The girl sitting across from me on the subway was an exact replica of me at fourteen years old: chubby face, disobediently curly hair, a slim body struggling to develop and a slightly rowdy innocence that would one day cause some trouble. She looked so much like me I had to do a double take, convinced a miniaturized version of me was within arm’s reach.
I may have gone on without giving the matter much thought, except that there was something even more me-ish about the girl than her plump cheeks. She was pining away over a boy who apparently was giving her the run around. Moreover, she was testing the limits of friendship by giving the pal next to her every minute detail of their last conversation.
Me much?
The boy had told the girl to stop calling him. He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. He wasn’t replying to any of her texts or returning her calls. Every so often, she’d call late, sometimes after midnight, and was surprised when he wasn’t home.
Fourteen-Year-Old Me was confused. Older Me knew there were only a few causes for such behavior and they all revolved around other girls, lack of interest and overall jerkiness.
“He says he can’t handle a relationship right now,” the girl told her friend. “He’s worried about his mom and he has to get a job.”
The girl lifted her chest and proudly said, “And I was like, ‘you expect me to wait for you?’”
Older Me hoped either the guy fell to her feet in tears or she gave him the grand heave ho.
“’He told me, ‘no.’ So I asked, ‘do you want me to?’”
It took everything in me not to take the girl by the shoulders and shake her senseless. “Get some strength in those knees and stiffen that spine. You cave to this creep and you’ve got years of male crap to put up with. Get out now!”
“Honestly, Mary, I don’t know,” the girl continued. “I was like, ‘I can be your girlfriend and support you through this.’”
No, you can’t, I thought, trying to use mental telepathy to communicate with her. You can’t because he doesn’t want you to. Or someone else is his support. Or he doesn’t have a problem, he’s just making up bull malarkey because he’s afraid to cut the cord.
“I was like, ‘I’ll be waiting for your call.’ He didn’t call me, so I called him.”
You just earned another year of lessons from the Relationship School from Hell.
“He was on the phone with his cousin.”
Yeah, right.
“He kept crying and crying and I was like, ‘I’m right here for you.’”
Man, was this girl tugging at my heart strings. How many times have I begged some big wounded boy to let me love him? In fact, nearly every female I know has blubbered to me about some damaged soul who won’t let her heal his pain. Few things are as confusing to women as men who turn away love and support.
I wasn’t angry at the apple of Fourteen-Year-Old Me’s eye. Sure, guys like him can be selfish and plain mean. But they’re just snot-nosed little boys and it’s up to the women who adore them to cut their losses when the writing’s on the wall.
Unfortunately, it can take decades before a woman learns to stop hanging on to dead end love. I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me, but will confess to making tons of stupid decisions, dating scads of nincompoops and coming face to face with lots of not so pretty truths about my own inner workings. Most importantly, it took the real love of a couple good men to show me true connection isn’t something you have to beg someone to share with you.
I wanted to tell Fourteen-Year-Old Me to let this cad go and avoid love she has to wrestle to the ground. Spare her the agony of heartbreak or an on/off affair with someone who only kinda likes her. But like every hard lesson, you’ve got to learn it on your own.
All I could do was give her a smile that said, ‘you’ve got a long, hard journey ahead. But you’ll get there.’
She probably didn’t grasp my message. But maybe she will in twenty years, when her own Mini Me sits across from her on a train.
Tagged: afraid of commitment, afraid of love, bad boys, being single, broken heart, commitment, dating, fear of commitment, He's Just Not That Into You, men withdraw, non-commital, relationship, single, single women, what men want, why didn't he call, why won't he commit, why won't he marry me
