Dear Boy,
It will go without saying shortly into this denunciation that I don’t think you are dear.
I’m using the term like an adultier-adult would when speaking to a petulant child, or like a southern woman says ‘bless his heart’.
Basically I think you’re a little slow and I am gonna need you to pay attention.
Because you are, and you do.
I want you to understand something.
I was privy to the message my roommate sent you in the morning before she sent it.
We often read shit aloud to the other to see how it sounds, check spelling or just because.
We live together, as in live, together. As in we are involved in each other’s lives.
So um, I was holding a bottle of nail polish at the salon as she read aloud your response.
Most of the other women present gasped or rolled their eyes, I threw up in my mouth a bit.
What she said, for the massive amounts of other people who will be reading this who were not in my house the other night, nor out for Korean, nor having morning coffee on the porch with us or getting nails did is that she “didn’t want to waste your time, that there was no connection, that you had more in common with her roommate.”
It was a gentle let down. For a minute there you were doing okay.
I tried dragging some conversation out of you at dinner, for a minute there too you were doing okay.
I was pulling for you.
I did so because I want her to be happy. She is intelligent, beautiful and charismatic as fuck, you just were not keeping up Buttercup.
Now, everyone else who reads this blog knows her as MY Sunshine. As in ‘you are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey’. She knows how much I love her.
Apparently you don’t.
Your selective boy brain pulled 2 words from her text. Roommate and connection.
Annnnnnnd … You proceeded to ask her if it was okay to message me and ask for advice on what to say.
Are you out of your fucking mind?
I am a practicing cougar and I have had my share of twenty-somethings and fuckbois, but even they are shaking their heads right now saying “seriously bro, that’s low.”
No, really, I told a couple of them and they said ‘damn that shit ain’t right.’
Let me be abundantly clear.
I met you as a lump on MY couch, snuggling with MY girl, in OUR house. You could be Channing Tatum and you would still have all the sex appeal and anatomical correctness of a Ken doll if she was the one who brought you home. Zero, nada, none.
Not my boy, not my toy.
She is sweet and kind to the boys I bring home because she is sweet and kind.
I try to do the same.
I took pity on you at dinner and tried to get you to say something, anything. Nothing more.
You mistook my kindness for what? Flirting?
You are the first one I have met that I didn’t feel like running down with my car.
The second ever.
Way to change my mind.
We share many things like shampoo and shoes…she borrows my socks, plucks my eyebrows and then draws them on again. She gets me out of the house and I keep her home. We have crossed many a roommate line, I scrubbed body paint off her back so she could get ready for a date, the bathroom door is rarely closed and for the most part we don’t wear pants in this house.
The other thing we don’t do?
SHARE BOYS.
Once upon a club years ago when she and I first met, another boy got both our numbers and sent us the exact same message minutes apart. Guess which one of us went home with him?
Neither, and I barely knew her then.
We have hit the point where when she cries I cry. Except it’s usually me crying because she’s tougher than I and now we are both laughing. At you.
I told you a story about a shitty boy at dinner and you what…had to one up him?
Point to Slytherin.
I am going to give you a little bit of life advice.
Number one.
There was no connection because there was nothing about you to connect to.
I am great at small talk and that was like fucking work dude.
Read a book. Form an opinion of your own.
Don’t steal antiquated dating articles from the interwebz and tell it like it happened to you. That is a symptom of BPD. And a Big Red Flag.
Figure out who you are and what you are passionate about. Then do that thing.
Get checked for BPD
Then maybe think about dating.
Number two.
No man worth having would ever ask he girl he was literally just dating to hook him up with her roommate or any other woman, ever.
There is an exception to that rule wherein I coached my ex with his current girlfriend but we have been friends for 3 years and I actually like him. He is good to me and NEVER TRIED TO FUCK MY FRIENDS.
I don’t even fuck my ex’s friends.
That is a good general rule. In this glorious age of Tinder there is no need to be fucking anyone’s friends.
Also, for the record, no woman worth having would agree to even speak to you after you dated her friend. Strong women who own their shit and bring something to the table are surrounded by other strong women who own their shit and bring something to the table. It’s a rule. I suggest you abide by it.
If you see either one of us on Tinder, to the left to the left. Immediately, to the fucking left.
My age range is set pretty low, my standards are not.
And no, I don’t want to be friends on Facebook.
Okay. I have to have a reply here. I am a man. And I will be defending him to a point.
And before you, maybe, go off on a thing about assholes sticking together, here me out. It’s not for him, it’s for me, because I like to analyze lives and movies down to their story. I like to understand people, for all their good and bad.
Two things. And I make these assumptions from what you say in your story.
First, he did not know how close you and your friend are. You gave the reader details about your relationship, about how you share everything expect men and love each other crazy. But he doesn’t know that, right? To him, you are just friends. Roommates. And he doesn’t know that you will not share men.
I say this because I personally know roommates that have shared men, sometimes on the same bed, at the same time. And they’re okay with it. The poor boy doesn’t know that that’s where you draw the line.
Second, your friend sent him a message saying that he “had more in common with my roommate”, and she wrote it out in a nice, cool and friendly tone. Now, even with all the abuse that you showered on the guy, I have to admit that, on receiving such a text, it’s not a far-off assumption among many others, that the sender was okay with the fact that he had more in common with the roommate. Don’t you think?
Following such an assumption, it can lead one to seek the help of this helpful roommate to ask the roommate out.
Before anything pops, one moment. You yourself have admitted that you have helped an ex find a girl, because he was nice and you knew him well. Well, we all assume that we are nice. Even serial killers assume that they were wronged and they are not such a bad people.
What is one poor, stupid boy?
I admit that men have a tendency to do some really heartless and downright stupid things. Some need to be berated for them, some need to scolded and some need to be castrated. In that line of things, what this guy did, I don’t really think it deserves a whole blog post.
P.S: The two attempts that I made at calming you above was not done in assumption that all women are sentimental and crazy, but because too many times when trying to lay out a rational argument, I have been accused of racism, anti-Semitism, islamophobia, misogyny, and on the opposite spectrum, anti-nationalism, feminism and occasionally, terrorism.
You can counter back. I will listen. I do not believe that I am all knowing or all wise.
You made a lot of valid points.
I don’t need calming down, nor scolding.
I do not, at this point, think you are a bad man.
And I believe it is healthy to ask questions and open a dialog.
Which is something this man did not do.
At any point.
He made assumptions.
Now, my Sunshine and he have been friends on social media.
Sunshine and I are plastered all over each other’s social media because as I said, we are deeply involved in each others lives.
That was the first clue overlooked.
A lot of things were overlooked because (and I am not saying ALL men) a lot of men CHOOSE to over look the obvious and the logical.
There is a sickness, I suppose is a good word for it, amongst some men wherein they think if a girl is nice to them they want to fuck said guy.
I call it a sickness because it can be like the common cold and a mild annoyance or it can escalate to Brock Turner proportions if conditions are favorable for said guy.
Happens with women too, “oh he’s being nice to me he must want to date me.”
Not healthy nor advisable.
Yes, with 3 years of history and friendship I helped an ex figure out what to say to a girl.
But that was my choice and he is my friend.
This man was an interloper at best. I was near him for 3 hours. Not comparable.
I am 42 years old, I have had room mates with whom I shared random dudes.
Sunshine is not one of them and I will tell you why, and this guy KNEW this.
She is single and actively looking for a partner.
His opening line to her was “lets go get sushi and fall in love”. They had a pre-existing relationship.
Again, no woman worth having as a friend would interrupt her best friend whilst she is looking for love.
That would be an awkward wedding party at best.
You used the word ‘assumption’ a lot in your counterpoints.
Therein lies the problem.
At no point did he ask.
I think it does deserve a whole blog post for a few reasons.
She deserved some retribution.
This opened a dialog.
He was kept anonymous and I made sure he saw it, and he too said I had many valid points.
I write uncomfortable things in a public forum for a few reasons.
1. for myself
2. for myself
3. to remind myself of where I have been
4. on the off chance someone else will read this and either
a) find comfort
b) find wisdom
We live in a time of random hook ups, emphasis on the random.
Like I said, in the golden age of Tinder there is no need to be fucking anyone’s friends.
Had she said, ‘hey my room mate thinks you are hot, what do you think?’
Obviously that is a different story, more suited for penthouse forum really, or the other stuff I write.
Thank you for replying. I appreciate it.
I would like to say something. No longer for the boy. I neither remember, nor care about him anymore. And please, don’t think of this as an argument or a counter, but merely a question.
This is about a few points in your comment. Maybe this is what your words were about, maybe it was not. But this is what stood out for me and therefore. These are about “signs”, “assumptions” and that “he should have asked.”
I have always had a weird relationship with signs and clarifications. There was me, teenager, when a smile would have me dreaming of children and a home in the ‘burbs. There was me who Googled things like “what does it mean when a girl ______”. There was suicidal/rebel me, who didn’t give a fuck. There was nice guy me who played games. And I guess some more mes who did other things. But the thing is, whether they chose to listen or not, none of these mes have been right all the time.
I would like to give you an example – about five years ago, I met a girl who was part of my training batch at a job.
We would sit around an enormous conference table and the trainer would walk the head. I sat somewhere around the front of the table and this girl sat opposite me. She had the most amazing laugh, and she laughed at most everything. All day, I’d stare at her – open-mouthed, obsessed. It was an easy thing for her to figure out.
About two weeks after the batch began, as part of a conversation that she was having with someone else, where she defined another guy in the group as “handsome”, she told me that she only ever “noticed” loud and tall guys. It was a sign as clear as any. I am below average height and one of the quietest guys in the group. She was not interested.
But see, I was in my suicidal phase, and also, it had hit my ego a bit. I did not stop.
Two days later, for the first time, I went up to talk to her. I asked her where lived. She told me. Then I asked her something else. She answered. That day, we had lunch together. Two days after that, she asked for my number. The training lasted three months. A month after that, we broke up.
My point – she was a loud, tall, and proud woman and she gave me completely wrong signs. Sometimes a lot of girls do.
But, I do agree with what you’re thinking right now – this is not always so. For that, I will admit that were lots more women who did not seem interested and were truly not. Sometimes a no is a no. But barring certain things, is it too bad to try and be sure about it, or even test the boundaries? I mean, isn’t that what all the modern motivational philosophies try to instill in us?
I will clarify now that no woman has ever had a reason to accuse me of violating her space or being abusive. That is important. I have nothing but love for most women I’ve been with. Some were crazy, some helped with my confidence, some were shy, some were kind, some cheated on me, and some were overtly religious and cursed me to hell. But I’ve learned something from all of them. And a lot this would not have been possible if I had just read the signs and listened to them.
And about asking directly, we are too shy, we are built that way. It is in the nature of flirting not to be direct. We ask people to dinner, not into our bedroom, even though that’s all we’re thinking about. It is human nature.
I know this conversation is especially relevant today when consent is a topic blaring out, especially with men like Brock Turner walking free. I do not contest that. It is important. Very. But is it really that bad if one tests the boundaries a bit, while respecting the other person’s most intimate spaces?