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(Questions have been modified for space and clarity.)
I need boy advice. I'm in college and have never been surrounded by so many eligible men. However, I can't bring myself to talk to any of them, especially one in particular...let's call him Jack. Jack and I had class together last semester. I thought he was pretty good-looking, and I thought that he was interested in me. We never talked to each other, just stared, because we're both too awkward and shy to ever start a conversation.
Near the end of the semester I sign up for Tinder. I come across Jack's profile, and with the great guidance of my older sister, I "like" him. Jack "likes" me back and we match on Tinder a couple days later. Once again, my sister advises me to message him. So I do, but Jack ignores my message and never replies (and he deletes the app). So things are even more awkward now.
Class is back in session and Jack and I go about ignoring each other. I cannot bring myself to talk to him! The semester ends and Jack and I made it through without talking. I send him a friend request on Facebook and he accepts within seconds. I should probably stop listening to my sister at this point, but I send him an innocent, "How'd the test go for you?" and he reads it days later and ignores it once again.
So, now Jack and I see each other around campus on a daily basis, multiple times. We go on ignoring one another, and it makes me super uncomfortable! Is there anything I should do to make things less awkward when, by the grace of G-d, we run into each other? Or should I keep my head down and keep on ignoring him? I am secretly hoping that he might still be interested (if he ever was). We still haven't talked to this day, by the way.
--Mea C.; St. Paul, MN
We've all had that classroom crush, the apple of our eye whom we gaze/lear at from four desks over, as the professor's lecture lands anywhere but our memory banks. And because it takes such nerve to act on that crush -- nerve that many of us don't possess -- we often reap nothing from our semester-long obsession but a dented GPA.
So while your ongoing Jack saga might feel awkward, it's not necessarily uncommon. And unfortunately, the way in which he's rejected you isn't that uncommon either.
At some point, ignoring a potential love interest became the go-to procedure for rejection. People almost always say they do it because they don't want to hurt the person's feelings by giving an outright No.
Which is weird, because ignoring someone is about the rudest thing you can do. Just picture two people in the same room together. What could be worse than one person refusing to acknowledge the other's existence? What could be more demeaning? I don't get it.
To combat this when I was dating, I implemented a self-imposed rule: Contact a girl twice. If I didn't hear back by the second inquiry, that was that. I got the hint and moved on.
This applied to all points of the relationship-building process, from the first date to pre-exclusivity, and allowed me to cover my bases, to rest assured that I hadn't heard back because of some phone malfunction. There was no way her inbox would've eaten both my messages.
You have now contacted Jack twice, once each on Tinder and Facebook, and both times he didn't respond. And you know he got your messages. This leads me to believe he's not interested.
I get that he could be awkward and shy. But there's nothing an awkward and shy guy wants more than for a girl to ask him out/make her interest obvious. That's the dream. It's like having the questions on Jeopardy before Trebek gives you the answers.
If Jack isn't responding under these conditions, he's probably not going to respond, no matter what you do. And, if we do (briefly) grant the premise that he didn't reply because he's that shy, what chance does he have of carrying on a relationship?
Now that I'm thinking about it, there was one time (that I can remember) that I grossly violated my two-call code. It was probably nine or 10 years ago, with a girl I met online. We exchanged a few emails, and everything was great. And then she was gone.
After a week or so of radio silence, I emailed her again. And I continued to email her periodically over the next few months. I don't know why exactly. I know I felt some sort of attraction to her, but it had to be my desperation. We hadn't even been in the same room together. And as expected, my messages went unreturned.
Beyond (inadvertently) painting myself as a stalker, I bring this up because, at the time, it felt like a really big deal to me. She was my Jack. But until recently, when I stumbled across those emails as I was searching for something in my Sent folder, I had completely forgotten the situation.
You will too. I know right now it feels like you're invested in Jack, but you're not. At most, you're invested in the idea of Jack, in the fantasy you concocted from across the lecture hall. That will fade, and it will fade quicker than you realize.
Especially if you take advantage of your current situation. Like you said, you're surrounded by eligible guys. Make the most of it, because one of the most underrated aspects of college is living in a self-contained universe in which everyone is essentially the same age and at the same stage of life. It ain't like that in Adult Land. So why obsess over a guy you haven't spoken to?
All that said, I'm a believer in seeing something through to the end, even when everyone else is saying it's over. If you really can't shake Jack, don't. Do something about it. Just please do it face to face.
COMING WEDNESDAY: Stress, Sickness and an Unhappy Work Life
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