you haven't seen it, see it. I'm not in love with the movie, but it's well-crafted, it's easy-to-watch, and has become something of a cultural standpoint over the years. Ever seen a boy stand outside a girl's window while holding a radio above his head? This movie is where he got it from.




Anyway, in Say Anything, Lloyd (John Cusack) pines for Diane (Ione Skye) and is good friends with Corey (Lilli Taylor). Diane is distant and quiet. Corey is very up-front and loud. Both girls are emotional, but Diane expresses her emotions very hesitantly and Corey expresses her emotions with no filter. Diane has a mysterious past but Corey sings emotional songs about her ex-boyfriend for everyone to hear.


If you want to be more of a "just friends" girl, act more Corey and less Diane.


In Say Anything, as in real high schools, the Dianes end up with the Lloyds and the Coreys end up with the shitty cheaters. But in post-high school reality, the Lloyds usually grow bitter as they realize that they wasted their younger years obsessing over girls, the Dianes discover that their hypersensitity hurts them, and the Coreys usually end up having better social lives despite the fact that their sexy auras are slightly less mysterious.


Anyway, Rua, now that this journey is coming to an end, I'll answer your questions as directly as possible.


-Should I just let them flirt and try not to flirt back?
Flirt back in a really goofy way. If that doesn't work, then give them the cold shoulder, which should get the message across but might also mean the end of your friendship.


- Is what I want impossible?
No.


-Can girls and guys be just friends?
Yes. But there will probably always be a vaguely sexual element. Sometimes that will mean occasional flirting, sometimes it will mean actually making out once or twice, and sometimes it will mean something more hard-to-pin-down, but that element will probably be there.


And even if it feels like every guy friend you make just wants to bone you, have faith that it won't always be that way. Making boy friends is just like finding a boyfriend: if you want it too badly and try too hard, you'll end up with someone who sucks. If you want people for the wrong reasons, you'll end up with the wrong people in the wrong roles. But if you let people drift in and out of your life, the good ones will stick.

How to Deal with a Nice Guy

Hey there all you dudes and ladies out there in internet land. Benny here.


I've decided to start an advice column about guys. I noticed that, in the internet and in the non-digital world, there is plenty of advice given by girls about guys, given by guys about girls, and even given by girls about girls . But there seems to be a dearth of advice given by guys about guys.


I'm changing that.


I've called this site "How to Deal with a Nice Guy" because the most troubling thing that I've seen in girls I know and/or care about and/or enjoy laughing at is, well, their inability to deal with guys who they perceive as "nice." I hear many women say, "I'd never break up with him, he's so nice," about guys who suck, and say, "I wouldn't date him, he's so intimidating," about guys who are actually pretty nice.


I've realized that, when I'm speaking or writing, every time I mention a person, it takes me about ten seconds to decide whether I want to call them a man or a boy or a woman or a girl.

So, in order to reduce the time it takes me to write a sentence, and because I don't believe that anybody really grows up, from this point on, I will never write "men" and "women" when I could just as easily say "boys" and "girls." 

Ask your questions by way of anonymous comments. I've realized that, unless we use snail-mail, that's the only way that your questions/problems will remain anonymous.


And I'll end with a quote from Cary Tennis (Get well soon, Cary!), one of the greatest creators of written advice the world has ever seen:


"I'm no expert. I know the same things we all know. What I'm offering is, you know, good writing! Good writing can clarify overlooked or obscure areas of emotion. With sufficient craft, these things can be illuminated, and in a way that's pleasurable to read. Plus I'm kind. I offer sympathy to people who are in trouble." (The full article from which this quote was copied can be found here.)

I'm no Cary Tennis. He's a pro. I'm not. But can I offer good writing? We'll see. You be the judge, and I'll be the writer.