Monday, 07 June 2010

• Dropping The "Girlfriend-Bomb"

   

  I have a lot of male friends. The majority of my close female friends also usually note that they too, have a lot of male friends. We are well aware that guys are usually thinking about sex, and have probably thought about us "in that way," not because we are like, goddesses or anything, but we find that guys usually just want to sleep with everyone. Anyway, my female friends and I have noticed that sometimes it can be tricky interacting with girlfriends of your male friends.

  A lot of times I find that when meeting girlfriends at first, they can be a little suspicious and competitive (I can't blame them, I know I get like that too). However, it is a little heartbreaking when another woman rejects you at first because you hang out with her guy.

  
  

  I was recently hanging out with a male friend of mine (let's call him "Nick"), and we were talking about our mutual male friend (let's call him, "Charlie"). I recounted to Nick a story of one of the first few times I talked to Charlie.

  
  

  The very first time Charlie and I spoke was after a show both of our bands had just played. It was a sexually charged night (we played a female-empowered burlesque night at one of my favorite venue/bars), so naturally I got drunk and was giving oral sex advice to anyone who would listen. Charlie seemed particularly interested, listening wide-eyed and smiling. "Thanks!" he gurgled as he packed up his gear, "my name is Charlie, by the way" (we shook hands).

  
  

  Because of a combination of whiskey and Belgian beer I forgot that this had happened. My band mate reminded me the next day during our usual "what happened last night?" re-cap. "Heh,"she giggled, "you were in RARE form...remember that kid Charlie? He came up to me after talking to you, and said that you told him 'how to go down on a girl.'" "Oh shit that's RIGHT," I blushed, "oh well, you know, guys need to know about that stuff."

  
  

  The next time I saw Charlie, he pounced on the opportunity to tease me about our first encounter. "Thanks, by the way!" he gleamed, "my GIRLFRIEND really liked that." He said the word "girlfriend" like he was trying to punch it into my skull with girlfriend shaped brass knuckles. I immediately felt weird."Why did he emphasize the word 'girlfriend' so much? Did he think that I was interested? Did he think that I was hitting on him when I was telling him about oral sex for girls?" I was embarrassed. Of course he thought I was hitting on him, who talks about oral sex if they aren't hitting on you? (<--Me. The answer is me, I do that).

  At this point in the story, I turned to Nick (Remember? I was telling this story to Nick), and said: "Just so you know, I am NOT interested in Charlie."

  
  

  NICK: Why not? He's...heh, he's a handsome man!

  ME: Yeah he's cute I guess, but I have never wanted to, and I NEVER will sleep with Charlie ever. Ever. Like E-VER.

  I mean, it's always better to be safe than sorry, so I can't really blame him. And I understand that if a girl is all "this is how you eat box," you'd probably think she was asking you to eat hers. But in this case, I wasn't saying that at all, and the way Charlie emphasized GIRLFRIEND made me very close to hitting him.

  ME: I kind of hate how guys just assume we're super into them. I mean, I can kind of understand if a girl sort of brings up out of the blue that she has a boyfriend, because...

  NICK: Yeah, because guys...heh.

  ME: Yeah, but I was never into Charlie, so it was like...retarded.

  NICK: You should probably like, send out a warning to guys "don't drop the G-bomb."

  
  

  And it's like that even when you're just trying to date a guy. Guys are trying to "do the right thing" by letting us know that they "just want to have fun," but I kind of hate that usually men don't really preface these conversations very well. When a guy just starts telling me about how he doesn't want to hurt my feelings, but he doesn't want anything serious right now, I usually want to vomit. It's insulting to just assume I have some serious deep feelings that need to be talked about. It's best instead, to say something like "I don't know if you are actually into me or not, but just so we're on the same page, I'm not looking for anything serious right now." It's similar to what I'm talking about here, it's frustrating when someone puts a staunch ending on something you weren't even into.

  
  

  Also, the fact that Charlie apparently felt he needed to do that told me a few things about him:

  (1) He felt some anxiety (or unease) about our interaction that he may have seen as in need of some correction.

  (2) He did not pick up on my cues very well (in that he may have interpreted my speaking to him as flirting)

  
  

  Ultimately, even though I have never felt anything but friendly towards this guy, I still felt weird when meeting his girlfriend. I was worried that he'd said that I'd hit on him, and that she would give me that look that women give when they are trying to say "he's mine, and you know it, back off."

  This girl seemed very nice, so it wasn't a problem at all (thank God). But I haven't always been so lucky.

  Do you think that guys want to be sexually involved with every woman they meet?

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