Anecdotes About Expectations

I do relationship advice, too. This week, we tackle the dreaded "friend zone." Taking a break from the heavy mental lifting that is usually involved in writing these blog posts, I have a few stories to tell that center around expectations. I want to bring them up because it is an eternal trend to be demure or even disingenuous about intentions, like when a guy wants to escape the friend zone or when a girl expects the guy to stay put in that zone without telling him up front. People often feel like they can't have any fun or success if people are aware of their motives. The truth is that you will rarely succeed without the graces of your desired mate, so it is advantageous to make your intentions known from the start. The names in these stories have been changed to protect the innocent. The guilty retain their names.

Part 1: The Admin Killer

I run a large discussion forum that has been online for 8 years, so you can guess that there is plenty of history to tell. One of the more amusing stories revolves around a girl that I call "The Admin Killer" because of her propensity to get involved with the management of the site and subsequently drive them out of service. She is an unbelievably beautiful girl (I met her in person once, so trust me on this) from Finland and we shall call her Triple. Many years ago, she was introduced to the site and began making friends through our makeshift webcam feature. One of her first friends was a site administrator named Bear, who lived in Arizona. (Bear wasn't a big hairy guy, he just named his account after his dog.) Bear, seeing the friendship blossom, offered to fly Triple out to Arizona so she could hang out with him and see the wonderful state of Arizona. If that doesn't sound creepy, you must be a really beautiful girl from Finland.

Triple had complete trust in Bear's intentions as a friend who wanted nothing more than just company and the opportunity to be a tour guide in his own back yard. Things went well when she landed, and for the first few days, she was having a great time in a totally different climate than what she was used to. The mesa was amazing and the Grand Canyon was spectacular. I believe it was the night when he brought her to his mother's house for dinner when things started to fall apart. Imagine you are with someone who was nothing more than a friend to you and you are meeting their family for the first time in a strange land. Then this person announces that they are going to marry you. The world flips inside out right at the point in space where you are sitting.

Of course, Triple had to let the poor guy down in front of his mother and sister. The embarrassment resulted in Bear's immediate and complete absence from the forum. (And he was only the first Admin to leave the site because of Triple...)

Part 2: The Mystery Man

Another member of my forum, we'll call her Icky, had a misunderstanding of her own. She and I had a little friendship going ourselves, but when her fiance of 6 years broke up with her, I was too far away to offer any real comfort. I happened to have a trip planned (for other reasons) to her side of the country a couple weeks from then, where I was to stay with another member of my site. I wanted her to come and see me when I was out there, but she had plans in the meantime. Icky invited another friend of hers to keep her company while she got her mind off of her devastating heartbreak. This friend, who she called "Mystery Man" on her blog, was nothing more than a platonic buddy to her, but he obviously missed the memo. 

I read her nightly blog entries that described this Mystery Man as an embarrassing muscle-bound socially inept nerd who showed up at her door expecting sex. He treated her with growing impatience as their "friendly dates" led to nothing more than a hug and a good-bye each time. His humor was stale, referencing his "girlish figure" and war stories of winning a basketball game with an injured knee. He would climb trees to impress her and exhibited alarming anger with waitresses who forgot to leave out the ice from his Coke. Each time she opened her door to see his erection pressing against his too-tight jeans, she wanted to puke. By the final day Icky had had enough and she refused to see him. He stayed in his hotel room and drove back home.

The kicker of this story is of course the moment when Icky revealed to me that Mystery Man was the guy I was about to stay with on my trip. Understandably, she did not want to come see me and I had to suffer through a week with that guy as my host. (Can you say, "epic cock block?")

Part 3: The Lesson

If the men in the two stories had been prepared by their lady friends on what to expect, we probably would not be laughing at them now. Ladies, save yourself some grief and tell your male friends what they shouldn't be expecting. While it may sound a bit standoffish to lay the rules out up front, there is some serious pain in store for the person who is running out of bounds. In my experience, this actually helps to relax a situation and de-stresses a budding friendship. This doesn't mean that there is no room for romance; in fact a man who understands his role probably has a better shot in the long run than one who thinks he'll just surprise her with his affections