A common complaint among men who date women is that a girl will say "I'm fine," when in reality, she's not. The scenario usually involves a girl getting mad at a guy. The guy, realizing the error of his ways, apologizes. The girl gives the guy a hard time. The guy again apologizes. After chastising the guy and verbally ripping him a new one, the girl relents and finally accepts the guy's apology. She says she's over it. Water under the bridge. She's not mad anymore.
"You sure everything's okay?" he asks her.
"Yes," she says, "everything is okay."
"So you're fine?" he asks.
"Yes," she says, "I'm fine."
Okay, he stupidly thinks, everything is fine.
Of course, everything is not fine. She's still pissed. While she has received her rightfully due apology, and while she knows the guy is truly apologetic, she is still pissed. This is evidenced by her subsequent behavior. Her aloof demeanor. Her snippy one-word responses. Her displeasure at the coffee ring he left on her countertop.
This infuriates guys. They hate the fact that a girl will say everything is okay when in fact, it's not. Recently I have to come to realize that girls aren't the only ones who engage in this frustrating behavior.
So I apologized to GD for my behavior from over a week ago. I apologized to him on two separate occasions. The latter of which I almost began to cry. I was and am truly contrite. And he says it's cool, that I shouldn't apologize anymore. "So everything's cool?" I asked him. "Yes," he lied, "Everything's cool."
Everything is not cool. After pissing someone off, I realize that as the transgressor, I must, in addition to apologizing, make affirmative efforts to make amends. So I took the initiative to ask him to hang out, to text him, to email him, to call him. Don't worry, I didn't do this all in one sitting. But over the past several days, I have been.
Back in the day, he would have responded to my emails/texts immediately, picked up all my calls, and if not, return my calls immediately. Now days, he hasn't. He screens my calls. He ignores 2 out of 3 of my emails/texts. For the one-third he does respond to, he sends half-hearted responses. And he probably auto-deletes my voicemails. All the guys I've conferred with confirm that while he says everything's fine, it's not, and he's still resentful.
It's frustrating. Yes, I deserve to be punished. Yes, I know I probably bruised his ego and pride a tad. Still though, it's frustrating. I think I've had more meaningful conversations with his voicemail than with him. And tonight, when he deliberately sent my phone call to his voicemail for the umpteenth time this weekend, the insecure crazy side of me wonders if he's with some other gal right now, a nicer gal, a gal who appreciates him more, to "punish" me more. After all, we never established exclusivity.
Nothing I can do about it though, right? Just take my punishment "like a man" and pretend I'm fine with it. Even though I'm not. The consensus among friends though is that if his resentful aloofness continues, then it's indicative of something larger--i.e., an inability to let things go or to forgive--and that I should probably reconsider whether or not I want to continue this.
I suppose we'll see.
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3 comments:
Make sure you don't overdue the "I'm sorry's" and the calls. A guy doesn't like too much clinginess and to dwell on it so much. You've apologized already and tried to make amends. If he doesn't accept that, there's not too much else you can/should do. At a certain point, it just becomes too much and too overwhelming.
Plus, you can't make it too easy for him.
Just my two cents initial reaction.
Yellow Lawyer
Word for word, that's virtually identical to what my friends said. You're right. As my other girlfriend cautioned, "You don't need to kiss his ass." So I'm laying off for now & waiting to see what he'll do next.
I hope everything works out for you. As a guy who is dating/trying to date as well, I can assure you that it's hard on the guy too. Sometimes we are kept waiting too -- and it gets really frustrating.
My recommendation: try to find something you enjoy doing so that you don't overly focus too much. That's what I try to do (though I know that it doesn't always work).
But, please don't stop blogging.
Yellow lawyer
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