Huge Welcome to Earth Moment - Cut Him Some Slack

A few days ago I contacted a good friend that I hadn't heard from in a while. Within the first couple of days I didn't hear back from her, so I tried to contact her again. All the while I did not take it personally, and just moved on with my daily routine. A couple of days later, she contacted via text to say hi and filled me in with a couple of big things that she has been up to lately. Since then we have still not gotten together but I am sure that she is hanging out and doing things with other friends.

My reaction to this...rather neutral. She is my friend and I accept that, even though we enjoy our time together and she is a great sister in Christ, she and I do not stay in touch everyday. This has no impact on my self esteem, nor do I sit up and wait to hear from her or stop my life because I have not heard from her in a while. Even more, I completely accept that she has other friends that they may fulfill her social needs or other needs in ways that I cannot.

Isn't it that way for you? You have go to the movies friends, go out to dinner friends, talk on the phone friends, come over to your house friends, pray together friends, and then what you would consider to be best friends. These are the people that you may not see all the time or they may not even live in the same place as you, but you count them as more precious than other friends. These are the people you would have in your wedding or invite if you won tickets for two to a concert, for example.

Now let's change the situation a little bit, what if I had contacted a guy and didn't hear back and then a few days later he contacted me to say that he was hanging out with other girls. Or let's up the game, I have been going on dates for months with this guy and I feel a real connection with him and we have been talking for a while. He doesn't always invite me to go out with him and doesn't contact me everyday but I still feel like we get along really well. How would I feel if he told me he was seeing other girls?

This thought process became a huge "welcome to earth" reality check for me: I can guarantee that I would not be able to let that slide off my back as easily as if it were a friend who did that to me. Somehow when it's "dating" and "a guy" it takes on a whole new meaning to me. Self-esteem and dreams of weddings and children, and the portending doom of a life alone goes flashing past my eyes and I am so hurt. The bottom line, if you permit me to quote one of my favorite philosophies "he's just not that into me."

Whether or not a guy has what we would consider to be valid reasons for not liking us as much as other girls, maybe he just has other girls in his life that fulfill needs that we do not. How many times have you or a friend said "he is a jerk" or "he is such a player" just because a guy does not make us his one and only?

Guys are physiologically and fundamentally different than women and their hierarchy of women is different than what we might expect or want to except. The go to the movies friend for us may be the really flirtatious girl for him. The go out to dinner friend for us might be the "I'll call her every once in a while" girl for him. The come over to your house friend for us might be the "I would make her my girlfriend" for him. Finally, the best friend for us might be the "I would marry her" for him.

It would not be fair for us to compare our friends to other friends at a superficial level, yet that is what we do so often. Some of my friends are funnier than others, some dress more similarly to me than others, some have similar backgrounds, some are more outgoing, some are on my same social level, and some laugh at my jokes. Sometimes my best or really close friends are not even people that I have known for a really long time.

Again, let's flip to the other side, a guy dates another girl because she dresses sexier, has a certain color hair, has a flirtatious personality, has a certain background, or laughs at his jokes, and we call him superficial. You are a good Christian, you are practical, you are fun, you are a conservative dresser, you are pure, that is what he should like, right? How completely unkind it would be for him to call the other girl and not you? Why would he want to date/marry a girl like that and not you?

These are questions that are not easily answered. Still, I have a bunch of friends who are probably better for me than others in certain ways and I wouldn't even think twice about not contacting them or not inviting them to my social outings. Then why wouldn't that happen with a guy? Just like us, they are only human and living at a time when being a man is very confusing. Whether or not they have chosen someone over you for the right reason, it happens all the time. Let's cut guys some slack and also free ourselves from unnecessary pain. Let's let go of trying to make sense of his actions and not allow those actions impact how we view ourselves.

You may also want to read to the "Temptation to Text" post that I had written a while back for more perspective on this.

Images retrieved May 18, 2011 through Creative Commons, Inc. from

Friends http://www.flickr.com/photos/passion_in_action/2399599781/in/photostream/

Couple http://www.flickr.com/photos/masochismtango/529444461/sizes/o/in/photostream/