Vicious Cycle

Girls are mean. Girls lead on guys. Girls break hearts for fun. We’ve all heard this before, but where in the world did this idea come from?

The 2004 production of the movie “Mean Girls” accurately portrays the popular stereotype of the modern day beautiful yet heartless woman. As far as I know, however, this woman is basically mythical. Never once, in all my nineteen years, have I heard any girl say to another anything along the lines of, “I just found out that so-and-so likes me; I think I’ll string him along for a little while before chewing him up and spitting him out,” or seen one sitting back and relaxing with some book maliciously titled, “Manipulating Males for Fun and Profit.”

In fact, if they were to learn that a guy they knew was interested in them and after a while they found they didn’t return that interest, they would do absolutely everything in their power not to hurt his feelings. Why, then, do these girls have such disagreeable reputations? I found the answer in my freshman year of high school.

One of my best friends had found herself head over heels in love with a boy in our class. Little did I know that soon enough I would find myself up to my eyeballs in drama. Sure enough, the moment she began operation ‘I Like You,’ I was strapped into an emotional rollercoaster that would last the rest of the year. She started with friendly conversation, then flirting, then hanging out, then Friday nights at the movies, then Prom, all to no avail. He still seemed to be blind to her advances. After months of desperation, she tossed subtlety to the winds and sent him a text informing him that she was in love with him and begging him to react. When this final act failed to force him into action, we decided that the only plausible conclusion was that he was simply a mean-hearted jerk who had been knowingly leading her on all year.

It still wasn’t until the next time that I heard the familiar dilemma, “I keep trying to let him know that I’m not interested, I’m giving him all the signs, but he just won’t get it! Boys are so dumb!” that it finally clicked. Our freshman heartbreaker hadn’t been leading her on at all; he had been doing everything he could to let her know that yes, he noticed her feelings and no, he didn’t feel that way at all. The only problem was that he had taken a leaf out of the official “How to be a Girl Handbook” and chosen subtlety as the best means to let her down easy. He had been giving her all the signs (avoiding eye contact, never beginning conversations, keeping other friends around at all times, etc), but she wasn’t getting it because they were so irrationally subtle!

Girls are so dumb.

The revelation that we nice girls created the mean girl stereotype through our efforts to avoid it was mind-boggling for me. People think we’re mean because we treat guys so indifferently for so long, which we do to try to let them down as easily as possible, which we do so people don’t think we’re mean girls. Life is cruel.

Since this lesson, I have adopted “Honesty is the best policy” as my motto. When an uninteresting guy seems interested, I avoid subtlety as much as is reasonable, and while there is still the occasional boy for whom “I want you to stop talking to me and following me around” still doesn’t quite get the message across, I’ve found a great deal more success with this route. I may very well have still developed a reputation for rudeness, but at least it’s because I have actually been rude on occasion and not because I’ve just been way too nice.

YES YOU ARE AT THE BOY BLOG!!!

Hello Ladies!

As you can see, renovation have begun on the Boy Blog. To answer a few of your questions...

1. The Look: No this isn't how it's going to look. This is temporary, although it might be a month or so.

2: Privacy: The blog is currently set on a privacy setting, which means that only the AUTHORS can view it. While I am creating pseudonyms for EVERY PERSON we've ever mentioned on the blog, I'd like to keep this on the safe side. This will only be another week or so. Sorry!

3. New e-mails and log-ins: You will have new e-mails and log-ins before you know it. I can give you all the information you need if you text me or e-mail me at my new BOY BLOG E-MAIL: cclemon.careandkeepingofboys@gmail.com. I have already set them up; I am now working on the long and arduous process of transferring ALL of the old posts to the new log-ins. That's why I need your information BEFORE I give it to you. After I give you your gmail for the Boy Blog, you will never post from another e-mail again, NOR WILL YOU EVER USE ANY REAL NAMES AGAIN.

You can e-mail me with questions! It's way past my bedtime... So, goodbye!

Stupidity

Avert your eyes. What have you done?!

Green and red m&ms to the right...... microwave behind him......sink to the left.... Gosh, why can't there be anything, ANYTHING to distract us from the current conversation!

I promise, this is not what I came for. Guilt is beginning to seap through my skin, leaving it burning.... Burning I tell you! I shouldn't even feel guilty, and yet here I am sick in my stomach. Actually no, stomach is too small. I feel sick everywhere! We just barely started talking again for heaven's sakes! You have a girlfriend, so I thought it'd be fine. Yeah, this is where I rightfully take on the "stupidity" title. How am I going to tell Him about this later?

Why did we break up all those months ago? Because the "we" sucked. That's why. "We" didn't work. Remember how we've had this conversation? I swear my only intentions were help on math.

Oh course I still care about you.... just not in a way that you'd like. Too bad his response to my unfinished comment is, "Well even now, sitting here I still think I like you." Yeah..... (oh crap.) And your girlfriend is WHERE? Oh wait, you're the paranoid one.

Well uh, time for a subject change! Time to LEAVE! Oh wait, I forgot my backpack at your freakin house.

The Choice

I stare at the heap of old, greasy looking french fries stacked high on the plate in front of me, and nervously brush the crumbs off my fingers as I consider the question I've been asked. I glance around the restaurant, briefly skimming over the cheesy western decor and the old men chatting with the saggy waitresses in their dirty wife beaters; it's all just too cliche.

This is in American Fork? I think.

My brief scan ends at a pair of ice-blue eyes still looking into mine, staring with the kind of intensity I'd all but forgotten they were capable of. A reminder that he is still waiting for me to answer his question.

Why did we break up?

As I reconsider the question, the irony of the sudden role reversal silences me. It takes me back to another beautiful, sunny day in another restaurant where we sat across the table from each other, just like this, and I stared into his eyes, and I nervously brushed the crumbs from my fingers, and I asked him, why did we break up?

I looked into his blue eyes, certain that he could see that I was dying inside, that my whole life was crumbling. And he sat there and looked at me, with pity in his eyes.

Now I'm looking at him, that same question hanging in the silence between us.

I can see that he is dying inside, that his whole life is crumbling.

I look at him, and I have nothing to say. Nothing, but what he had said to me.

I don't know.

I don't know, I say, but it's right.

His pained blue eyes finally release me from their hold. I notice that I have gotten crumbs on my fingers again. I brush them off. I pick up the sandwich on my plate, reconsider, then put it back down. I have crumbs on my fingers.

Now he wants to know where we stand with each other. It's a valid concern, I think. Yes, darling. Let's determine the relationship, one last time. For old time's sake, shall we?

brush, brush, brush,

Should we still see each other? Should we still call, text, email? He says he can tell that I don't want to see him any more. I tell him that I couldn't begin to heal until I learned to let go.

I don't know which will hurt worse, he says.
Giving you up now, or losing you bit by bit, watching you slowly pull away from me.

We hold each others gaze, him seeking reassurance, both of us knowing that I can't give it. Choose the one that hurts the shortest, I tell him.

He sits next to me, a thousand miles away, falling apart at the seems, staring at his hands. I stare at his eyes. Our first baby was going to be a little girl, named Alice. She was going to have light, curly hair and her daddy's eyes; that same, piercing ice blue...

Look away. Breathe in. Breathe out. Brush the crumbs off your fingers.

So this is the last time we will see each other.

Yes.

A pause.

I should probably go now.

I stand up to see him out. He asks if he can hug me. I answer by wrapping my arms around him, one last time. It's the familiar embrace that has communicated all our goodbyes, hellos, and in-betweens for years.

We cling to each other. A minute passes. The other diners politely avert their eyes from the scene taking place amidst them. I don't let go; I want him to be able to know that in the very end, when it came right down to it, he was the one to let go, to take the first step into the rest of his life without us. Two minutes pass. I lose track of time. I let go.

As I pull away, I plant a single kiss on the side of his face. He gently turns my face with his hand, and places a single chaste kiss on my own, tear-stained cheek.

I will always love you, he whispers in my ear.

Nothing will ever change that. 

.....................................................................................................................................................

I lay across the grass. I can see the sun through my eyelids. I can feel it drying my face, warming me, lighting the world and bringing the earth back to life.

And I know that, for once, I made the choice that will hurt the shortest.