Makina asks: If a boy likes me but I don’t like him the same way… I can’t tell him that, so what should I do?!
Hi Makina –
You know what? You’re a terrific person. You are kind and thoughtful, and you have a heart as big as all outdoors. In other words, you’re a lot like me! But people and dogs like us sometimes need to learn some funny lessons about how to treat others lovingly.
You see, when you say that you can’t tell the boy how you feel, you aren’t just a little bit wrong, you are absolutely completely totally FULLY wrong! Actually, the kindest, most sensitive, best thing you can do is to tell him exactly what you’re feeling.
Why is that? Well there are a lot of reasons. First, everyone in the world gets told some time that someone else doesn’t feel something for them. It doesn’t feel good, but it is just part of life, and the sooner it happens, the easier it will be for him to deal with it later in his life, when someone says it again.
Second, he really likes you, so he’s putting all his attention onto winning your heart. And you’re the only one who knows that he’s wasting his time. Now when he hears that you don’t like him that way, he might be sad for a while, but once he feels better, he’ll start to look at other girls, and get more interested in someone else, and start going after her. In other words, the longer you keep from telling him how you feel, the longer you’re keeping him from having a happy relationship with another girl!
And third, the longer he thinks you might like him, the more attached to you he’ll get. Handsome’s rejected, and been rejected by, lots of women, and he’s absolutely found that the clearer and quicker the rejection is, the better. What hurts worst is the murkiness, the lack of clarity, when one keeps hoping that something will be different.
Now when I say to be clear and concise, I’m of course not saying to be mean. You can tell this boy all the great things that you like about him. You can tell him why you know he’ll make another girl really happy. Maybe you can tell him what it is about you that is drawn to different sorts than him – or maybe you could even tell him if you know another girl who is interested in him, and help him get together with her!!!
But all these nice things you could do – you can’t do any of them until you’ve done the toughest, kindest act you can do. Which is to open your heart, and tell him exactly what he doesn’t want to hear.
Once you’ve done that, you will then get to be the wonderful, kind, helpful friend I can tell you want to be!
Good Luck with it!
Shirelle