Thursday, September 9, 2010

The Follies of Cross Gender Friendship



Dear guru,

A keeno guy wants to take me on a 2nd date, he was interesting but a bit annoying and I'm not buzzed but open to friendship... Maybe, he has some good business ideas and I need to hang with people all motivated and inspired and stuff. Should I tell him in an email I'm not up for romance dates but friendly ones are OK? Or should I just let him work that out for himself when he goes in for the kill and finds my hand planted firmly on his face. I'm considering the fade because dating people you're not really into is tedious.

Alberta


Dear Alberta,

If you sent an email to any bloke like Chuck Long indicating that you’re blowing off an offer of a second date with a preference to be pals, you’d be at the receiving end of a prompt ‘click click delete” manoeuvre. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for women all over the world, there aren’t many guys like Chuck Long out there.

Chuck says unfortunately because every woman deserves a man with Chuck’s attributes and skill sets. The flip side to this is that there are plenty of suckers out there who’ll take an email relationship blow off and stick with you as you take them on the friendship ride. Now before a chorus of women mutter “its not all about sex Chuck, men and women can be friends”, let Chuck explain why a lot of men will cop the “no to relationship / yes to friends” offer and why it will never work.

Men and women can be friends. This typically occurs if:

-       The woman is ugly and the man is not attracted to her
-       They started off as friends (typically in school or at work) in an environment that isn’t conducive to relationships
-       One or both are / were in a relationship


Other than its very difficult for men and women to be friends because typically the reason for being friends in the first place is a level of attraction from one or both parties that has yet to be acted upon.

So if Alberta tells this dude that she wants to be friends, she is already in trouble because he is interested enough in her to want a second date. He isn’t dating for friendship; he’s looking for a poke and perhaps a relationship. By effectively cutting off his dick after the first date, this guys balls are going to swell each and every time he’s around her.

So why would the guy take the offer? Well, most women would like to believe that it’s because they’re so cool that guys would gladly accept being mates. Unfortunately, it’s not the case. No, many blokes who are smitten with a woman will head down the friendship path with the desperate hope that repeated exposure will eventually make the lady see how awesome he is and inevitably fall in love. As Rachel Hunter used to say in her shampoo ad “it wont happen over night, but it will happen” or on a much cooler level, you can use Ice Cube’s expression “life aint a track meet, it’s a marathon”. Many men would gladly accept those terms.

Regretfully this only happens in 5% of the cases (although the movies would have you believe that it results in a relationship 9 out of 10 times). A dude will stumble around like a puppy dog being ‘friends’ with a woman that often includes lunches, shopping and a whole host of other activities that normal men would never ordinarily partake in. This will go on for quite sometime until eventually the bloke either snaps and professes his love which makes the woman uncomfortable and causes her to freak and say ‘ I told you I didn’t want a relationship, I just wanted to be friends” or the woman finds herself another man, not only breaking the puppy dogs heart but also resulting in the end of the friendship as the new bloke wont accept his woman having male friends.

Another reason for taking the offer of friendship up is the hope that you’ll eventually get drunk enough to bone your new friend. Seriously, there are plenty of guys out there who’ll hover around, just waiting for the moment to pounce (or to be pounced upon).  Chuck’s point is that this dude already likes you in a more-than-a-friend way and its very tough to engineer anything away from that. He’ll only agree to friendship because he can envision one of the two above scenarios playing out.

Alberta, you mentioned that the guy was a bit annoying. Let Chuck pose this question: “How many friends do you have that you consider a bit annoying?” The reason Chuck asks is because logic would suggest that you’d never be friends with someone who gives you the shits, so how on earth do you think you can be friends with this guy?

Your other idea about hanging out and then letting him figure out that you’re not that interested by dodging his advantages is somewhat cruel and could actually lead to some awkward situations, especially if he dropped some coin on date number 2 and took you to a really nice restaurant. Now Chucks not suggesting that shelling out some cash should entitle him to any sort of physical thanks on your behalf but why lead him on if you have no intention of escalating things? You’d be better placed to cut bait on this one and try your line at another fishing hole rather than reeling in a blowfish.

The only exception to all of Chuck's advice is if your hanging out with a Richard Branson type. Sure they’re fucking annoying (especially with the long bushy hair and big teeth) but the upside to spending time with them is that they’re high energy, have loads of contacts, work their nuts off and often own their own islands. And you wonder why these dudes end up with hot wives……..


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