when you did it
when it happened to me
to was okay
until I had the misfortune
to do it to you
all hell broke loose
Nobody said life is fair, but there are some things that for all intent and purposes should be fair. In which universe is it okay for a woman to get mad and even hate a man who she has feelings for and he doesn’t feel the same? In which universe? Maybe I should begin from the top.
All my life my relationships with women have been pretty much the same, friendship. I have always been the ‘brother’ they never had who they could talk to about everything especially other men. All the while I sat back and watched them fall in and out of ‘like’ with other men. I was never the one being liked, just the one who got told about it. It never bothered me so much because I never really liked any of them that way. But at times I would silently wonder what it was about me that drew women to me and not in the good way. Seeing that I am the kind of guy who falls for one woman every decade, I was perfectly okay with. So when other guys got all this attention from the women, I was not the least bit bothered. But then I noticed a very interesting trend. Life, being the cruel thing that it is, had conspired to keep people apart. All the women who I talked to seemed to have one thing in common, all the men they liked seemed to like other women who liked other men who liked other women who liked other men etc. To me it seemed like
Fast forward 5 years to campus. Nothing much has changed only the characters. The soul train is still moving, the chain is still the same. Only there is one thing that had changed. As much as my relationships with women hadn’t changed, something has. I am now firmly a link in the chain. Along with this, some relationships with women had changed. I am getting ahead of myself. Before I got stuck in the soul train I was still the same guy who listened to all their problems, offering brotherly advice, consoling them when they needed a shoulder to cry on. Only this time my platonic relationships are being misconstrued. I learnt about this misunderstanding in the worst fashion possible.
See all this time I had learnt how to relate to women in one way that I always thought was innocuous. It never occurred to me that my listening and advice-giving would be interpreted in any other way. But here I was about to be given a lesson in life-and women! It started with little things some of my friends would turn cold suddenly. Communication would suddenly cease cold turkey. From long, personal conversations to mumbled hallos and quick exits from the room. At first I thought nothing of this partly because I have been always able to make new friends so the old ones I lost were not really missed. That was until it became more frequent and some even became hostile. The real tipping point came when I was in third year.
One of my close friends had a girlfriend who introduced as to her friend, let’s call her Anne. So after meeting Anne a couple of times we became friends. After some time of getting to know each other, the pattern that had become synonymous with all me friendships emerged. The avoidance, cancelled plans, awkward hallos etc. I didn’t pay this much attention since it had happened so many times before. So one day my friend tells me something that changes how I view life. It turns out Anne had thought I was hitting on her and she wasn’t happy about it. She had even gone as far as confronting my friend’s girl and ‘blaming’ her for bringing me into her life. Then everything made sense to me. All the friendships that had ended abruptly made sense to me, it must have been me. I am the one who was sending out mixed signals to all these women. It was okay to interact with them when I was younger but the same actions got new meaning when one grew up. This change in age meant a change in meaning of the same action.
I sat and analysed all I had done and even asked around and concluded that I inadvertently ‘hit’ on women. Most of them took offence in this and summarily ended our interactions. While the rest ones who didn’t take offence in it realised later on that I was just being ‘nice’ and in turn hated themselves for jumping to that conclusion. But more shocking is, they hated me more for not liking them. I will say that again, they hated me for not liking them because as it turns out they liked me. The last is the reason I write this.
I always thought, albeit naively, that being liked was supposed to be a good thing. Sitting and listening to all those women all these years blinded me to some disturbing facts about the reality of human interactions. Humans are incredibly selfish!! But let us look into women’s selfishness for just a second. In the 26 years I have lived on this planet, I have liked 2 women (as I mentioned earlier). None of them have liked me back (okay the first I never told how I felt so I will never know if she felt the same way). When I told the second what she meant to me, I held my breath and felt my heart sink into an abyss as she said she didn’t feel the same way. This by the way was after months of me plotting and planning how best to tell her all the while picturing and daydreaming all the different ways she would say she liked me back. I even envisioned what she would be wearing!!! So imagine how crushed I was when she said no, then again and again for months. When I finally gave up I realised I could not be friends with her as long as I felt that way for her. I told her as much and cut her off for 6 months till I was sure I was either over her or I could be around her without bringing up my feelings. I am now friends with her and it never happens.
Now had I been I woman, the story would have been totally different. I would have hated her for mot liking me back and never spoken to her ever. What’s more, all my girlfriends would have rallied around me and condemned her for being a bitch. I mean, how dare her not like me back like I like her!!!! This brings me back to my initial point, nobody said life is fair, but there are some things that for all intent and purposes should be fair. It really is not fair for women to hate men just because the man doesn’t feel the same way. At the end of the day, the soul train is just life. Not everyone’s feelings get reciprocated. In fact, very few people ever get that. But most men suck it up, realise this things happen and move one. Women just stick to hating the guy, calling him names, organising wakes and burning his stuff to exorcise his demons. I think the most depressing thing of it all is that when a woman gets all this craziness going; her girlfriends are incredibly supportive of her decision to hate the guy. They even they throw in their 2 cents as to why he is an idiot for not liking her and what not. If you happen to know one of her friends, your friendship with her gets terminated in support of her friend. You are now officially the enemy, an outcast.
When does not have feelings for someone became a bad thing? When did making a simple choice suddenly make you public enemy number one? Does this mean it is okay for women to turn men down at a whim but men have no opinion in the matter? Should I automatically get to like you just because you like me? This situation just goes to show that when it comes to relationships between men and women, men can never win. And women wonder why men always lie.
