He loves me; I love him not.
I'm Ruby, a transplant from a different part of the Midwest.
I certainly love going out and being social, but there are bars and restaurants everywhere. It's the same for dates and friends: I'm looking for someone who can show me something I can't find on my own.
My relationships have been like dating through the looking glass. The happier I am being single, the faster I end up in a relationship.
I'll echo Ginger here: I'm here to tell it like it is, and that makes me look bad sometimes. I was immature and cowardly in how I dealt with the aftermath of my first date. But give me a break, I was 16.
This guy was practically famous at school for being strange. He wore a suit every day, rarely got a haircut and had spent enough time living abroad that he seemed sort of like a foreign exchange student.
I guess my desire for some male attention over-rode another strong motivation: my desire for my friends to think I was cool.
Through most of April, he brought me -- to French class -- flowers from his mom's garden. I didn't even know him except by reputation, but the flowers came almost daily. I was outwardly as weirded out as I thought appropriate, but inwardly charmed. He was a senior, after all, and I thought his disregard for people's opinion was sort of rebellious and cool.
Then he started writing me poems. Then he asked me out.
For our date, we walked around the art museum all afternoon. He persistently lauded my virtues. After a couple of hours his helplessly smitten affect got old and the date ended with a kiss on the check at my car door. The charmed-to-weirded-out ratio had passed the critical point.
He kept writing me poems and bringing me flowers. I kept being nice to him to his face but I made fun of him behind his back. Then he graduated.
Now, whenever I think of his name -- a multisyllabic Romanian one -- I feel the echo of deep humiliation over this time period. But when I reflect on it, he did something uncommonly cute and sweet for a teenage boy. It was just a little too cute and sweet for me.
It's not fun to be on either side of disproportionate affection. Is there a graceful way to deal with it? I think girls get blamed more for falling in love too quickly (Think of "He's Just Not That Into You"). Is that fair? Do you ever feel afflicted by someone's attraction to you?
Comments (2)
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I think both sexes can 'fall in love too quickly' but I think that girls... being so much more emotionally in touch on average...will allow their interests to be known much quicker than the average male.
Ive certainly felt afflicted before...but in the same respect felt a pull back towards them once the interest died down.
Sometimes if someone tries too hard it can push another away just as quickly (or quicker) than behaving badly.
Posted on July 10, 2007 2:15 PM
Hi Ruby,
I run a self development blog in the triad called Persistenceunlimited.com. Right now, we are running a series called Project Dream Dating 2007 which I think you and your readers would appreciate. Please stop by and check it out when you get a minute.
You can find it here:
Project Dream Dating 2007
Posted on August 17, 2007 10:50 AM