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Tuesday, 07 November 2006 16:42 |
| The Advice Goddess
Amy Alkon |
The day of my third date with this wonderful girl I learned that a close friend had committed suicide. I was overcome with grief, but so afraid the news would turn her off, I made up a story to cover why I had to break plans. She believed it, and things went well for a while, but I couldnët keep up the fa?flade and eventually said a bunch of stupid things. I later left a message on her machine, not only to apologize but to tell her the truth. It came out all wrong. I wrote her a letter, but again failed to explain. I tried a third time, with a letter including my phone number, in hopes I could tell it to her straight. She then complained to our college dean. I still see her at school and feel horrible that I was never able to come clean. Donët I at least owe her an explanation?
ÇƒÓ She Hates Me
You never know when a girl is a member of that group, Girls Who Donët Like People Who Know People Who Die.
Chances are,
however, this girlës a member of a much larger group, Women Who Like
Men Who Appear To Have Emotions, Plus The Guts To Reveal Them From Time
To Time. Emotional expressiveness is measured on a scale from
emotionally vacant to emotionally available (the ideal) to the
emotional equivalent of 26 illegal immigrants packed into an 8-by-10
studio apartment with one semi-functional toilet in the hall. In
general, no woman worth having wants some wet dishrag of a man who
cries himself to sleep whenever his neighbor gets a parking ticket ǃÓ
or, at the other extreme, a man who reacts to the death of a friend
with all the heart and soul of a baked potato.
If you want
women to flock to you, hand out money. Even the worst guy in the world
can get a girlfriend who rents by the hour. Of course, your
shapeshifting attempts are a version of what those girls do, but
instead of strutting your stuff in fuchsia platforms and a miniskirt
the size of a paper cut, youëre unstrutting your stuff ÇƒÓ not selling
yourself, just selling yourself out. This isnët to say you should start
first dates with "Hi, my name is Joey, Iëm an alcoholic." But, perhaps
you heard wrong way back when: Itës "every girl wants a pony," not a
phony.
Everybody makes
mistakes. What separates the men from the poodles is how they clean
them up. Letës just say your efforts to "tell it to her straight"
werenët exactly John Cusack/"Say Anything" moments. For the
uninitiated, Cusackës character tries to win his girl back by standing
under her window in the middle of the night holding his boom box over
his head and blasting Peter Gabrielës "In Your Eyes."
And then thereës
you, the anti-Cusack, leaving all those cryptic notes and meandering
phone messages. Thatës kind of like e-mailing the girl to ask her to
download the song ÇƒÓ after upgrading to a new operating system, which
should only take about 14 hours on the phone with tech support in
Calcutta.
Forget trying to
"come clean" (any further mousy yet stalkerish attempts to get her
back) and focus on coming into some self-acceptance. Without it, girls
wonët like you or respect you, and neither will you. Once youëre cool
with who you are, all that matters is giving a relationship your best
shot ÇƒÓ even if the response from the girl in the window is "Romeo,
Romeo ... wouldya turn that damn thing down?!"
Rook both ways
I started seeing
a guy who has a girlfriend. Wrong, I know, and what was I thinking? He
kept telling me heëd break up with her, but theyëve been together five
years, and he hadnët gotten around to it. Two days ago, she walked in
on us in bed. He now says heës not with her anymore, and wants to be
with me, but since she caught us, heës been distant and "busy." Do you
think heës trying to patch things up with her?
ÇƒÓ On Layaway
You take a
creative approach to ultimatums: "If you donët break up with your
girlfriend, I wonët stop sleeping with you!" Wow, what a predicament
you put him in. People "get around to" what they have to; for example,
paying the tab before leaving a restaurant lest their next meal be
gruel on a tin tray shoved under the bars of their cell. If you donët
insist on the basics from a guy ÇƒÓ i.e., being single and
available ǃÓ
heës unlikely to get around to seeing you have them.
As for what this
guyës doing now, my Magic 8-Ballës in the shop, but just a guess: Heës
too "busy" having makeup sex with her to have breakup sex with you?
ï
Got a problem?
Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, No. 280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or
e-mail AdviceAmy-at-aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com)
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