Ranting Swede: Friendship <> Romance
You know what really gets me? It's the way people are so damn stupid when it comes to being attracted to others. See, there's a mistake that almost everyone makes at least once. If they're unlucky or stupid then they'll repeat the mistake many many times, and if they're particularly moronic, it's a mistake they'll never stop making.
The mistake is this: If a person isn't attracted to you in the first place, then no amount of being a really good friend and hanging around them all the time is going to magically cause them to become attracted to you.*
It's something I've been guilty of myself in the past. When I was a young lass straight out of high school and out in the wide world of university, I developed a massive crush on this guy. Over the next year or so I did my best to be the perfect friend to him. I'd provide company if he was bored, anything he found interesting I would also be interested in, I'd go out of my way to visit him, I even attended a couple of his lectures with him. I never actually asked him out or admitted my feelings to him, but he made it fairly clear he wasn't interested in me, even going so far one day as to ask me for tips about this girl he was kind of interested in. I helped him of course. I couldn't help myself. And then he got a girlfriend(not the same girl as the pervious sentence) and I spent the next few days wanting to die, because despite knowing we wouldn't be together there'd still been that chance while he was single. And then after those few days, because I still liked him so much, and because I considered his happiness to be more important than mine, it was back to being the perfect friend. Back to offering advice and being there all the time and basically just giving myself up to whatever abuse or friendship he cared to heap on me, knowing there was no chance but unable to ignore the irrational part of me that screamed that if I was just good enough to him then maybe one day he would see my devotion and return it. He never did of course. He never even had an inkling of my attraction to him until much later when I was over him and told him about it. These days we're still good friends, but I don't think we would be if we hadn't had enough other friends in common to carry us through our fights, and if I hadn't been able to be his friend even while he was with this other girl.
This leads to the corollary: If you know (in your mind, not your heart) that there's no chance, then you shouldn't be hanging around in the vain hope that they'll one day see the light and realise that you're their one true love. By this I don't mean that it's impossible to be friends with someone you're attracted to. But you do need to be honest with yourself. If the primary reason you have for hanging around is because you're attracted to them, then you need to reconsider your position.
A simple test to see whether you're hanging around for attraction's sake:
1) Do you spend a much larger amount of time thinking about this person and how to be a good friend to them than you would for your other friends? Especially compared to your friends of the gender you are not attracted to, since there's absolutely no chance of getting attraction confused with friendship in their case
2) Do you put up with whatever this person does to you/wants from you? ie If they're having a bad day do you act as their stress dummy, if they need things done do you act as their personal slave, if they're sad you act like a clown for them, etc.
3) If they got into a relationship with someone else would you be predominantly happy for them or jealous/angry/miserable? Honestly
If your answer for the first two questions were 'yes', and your answer to the last was closer to jealous angry misery than bittersweet happiness, then telling yourself and others that you're happy with being 'just friends' is a lie, and you need to think about whether you're comfortable living it, and what's going to happen when the other person inevitably drifts away or finds someone they're attracted to.
I think part of the reason the situation crops up so much is because of the company I keep. We have good nerdy boys attracted to nice nerdy girls, neither of whom have that much experience with the whole dating thing. So the guy makes his feelings known, either directly or indirectly, and gets knocked back. But then the girl can't help but feel sorry for the guy, because he's put his heart on the line and she's just not into him, so she compensates for the guilt by treating him a little nicer, letting him be the friend he so obviously wants to be. In turn, the guy sees this softening and can't help thinking that he's in with a chance, if he can just get close enough to her and is always there and available for her then maybe she'll turn to him when she's ready. This is where the 'nice guy' myth comes from, and the reason why there are so many bitter men ranting on the Internet about how girls say they want a nice trustworthy guy who can be a good friend to them but then they ignore their nice guy friends who are attracted to them to go have sex with outlaw bikers instead. It's not that girls don't want a nice guy. But once they've made up their mind about whether a guy is attractive to them or not, then no amount of being friends and demonstrating 'nice guy' qualities is going to lead to attraction*.
*Massive addendum: It IS possible to create attraction where there wasn't really any before. But it requires a particular and deliberate way of acting and a lot of luck (there has to be a spark for it to work on, some people are immune to the tactics, and all sorts of other factors). And unless that way of acting is the way you normally act, or very close to it, then it's back to considering whether you're comfortable living a lie**
**A guy recently offered to change himself for me. I was horrified and tried to explain that if a girl ever takes him up on that offer then he should run in the opposite direction very quickly.
The mistake is this: If a person isn't attracted to you in the first place, then no amount of being a really good friend and hanging around them all the time is going to magically cause them to become attracted to you.*
It's something I've been guilty of myself in the past. When I was a young lass straight out of high school and out in the wide world of university, I developed a massive crush on this guy. Over the next year or so I did my best to be the perfect friend to him. I'd provide company if he was bored, anything he found interesting I would also be interested in, I'd go out of my way to visit him, I even attended a couple of his lectures with him. I never actually asked him out or admitted my feelings to him, but he made it fairly clear he wasn't interested in me, even going so far one day as to ask me for tips about this girl he was kind of interested in. I helped him of course. I couldn't help myself. And then he got a girlfriend(not the same girl as the pervious sentence) and I spent the next few days wanting to die, because despite knowing we wouldn't be together there'd still been that chance while he was single. And then after those few days, because I still liked him so much, and because I considered his happiness to be more important than mine, it was back to being the perfect friend. Back to offering advice and being there all the time and basically just giving myself up to whatever abuse or friendship he cared to heap on me, knowing there was no chance but unable to ignore the irrational part of me that screamed that if I was just good enough to him then maybe one day he would see my devotion and return it. He never did of course. He never even had an inkling of my attraction to him until much later when I was over him and told him about it. These days we're still good friends, but I don't think we would be if we hadn't had enough other friends in common to carry us through our fights, and if I hadn't been able to be his friend even while he was with this other girl.
This leads to the corollary: If you know (in your mind, not your heart) that there's no chance, then you shouldn't be hanging around in the vain hope that they'll one day see the light and realise that you're their one true love. By this I don't mean that it's impossible to be friends with someone you're attracted to. But you do need to be honest with yourself. If the primary reason you have for hanging around is because you're attracted to them, then you need to reconsider your position.
A simple test to see whether you're hanging around for attraction's sake:
1) Do you spend a much larger amount of time thinking about this person and how to be a good friend to them than you would for your other friends? Especially compared to your friends of the gender you are not attracted to, since there's absolutely no chance of getting attraction confused with friendship in their case
2) Do you put up with whatever this person does to you/wants from you? ie If they're having a bad day do you act as their stress dummy, if they need things done do you act as their personal slave, if they're sad you act like a clown for them, etc.
3) If they got into a relationship with someone else would you be predominantly happy for them or jealous/angry/miserable? Honestly
If your answer for the first two questions were 'yes', and your answer to the last was closer to jealous angry misery than bittersweet happiness, then telling yourself and others that you're happy with being 'just friends' is a lie, and you need to think about whether you're comfortable living it, and what's going to happen when the other person inevitably drifts away or finds someone they're attracted to.
I think part of the reason the situation crops up so much is because of the company I keep. We have good nerdy boys attracted to nice nerdy girls, neither of whom have that much experience with the whole dating thing. So the guy makes his feelings known, either directly or indirectly, and gets knocked back. But then the girl can't help but feel sorry for the guy, because he's put his heart on the line and she's just not into him, so she compensates for the guilt by treating him a little nicer, letting him be the friend he so obviously wants to be. In turn, the guy sees this softening and can't help thinking that he's in with a chance, if he can just get close enough to her and is always there and available for her then maybe she'll turn to him when she's ready. This is where the 'nice guy' myth comes from, and the reason why there are so many bitter men ranting on the Internet about how girls say they want a nice trustworthy guy who can be a good friend to them but then they ignore their nice guy friends who are attracted to them to go have sex with outlaw bikers instead. It's not that girls don't want a nice guy. But once they've made up their mind about whether a guy is attractive to them or not, then no amount of being friends and demonstrating 'nice guy' qualities is going to lead to attraction*.
*Massive addendum: It IS possible to create attraction where there wasn't really any before. But it requires a particular and deliberate way of acting and a lot of luck (there has to be a spark for it to work on, some people are immune to the tactics, and all sorts of other factors). And unless that way of acting is the way you normally act, or very close to it, then it's back to considering whether you're comfortable living a lie**
**A guy recently offered to change himself for me. I was horrified and tried to explain that if a girl ever takes him up on that offer then he should run in the opposite direction very quickly.