They Look As If They Were Painted (Nicole S)

They look as if they were painted.  The leaves on that plant were so beautiful, they couldn't be real.

* * *

About 7 years ago, I met a friend, let's call her Janine.  We hit it off at a party, and for a short minute, I thought maybe we'd end up dating.  We went on a few maybe-dates (you know what I mean, you're hanging out, and in the back of your mind, trying to figure out if it's actually a date or not), got to know each other, and then somewhere along the way, I realized, it wasn't gonna happen.

I don't remember the exact turning point:  maybe it was the fact that she was thinking of moving pretty soon, maybe it was the fact that she was a Capulet and I was a Montague (that's a recipe for disaster), but on some level my hesitation could be summed up by this:

I felt that she expected me to show interest by putting a move on her, and that she didn't want me to a put a move on her.  Like, that was the script that she was waiting for- and it wasn't a script she liked, but one that she was resigned to.  I wasn't willing to play that game: I don't want to put a move on someone who isn't into it, so I didn't.  And she started dating other people, and that was that.

We became friends, and in a world of guys who want nothing but snooky, I got to be the guy who didn't want snooky (not from her, anyway).

Somehow I thought, as she complained so often about how "all guys just want one thing" and "if they don't get it, they'll leave", that eventually she'd realize that I was a guy, that I wasn't getting (nor asking for) favors of any kind, and that I was sticking around.

If at this point you're worried I'm going to give the "but I was a nice guy" speech, don't worry.  This is a new version of that speech, because instead of saying "but I was a nice guy" I'm going to say, "but I was a nice guy"---

---because when I finally said to her, "you say all guys want is sex, but you realize, I'm a guy, and I'm not trying to get sex" she made a dismissive gesture and said "yeah, but you're you."

Which I took to mean:  "Because you haven't tried to get with me, you must not be a normal guy, and therefore you exist in a category all of your own, and men are still pigs just as I've always known."

Which to be honest was sort of emasculating, and pretty darn frustrating, because I am a sexual person, I am interested in 'getting with' ladies, and I do make moves.  Just not on people who don't want it!

It's almost as if after a lifetime of seeing plants with ugly leaves, she saw a plant with beautiful leaves
and said, "those leaves are so beautiful!  They look as if they were painted!  They must not be an actual part of that plant."

"Aaron is such a cool guy, he's never made unwanted moves.  He must not be a real guy."

I wanted to be at least one counter-example in a sea of shitty dudes, but instead I became my own nation:  The women, the men, and the Aaron.

This was a good reminder that trying to fix people without them asking for it really isn't going to work so well.

I can only hope she took a picture of me and posted it on Facebook, so that people could then write in their blogs about me.

Metaphorically.


((edit:  this post has so many parallels to the "I was so good to her, why didn't she sleep with me" trope out there, that I want to be very clear:  I never intended to sleep with this person.  I was not being nice with an agenda, not even to 'fix' anything.  I was just being myself.  My frustration was not from horniness but from being excised from my gender due to my lack of disrespectful horniness!))