About this deal
Soon we went around the room, Greg, the allknowing Buddha, listening to story after mixed-message story. What could be better than hearing from the man who just told you he didn’t want you in his life anymore, his sad, wistful “I miss you so much” voice on the other end of the phone? And yes, maybe that reality is subjective, culturally and generationally specific, and all the rest. A guy doesn’t say all the nice things he said to me and take me to all the cool parties he took me to and introduce me to all his cool friends and then just suddenly change his mind.
A guy who I’m going out with (who I asked out, Greg, by the way) is totally important and totally busy. That’s the thing about dating—you’re having intimate experiences with someone who, at the end of the day, you don’t know very well. It’s So Simple Sadly, I can’t be with you ladies all the time, fending off all the bad excuses, and, thereby, bad men that come your way. You love that drunky “Oh baby, you’re so beautiful” slurry thing he does when he’s at the bar, or maybe even that cute rendition of “I love you so much you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, babe” while he slings his arm around you a little too hard. Then he cheated on her, but because she knew deep down inside that if she forgave him and kept her expectations low and was really agreeable that she’d get him in the end?Nora FROM THE DESK OF GREG Dear Freedom Fry, Yes, you can e-mail him if you want to give him the opportunity to reject you one more time. He grew up in an environment where there was crazy pressure to get married, and all he saw were unhappy, unhealthy marriages. But it’s really hard to tell if someone is into you if the entire cultural approach to dating has turned on its head. I’m so ignoring him because I know he’s going to figure out soon enough that I’m not his mother and he will some day ask me to marry him.
I believe the only way I can honor my feelings and the relationship is to talk to him and find out what happened. But if you feel that he’s always holding something back, or that you’re spending a lot of energy trying to change yourself into something you think will make him happier, then divorce yourself from him and move on. And you always want to believe that the men you do meet are honest and kind and have your best interests at heart.And if your dinner/date did feel different to him, it’s been two weeks and he’s had time to think about it and decide he’s just not that into you.