That Girl...: Deluded and Persistent

It's been several weeks since I started this ongoing thing. Posts about "That Girl" -- who is often someone we know, but sometimes ourselves.

"I Want You Bad" girl...

This girl is tricky. It's kinda hard not to relate to her. We've all met a guy who we wanted really really really really bad. Some of us know how to take a deep breath and assess the situation. Others of us need a little help in that area. And let it be said early on that I know this girl can also be "that guy"

I got to thinking about this girl weeks ago, but then I read this post by Frank Love: "How To Deal When The Interest Isn't Mutual"

Frank has such a compassionate tone in his post that I really had to think harder about the way I view this chick. She's the one who calls/emails/texts/tweets/facebooks a guy she's interested in several times each day. She laments to her friends how he never returns her attempts at reaching out and that even when he does he's short with her. Or that she tries to set up times for them to get together and he's either unresponsive or flaky on setting times and keeping them.

Her friends will most likely offer words of support and encouragement. Offering every viable explanation for his flakiness and unresponsiveness except the obvious one: he's just not that into you. The one friend who tries to offer some semblance of perspective gets shut down and cut off. That girl will run back to her other friends and go on and on about "how dare she try to suggest something is wrong with me..." the extreme ones will even try to suggest that maybe the friend has it out for her in some way. She'll come up with all the past occasions when "something just didn't feel right..." No one likes being told that the way they're seeing the world ain't quite on target with what's actually happening, but "that girl" has such a visceral reaction, everyone quickly learns it's best to just let her see what she wants.

Like I said, Frank's compassion in his writing had me stopping and thinking. I'm quite literally the antithesis of this girl. I took an early dating lesson to heart: I don't chase. I've gotten mixed reviews on the effectiveness of this method. Many of my guy friends have told me over the years that it can be a bit intimidating. In any case, watching "that girl" chase a guy who clearly doesn't want her only furthers my resolve not to be her.

However I get how it can be: you think this guy is great and would love to get to know him better, but even more you want him to get to know you better because you feel like you'd be awesome for his life. On the surface, that's not all that bad but when you're constantly putting forth that effort and not getting anything back, it can be a problem.

I may be too intense with it, but I'm here to tell you that if he doesn't respond to you initially, repeated attempts at getting his attention will not work. More than likely it will only drive him further away. I like Frank's explanation on this: (paraphrase) it's ok to let him know you're interested, but if he's not returning evidence of interest, have some respect for yourself and find someone who will.

I've not had a lot of success with these girls as friends. For one, I don't have the patience to support delusions. I mean we don't gotta talk about it, but I can't just keep acting like I don't see the red flags and for two, I'm always an easy scapegoat. I'm ALWAYS the first one to get cut off for keeping it too real. I can say that I almost wear it as a badge of honor these days and put my own, perhaps ironically deluded, spin on it: I was such an awesome friend she had to let me go be an awesome friend to someone else. ;)