EAP asks: I like this boy in my year, and my friend keeps asking him out for me, and he keeps saying no. He said we can still be mates, but I want to be more than that! What can I do?
Hi EAP –
Well, I see two issues here.
First of all, you want to be “more” with a guy who just wants to be your friend. But he’s actually doing you a favor by saying what he feels. So often, in the desire to not hurt anyone’s feelings, humans will say vague things that keep others still hoping. So you end up like when I was in the dog pound, and people would walk by and look in the cage and pet me and say “oh what a cute puppy, aren’t you sweet,” and then walk away and buy a pit bull. Now they weren’t purposely being mean – they knew they wanted a pit bull, and they were just being nice to me. But every time they did that, my hopes would get way up, and it would break my heart as they’d walk away.
So it’s actually good news that he’s not doing that. The question for you is whether you want to accept his feelings as they are, and move on, or to try to change them. If you want to do the latter, there are of course a million tricks – be nice to him, ignore him, show that you have the same interests he does, show that you’re good at things he’s not and try to help him, hide your feelings from him, completely open up about them to him, jump on him and cover him with kisses (that’s my usual method), or just punch him and call him a jerk and see how he responds (a lot of girls try that one; I think it’s kind of ridiculous though). How any of these methods works depends on him. And since I don’t know him, I can’t really tell you.
But then there’s that second issue. That you’re having your friend ask him out for you. That might make things easy for you, but I wonder if it’s making your situation worse. You see, the statement it’s making to the guy is that you’re too shy or nervous or cool to approach him yourself. Well then most likely he’s not being very drawn to you, because you’re too shy, nervous, or cool!
What do you want him to like about you? You might be very pretty, but even then, that’s all he knows. Wouldn’t he like you better if you were more “there” for him, daring to ask him yourself? Then he could get to know your qualities better – your interests, your sense of humor, your likes and dislikes, and the way you treat him – and it’s really those things that he might fall in love with!
Your situation reminds me of a great French play called “Cyrano de Bergerac,” about a man who helps a friend say all the best things to the woman he wants; the problem is that, as he does so, he falls in love with her himself! Now we don’t want that to happen to your friend, do we?! So I’d really suggest that, no matter what else happens, you take her out of the equation, and start dealing with this guy yourself. And if so, who knows, maybe you might even find you don’t like this guy as much as you thought you did!
But whether you do or not, what will really matter is that you’ll get better at talking to guys you like. And that skill will help you for the rest of your life!
So try it out, and maybe try reading or seeing a movie of “Cyrano.” (Or there’s a fun modern version of the story called “Roxanne,” with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah, that you might like too)
Good Luck!
Shirelle