1. Freaking out because one word is out of place
K. Night. Idc. Whatev. Cya.
These are NOT 'k' responses. They hold a cort, frustrated tone leaving us wondering what we said wrong. If you MUST use a one word answer, at least use a smiley face, to put some type of emotion into it. The more words the better, but any indication of a positivity will suffice.
2. Being clingy/needy
If you are our boyfriend, we just want to spend time with you because we enjoy it. If we are your really close female friend... it's the same. Whether friends or more, we sometimes assume you can take as much of us as our female friends do- especially if we feel that we can confide in you. Just being around can make us feel more cared about. Because good companionship between males and females is more difficult to come by than male-male or female-female companionship, a girl often can find a strong relationship with a male more 'important'- when she needs to talk to you, it means much more that you listen- and hurts a heck of a lot more if you blow her off.
3. Reading into things
Boy: I think I'm going to go to Ireland to find an Irish girl.
Girl's mind: why? Are girls here not good enough? Am I not good enough?
Boy sits diagonal from girl at dinner
Girl's mind: Oh no. What did I do? He usually sits beside me, or across from me. Am I annoying him? Would he rather sit by my hot friend?
(IM conversation)
Boy: Idc
Girl's mind: Idc? I don't care? Why the heck don't you care? Does that mean what I think doesn't matter? Or does it just mean that you are indifferent as to your response to my question? Are you just being indecisive so I'll leave you alone?
Yes. everything gets taken the wrong way. Most of us pay attention to where you're looking, how fast you respond, body language in general, and the implications of every statement. If we are just friends, making statements about other girls can cause us to feel inadequate or overlooked. Any girl would like to think that a guy considers her attractive in theory. If you say something like that to your girlfriend... watch out.
No matter what you do, it would be awesome if you guys could think about what you're saying and doing.
4.friend zoning
OK men. This is a frickin two way street. Explain to me all the things that we do that put you in the 'friend zone'. Cuz I'm pretty sure that 99% of the time it's unintentional. I know I've never intentionally done it.
... Also, I know that you're probably just trying to be 'cool', but greeting involving the words "dude", "pal", "bro", "man", and "buddy", are for YOUR MALE FRIENDS. No girl wants to be referred to as a male. Unless she's your lesbian best friend. Use our names. Use a hug. Or a "hello" and smile combo. Those never get old! As a bonus, they work for everyone- friends, hotties, best friends, weird situations, girlfriends, any of the aboves' parents...
Let's be really candid for a moment. I don't think I'm stepping beyond my wisdom when I say that at some point a girl considers what it would be like to date any one of her male friends. This thought process may indeed end immediately with a slight grimace.
However, it may continue. She might dwell on it. She might start to wonder every time she sees you. She might start to wish that you were wondering about it. The more she wonders, the more the spark of interest turns into her desire to be more than friends.
I'd really like to know if guys give girls consideration like we do to them.
5.not giving good signals
Ok, this one just makes me laugh with how ridiculously confusing it is to everyone, self included.
Large amounts of hugging, texting, Facebooking, and hanging out are misleading. I don't even know how to begin to look for an answer- how the heck do you make it clear that you have no interest in them if you legitimately think they are awesome and just want to be friends with them? Also, if you are already friends, how are you supposed to change your ways if you want to give signals that indicate that you want to take your relationship further?
I know that for me, friendly flirting is easy- I can chat with a guy I'm friends with and it's no big deal and means nothing. In opposition, if I like a guy I'm probably going to freeze up and be silent. Not all girls are that way. Some are gifted in making their thoughts very clear. I am one of the unfortunate ones.
All that to say... there is no answer when it comes to signals. We try to balance things out- if we hung last night, we may or may not text you all day today- we might even act like we don't see you when we walk by. It's a mind game. A sick mind game. We wonder if you guys play it, too.
Let's all do ourselves a favor: act like mature men and women and go after what we want. Make a move before we get emotions invested, and if there's nothing there, move on to the next! Girls are just as afraid to be honest and bold with guys as you are with us. Just do it.
6. being "crazy"
We've all heard the stories- if not been part of one- where a guy does or says ONE thing that didn't meet some girl's expectations or offended her, and she completely over-reacted and got pissed off for anywhere from ten minutes to five days.
Well... sometimes we expect things or want things that we don't realize are completely unobvious. For girls, some tiny details or situations or life are common sense- and so when a male (or child, or friend, or parent...) go against these seemingly basic ideas, we flip out and get mad because we perceive it as the other person not caring, or being spiteful, or a jerk.
I'm sorry to say, but it's all about communication. There are people who've grown up together and have a horrible marriage or relationship because they can't stay on the same page. There are also couples who've been married fifty years and and communicate amazingly even through linguistic or religious barriers.
We know the freaking out is our fault. I apologize, on our behalf. However, next time just... THINK. Don't make us guess or have cause to be angry because of something you did or didn't do.
7. What you are doing
Some couples are inseparable- they eat together, work out together, get all of their classes together, etc. The other extreme is a couple that rarely spends time together because they have busy lives or very differing interests. Some people can deal with their relationships being this way and some can't. Gary Chapman's theory of the five love languages also comes into play- some peoples' way of expressing appreciation for another person and bonding with them comes in the form of spending time with them. Vice versa, spending a lot of time that creates a bond can often lead to feelings of attachment and even jealousy if the time spend together decreases. It could also stir up feelings of romantic love in one person, but not necessarily both. Classic falling-for-your-best-friend scenario.
Back to the point: the reason that it's upsetting when you are not in constant communication (Uh oh, the C word...) or when you are out with your friends is that we want to be spending that time with you. A lack of exposure to the relationship creates a sense of loneliness and a fear that we aren't adequate or appreciated.
I get that guys need guy time. I get that some games are VERY important. There are other things important to us, too- but we will almost always find the most comfort in our friendships and relationships- with males or other females. We will value them more. After a stressful day, we don't want to sit alone somewhere- we want to unwind and just... be with you.
Point: if you're not with us, fine. But shoot us a text every so often so we know that we are still important! :)
8. being jealous
Number 7 explained a lot of this.
Ay ay ay... it could be because we are jealous of your time, the interest you take in other things above us, your female friends, your girlfriend...
the list could go on forever. Again, anything that threatens our place in your life immediately terrifies us and makes us angry towards that thing- wishing it would disappear.
I don't think that we can ever stop jealousy- all we can do is soften it by rationalizing with ourselves. By telling ourselves that the way we feel is our of perspective.
As far as girlfriends go, spending time with other girls is weird because the girl you're committed to is going to feel like she's do something wrong and not giving you what you need because obviously you're looking elsewhere. Make lines VERY clear if you have a girlfriend and close female friends.
If she's just a friend, same goes. Spending an increased amount of time with other girls will just make her think she's inadequate.
In either case, be conscious of the reasons why you're spending a concentration of time on one person over another. You might actually have a better dating relationship with the person you spend the most time with- even if you have a girlfriend. If at any point you realize that, be aware that she probably realized that a long time ago, and you've probably missed the part where she gave you these supposed 'signals', and tried to get the courage to tell you that you two have belonged together since you met.
You may or may not be able to fix this. But try. We want you to try.
9. Double Standards
Like, when we talk about how so-and-so is soooo hottttt, but if you LOOK at another girl for more than .25 seconds, we get really quiet and start questioning.
Yeah, it's a double standard.
It's ok for us to dress like bums, but you'd better not. You had better look pretty spiffy.
Double standards are not ok. However, as humans we will ALWAYS see the flaws of others more often than we see our own. We're inevitably going to be mad at each other for things we are blinded to in ourselves.
It's NOT fair that girls get away with some things that guys get chewed out for. It's also not fair that a guy who's slept with five girls is glorified by his peers, but a girl that kissed one guy that her room mate liked is automatically a slut.
Think about it.
10. Desiring you to understand/ being so verbal, that we have to spell it out for you and explain it, when you have better things to do, like kill zombies and watch football.
You might not even see the point in explaining all of these things- you've accepted your fate: to be nagged, shut out, yelled at, ridiculed. Don't.
Be a man. Learn to love the women in your life by being open minded enough to at least attempt to be sensitive.
It's in our nature to want you to understand, even if our brains work so differently that you never can. Same as we will never understand yours.
But if we need to talk, don't get automatically scared or thinking we're being dramatic- we might actually just be trying to explain in a mature way the way certain things in life- including you- make us feel. Needing 'to talk' is better than the cold shoulder, right?
