Girls are, in a word, insane. And as one of them, I am free to expose the deepest of the secrets (and not-so-secrets) we tend to keep. I can tell you both from experience and word-of-mouth that we generally love to be wholeheartedly pursued by human beings of the male persuasion.
When the pursuit begins (which, in this day and age, might start with a virtual poke, wink, wave or friend request), e-mails become like our favorite books (you know, the kind we can read over and over); text messages make our hearts skip beats; we master not sounding nervous over the phone and we smile more than usual.
But has anyone noticed that while we love to be pursued, we only love it if we’re already interested? In theory, I always imagined that if a random guy fell from the sky and into my lap (hypothetically speaking), talked with me once and began to wholeheartedly pursue me, I would be flattered. I also imagined I’d be inclined to go for it because it’s not often that I’m wholeheartedly pursued.
It seems like if there isn’t any pre-pursuit eye contact, or if I feel nothing for him before I know he feels anything for me, his emails are like textbooks (the kind with no bold print words); we make scary crying faces when our phones buzz or beep with his texts and we master not sounding interested over the phone (but never quite enough for a hint to be gotten, apparently). And to be quite frank, I am ok with all of that.
I would, though, still like to know whether it’s possible to fall for someone in whom no interest exists for you. Is it possible for a guy to pursue a disinterested girl wholeheartedly enough to win her affection? Does, in the realm of “romance” or what have you, a successful pursuit of what isn’t seen exist? Or is every successful pursuit that which began when the “he” could tell that “she” was already interested?
Tonight, I had a Dasani with someone in whom I’ve got no romantic interest. Intuition and past conversations can’t say the same for him. The good news? Free water, and possibly the birth of a friendship. Some call me a player, and some call me crazy.
Just don’t call me for a date if you know I’m not interested.
Intimacy is the reward of commitment, or it should be, according to Joshua Harris.
Let’s be honest and say that that’s just not the way things appear to be working lately. Women and men are entering relationships for the purposes of being emotionally or physically intimate. And it’s understandable to want that with someone. But when someone is ready and willing to become that close to someone else just to alleviate boredom or loneliness, commitment is likely to become the burden of intimacy. And burdens are never good.
In other words, this society’s prevailing willingness to be friends with benefits, and the sort of intimacy that some people share long before they should can create a strong attachment, naturally. There’s nothing wrong with vulnerability, openness or the emotional and physical sharing of onesself with someone else in the appropriate context.
When intimacy is shared outside of an appropriate context, or prematurely, an attachment will more than likely be born, creating a blindness to the things that just scream “this guy or this girl is not worth a minute of your time!”
Appropriate contexts take time to take place, for lack of a better phrase, and thanks to a lack of patience and a desire to be close to other people, some can’t stand to wait. And that’s when intimacy gets really good at jumping the gun. It’s when there is no commitment but we’re intimate anyway. It’s when ” ‘love’ comes down without devotion,” according to George Michael, and it’s the reason so many girls and guys eventually can’t tell whether they’re sticking around because they truly love someone, or because they’re just way too attached to that person because of the premature emotional or physical intimacy they’ve shared.
Sometimes bad manners, bad habits and just plain bad people are impossible to notice and simple to brush off when you’ve got a case of warm and fuzzies laced with hopeless attachment. All you need is a little more intimacy-free time; a little more genuine communication; a little more effort to gather enough information to make or break your date. When you come to these sorts of realizations before becoming intimate with someone and attached, it’s bound to be easy to walk away and easier to know when you should. It will also feel a lot less like being shot through the heart.
I surprise myself when I say it, but I think George Michael (or whoever wrote Faith) was right. You’ve got to think twice before you give your heart away.
