The girl sitting across from me on the subway was an exact replica of me at fourteen years old: chubby face, disobediently curly hair, a slim body struggling to develop and a slightly rowdy innocence that would one day cause some trouble. She looked so much like me I had to do a double take, convinced a miniaturized version of me was within arm’s reach.
I may have gone on without giving the matter much thought, except that there was something even more me-ish about the girl than her plump cheeks. She was pining away over a boy who apparently was giving her the run around. Moreover, she was testing the limits of friendship by giving the pal next to her every minute detail of their last conversation.
Me much?
The boy had told the girl to stop calling him. He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. He wasn’t replying to any of her texts or returning her calls. Every so often, she’d call late, sometimes after midnight, and was surprised when he wasn’t home.
Fourteen-Year-Old Me was confused. Older Me knew there were only a few causes for such behavior and they all revolved around other girls, lack of interest and overall jerkiness.
“He says he can’t handle a relationship right now,” the girl told her friend. “He’s worried about his mom and he has to get a job.”
The girl lifted her chest and proudly said, “And I was like, ‘you expect me to wait for you?’”
Older Me hoped either the guy fell to her feet in tears or she gave him the grand heave ho.
“’He told me, ‘no.’ So I asked, ‘do you want me to?’”
It took everything in me not to take the girl by the shoulders and shake her senseless. “Get some strength in those knees and stiffen that spine. You cave to this creep and you’ve got years of male crap to put up with. Get out now!”
“Honestly, Mary, I don’t know,” the girl continued. “I was like, ‘I can be your girlfriend and support you through this.’”
No, you can’t, I thought, trying to use mental telepathy to communicate with her. You can’t because he doesn’t want you to. Or someone else is his support. Or he doesn’t have a problem, he’s just making up bull malarkey because he’s afraid to cut the cord.
“I was like, ‘I’ll be waiting for your call.’ He didn’t call me, so I called him.”
You just earned another year of lessons from the Relationship School from Hell.
“He was on the phone with his cousin.”
Yeah, right.
“He kept crying and crying and I was like, ‘I’m right here for you.’”
Man, was this girl tugging at my heart strings. How many times have I begged some big wounded boy to let me love him? In fact, nearly every female I know has blubbered to me about some damaged soul who won’t let her heal his pain. Few things are as confusing to women as men who turn away love and support.
I wasn’t angry at the apple of Fourteen-Year-Old Me’s eye. Sure, guys like him can be selfish and plain mean. But they’re just snot-nosed little boys and it’s up to the women who adore them to cut their losses when the writing’s on the wall.
Unfortunately, it can take decades before a woman learns to stop hanging on to dead end love. I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me, but will confess to making tons of stupid decisions, dating scads of nincompoops and coming face to face with lots of not so pretty truths about my own inner workings. Most importantly, it took the real love of a couple good men to show me true connection isn’t something you have to beg someone to share with you.
I wanted to tell Fourteen-Year-Old Me to let this cad go and avoid love she has to wrestle to the ground. Spare her the agony of heartbreak or an on/off affair with someone who only kinda likes her. But like every hard lesson, you’ve got to learn it on your own.
All I could do was give her a smile that said, ‘you’ve got a long, hard journey ahead. But you’ll get there.’
She probably didn’t grasp my message. But maybe she will in twenty years, when her own Mini Me sits across from her on a train.
Love it!
Boy, oh boy. Laura, do you really have so little respect for us XY types?
…There is the possibility that this boy was actually telling her the truth, that he wasn’t ready for any relationship at this point in his life, and that maybe he already had enough on his plate to deal with.
I grew up in Canada, which still suffers from an over abundance of over politeness… Where the girls I knew as a teenager would never tell any guy that she liked him, but would always make a point of standing uncomfortably close and staring at us every chance they got. For the extrovert guys this made no difference to them, but for the introvert guys it was our own personal hell, so we would do our best to put as much distance between us an these passive-aggressive girls.
I still see boys that are told to “suck it up” and bury any evidence that the have an emotional side, and some girls will still automatically assume that these boys are robotic A-holes when we don’t respond the way they want us to.
Thanks, Liz! And Guy, oh yes, I do have lots of love for you XYers. And yes, you may have a point. Our male friend may have loads of innocent reasons for not giving our lady friend the love she wanted. He may be a fantastic, sensitive, loving young man. My fear is that our little lady friend, like many of her older counterparts, is spending way too much precious energy trying to pry open this boy’s closed heart. It’s embarrassing to do so, and more importantly, it’s oh so painful. Maybe he’s being honest, maybe he isn’t. But the resounding message he’s sending her is N-O, and the poor gal needs to listen.
Thanks for your comments, Guy!
This is a really touching piece, Laura. It’s been my observation that many women seem to want to nurture and care for and yes, love, wounded men (also it seems at times out of a desire to remake them, or they might say improve them). I can also say I’ve had male friends who have taken advantage of that, using it to allow them to indulge in reckless and irresponsible behavior without fear of consequence to the relationship (perhaps even, oddly, sparking more interest from their girlfriend). Oh dear, male-female relations are complex.
Hi Patrick! Nice to see you here. Great point about fellas who take advantage of certain gals’ need to heal their wounds. Who’s to blame, right? And, of course, there are all kinds of ways women take advantage of the romantic needs of men. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head: relations are complex!!
See you this weekend, Patrick! Be sure to introduce yourself and I’ll do the same!
Will do, Laura, looking forward to it!
Nice!
http://meetsomeonefun.com/
Thanks,
Colette Knight
ye kya tha mene future poocha tha