Sophie Solomon

No Fear Christian Living with Sophie Solomon: Mr. Tell-All Meets Miss Tell-Me-All

— Posted October 11th, 2009 at 2:53 pm // Permalink

Dear Sophie,

I’m really good friends with this guy, and we spend a lot of time together. He sometimes walks me home at night and we get into long conversations about lots of different things. He’s told me all about his ideal girlfriend, and he shares his thoughts about other girls we know. I’m kind of confused, though. I don’t know if he likes me or not, and I’m getting a little bit fed up hearing what he thinks about different girls. Should I say something to him?

Sincerely,
Confused Caroline

Dear Confused Caroline,

Short answer: Absolutely.

Longer answer:

A lot of my friends have had this problem, actually, and it’s resolved itself in a bunch of different ways, but you’re absolutely, definitely, completely right to feel confused! It’s confusing! It looks like you’ve got a Mr. Tell-All on your hands!

First think about something for me, okay? Are you a Miss Tell-Me-All? Your situation sounds a lot like one my friend Grace got into during her first two years at Cal. Grace is super sweet in kind of a dreamy quiet-girl way, but she used to get easily overwhelmed and intimidated by people who wanted to take up her time and tell her about their life: it’s like she’s got a sign on her forehead that says “tell me your life story and current trials and tribulations.” If all of us are walking down Telegraph to get dinner, she’ll be the one the homeless guy comes up to for money - which she’ll give him! always! and apologizes profusely if she’s out of cash! - and she even almost missed a final because a guy looking for “quarters for BART” decided that he really needed to tell her all about his stints in prison, taking her by the arm and trying to get her to put her hand on the tattoo over his heart before she pulled away, begging, “Please let go of my arm, sir! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” She’s like that with (non-homeless) boys, too. She’s sort of tragically nice that way, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to come home from even a first date with a guy looking shell-shocked, telling us, “Well, the talking was nice at first. But then when he pulled up in front of our apartment he just wouldn’t stop monologuing. I now know everything.”

“Wait, how long were you out there with him?” I demanded.

“Er, two hours?”

“GRACE!”

“But he sounded like he really needed to talk to someone. Why does this always happen to me?” she asked tearfully.

Well, it happens because when Grace gets nervous she goes into big-eyed-smiling-mode and gets super nurturing and supportive: it’s called the tend-and-befriend stress response, a more evolved - and more feminine of course! - alternative to fight-or-flight. During midterm season she’s been known to even take in abandoned text books off the streets because “they looked lonely.”

But if you hang out with a boy and act like his mother or favorite big sister, you’re going to be treated like one! If you feel uncomfortable with something a boy is saying or doing, speak up! They can handle it, I promise you. And if they can’t, then you need to get them out of your personal space, because it’s not right to let someone take advantage of you: your time is God’s time, and it’s valuable just like you are! Does this mean, though, that it’s all Grace’s fault for being too nice, and that she should just change her wicked-nice ways and lose that doe-eyed “I heart you: it’s okay” aura to get a bunch of hot dates?

Not. Even. Close.

I get really angry when people give boy tips to girls that involve them changing everything about themselves, as though boys were too stupid or too insensitive to be held accountable for their behavior and attitudes. So listen up guys: if you feel really comfortable with a girl and start confiding in her, pay attention to her body language. Is she animated and engaged, or just kind of quiet and still? And, most importantly, are you talking WITH her, or are you talking AT her? If a girl has gone quiet on you, that probably means something’s wrong, and you need to ask her about it instead of just having your conversational way with her. This is seriously as easy as asking, “Hey, I’ve noticed that you’ve gotten quiet: what are you thinking about?” And then listen to her answer, and talk about what she wants to talk about for a change. It’s not that hard, it’s not that awkward, and you’ll earn points with the ladies which will serve you well in the long run even if you don’t want to date that specific girl, I promise you: you’ll get a reputation as a good guy (not to be confused with the infamous Nice Guy rap), and you’ll be a better boyfriend and husband later on. If you don’t try to cultivate some sensitivity, you may be exploiting her and that’s not how you should treat a sister in Christ - or a human being, period.

I say this because girls are just as guilty of doing this to boys if not more so (see: the tend-and-BEFRIEND response). And by girls, I’m including me! I’d even say that I’m a Miss Tell-All! I’m an extremely verbal processor, and when I’m stressed or confused I grab my nearest kindred spirit – or wise-looking soul on the street! – and talk it out, and yes this can sometimes turn into “monologuing” if I’ve been by myself for more than a couple hours and have a bunch of ideas backed up. Before my friend Alcuin, who is sort of like the male equivalent of Grace,  got a girlfriend, he would often have to be my sounding board for all my romantic misadventures with various and sometimes overlapping Insignificant Others. (Think about it, you totally know what that means.)

We had originally started doing weekly coffees after church to complain about our pastor’s stupid sermons, but eventually I would feel so comfortable with him that I’d go on and on and on about my latest Trials and Tribulations With The Menfolk. I mean, he’d never say much, but he just seemed to radiate calm and understanding, and I do like me a good listener. One Sunday I started going on about how my friend Alice and I had decided that there were only two kinds of Christian guys out there, Mr. Intentional and Mr. Red-Light-Green-Light, and how I hated people who front and are too scared to say what they really mean.

“Oh, like Theseus and Dionysus,” he said. (He’s always saying funny stuff like that.)

“Huh?” said I.

“Never mind. Mr. Intentional, eh? What are you then, Miss Intentional?”

I laughed at the pun, but then ordered him to explain himself, because I pride myself on being totally straight up.

“Well,” then he paused a long time, “I think your two categories are unfair. It’s hard enough, as a single guy, to know what exactly your intentions are when speaking to a girl, let alone telegraphing those intentions in a way that every girl can understand every time. You often sound very confused about your relationships with these guys, and they’re probably confused too, because you’re an attractive and charming young woman. So why is it that when a guy is confused, he’s Mr. Red-Light-Green-Light? That sounds like some sort of awful combination of jerk and coward.”

I definitely picked up on the whole me-confusing-guys and the attractive-and-charming-young-woman part, so I went straight in with, “Hey Al, are you saying that I’m confusing you, too?”

A longer pause this time. “Well, the fact that you confide in me and want my feedback says that you trust me, which is the foundation of every relationship – every relationship worth having, anyway. On the other hand, you may think I’m safe and trustworthy because you don’t consider me a threat: and where’s romance without a little danger? So it seems that I’m either very much on your radar or definitely not on your radar. I assumed the latter, as there’s some truth to the adage that nice guys always finish last, but, yes, it could be considered confusing.”

I was flabbergasted! I mean, I hadn’t even thought about how my behavior would come across to him, but he was totally right, and I felt really bad. I mean, Al is a cool guy even if most of what he says is Greek to me (literally: he reads a bunch of ancient Greek stuff all the time), I hadn’t consciously meant to friendzone him like that – friendzoning being something I only do to lowerclassmen and, like, civil engineering majors. But I certainly wasn’t building a “foundation of trust” for a future relationship, even if his freckles and red hair are pretty darn cute!

“Ohmygosh, I’m sorry, Al, do you mind?” I said.

“No,” he said quietly, “you’re my friend. I’m honored that you trust me enough to confide in me. Just think a little bit more about why you tell me what you tell me, is all.”

So, it was good that we talked about this openly, and it was cool of him to affirm me in that way (”an honor?” awwww, he’s so sweet!), but I do think that things would have gotten confusing again down the road if he hadn’t started seeing someone soon after this - and suddenly had his own trials and tribulations to run by me: well, that’s not quite true, his girlfriend is really sweet, they don’t have many T&Ts - and I hadn’t finally made up my mind and settled on the most Mr. Green-Light of my IOs who I more or less happily - with intermittent angst - dated on-and-off for the rest of the year, so inspired was I by my own Miss Intentional pep talk.

And that brings me to my take-home point: communication. Matters of the heart are murky and confusing ESPECIALLY as a college student and ESPECIALLY as a Christian college student, with all the talk about sexual purity and I-kissed-dating-good-bye and Paul’s talk about singleness and marriage and biblical gender roles in addition to the do-what-feels-right, you’re-only-young-once, anything-goes-as-long-as-we’re-both-”okay”-with-it model of dating we get from the media and our friends. Not to mention hormones going crazy and us being at our sexual peaks!!! So, it is confusing, knowing what you feel is confusing, and we all make really stupid mistakes when it comes to romance, and that’s nothing to feel bad about - the heart break itself hurts enough, thanks. Taking advantage of someone because you took their sympathy and trust for granted, or letting someone walk all over you because you want them to like you, however, IS something to feel bad about, and something to avoid at all costs. If you feel uncomfortable or confused, speak up! If you think you might be making someone uncomfortable or confused, speak up! We’re all in this together, and we all belong to each other, and God loves it when we learn how to love each other a little bit better than we have before.

As to whether or not he likes you or likes you, Caroline…well, why don’t you ask? If he can’t tell you straight and respectfully, then be grateful he doesn’t!

Just remember, there is no fear in love: perfect love casts out fear!

<3

Sophie Solomon

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