Things That Suck: Boys Who Have Girlfriends

This blog has not been forgotten. It's been sitting here waiting for the moment I choose to actually compose all the thoughts that have been collecting in my head over the last few months. I return to you tonight with a doozy: I have a crush on a boy that is very much in a relationship.

I can't say that this is a huge-mondo-life changing-heart breaking-achey crush. It's a subtle, juvenile but none-the-less frustrating crush.

It all started with karaoke, which is where I'm pretty sure all significant things in my life start anymore. A friend brought this boy and his girlfriend, who live a ways out of town now. I can't say we clicked, or that I even particularly noticed him much. They were both kind of quiet and unassuming. I went about my usual business of getting sloppy drunk and singing songs poorly. Like ya do.

A few days later, Boy sends me a friend request on Ye Olde Facebooke. Also like ya do. In this day and age anyway. So we're friends. And then the strangest thing starts happening: he starts commenting on my posts. ALL of my posts. It was slow at first, but consistent. And his comments were INTERESTING. And CHARMING. And EXACTLY the sort of things I would want a boy saying to me. Because my biggest turn on is a man who can keep up with my knowledge of pop culture and who WANTS to talk to me about it. He asks questions, wants to know about my tastes further than what I've posted about and as the weeks have gone by, I keep thinking more and more about how unfair this is. Which is unfair on my part. Here's why:

A friend of mine, Randall, once spent many hours talking to a girl at a bar. At the end of the night she told her friends to leave without her because she clearly thought she had this in the bag and was going home with Randall. The problem, poor girl, is that Randall has a very long term live-in girlfriend who he intends to marry, and he was then faced with a very awkward conversation at the end of the night. Randall then asked me "Why should she have assumed that this was anything more than a conversation?" He claims he mentioned the girlfriend and wasn't being especially flirty; he was just having an interesting conversation with a reasonably intelligent stranger at a bar. And he's RIGHT. At least in theory.

I speak from experience when I say that ladies of my age demographic have to deal with a lot of bullshit from our male peers. Every boy, and I mean EVERY boy I meet is incredibly aloof. Even boys that have expressed their interest don't bother doing any work beyond that. I've tried the taking charge type attitude and my results have been disappointing at best, embarassing at worst. In a nutshell, boys don't seem to give a fuuuuuck about girls anymore.

Therefore, even though this poor girl made an ill informed assumption, I understand her position. When a dude is willing to pay THAT much attention to you, it seems inevitable that he's interested in you, right? Right?

So even though I've gathered that this is just how this Boy is and that he means nothing by it, I can't help but somehow be swayed to think...something. Two examples: I saw him briefly on Friday. He showed up at a DIY rock show I was attending and he sat on the couch sort of behind my chair. I looked behind me twice, because I was already sort of smitten, and both times I swear, I SWEAR I caught him quickly looking away from me when I looked at him. Then yesterday, after I was unusually quiet on Facebook on account of actually trying to work, he posted on my wall, asking "Anything shaking?" This resulted in an epic comments exchange that would have probably been better served in a private message type scenario. He told me some random quirks about himself (he's obsessed with the weather, and the number 33), we talked about awesome shows we'd been to, and found out with both subscribe to Entertainment Weekly ( a fact that wouldn't even be a big deal except that my last boyfriend hated that magazine with a passion and made fun of me for reading it).

So what gives? Anything? Is this just a case of me being so used to aloof assholes that I can't fathom a boy paying attention to me and NOT being interested in me? Probably. And if I were his girlfriend, would I be bothered by him having such grand conversations with a girl I barely know? To quote one of the greatest minds of our time: You betcha!

I'm probably insane. This is clearly a no-win situation. Unless you count "winning" as making an awesome new friend. Pfft. So I return to my breezy, witty banter. A girl takes what she can get.