Two Day Magazine

To Be Cruel is to be Kind

A few years ago, when I was in college, a good friend of mine told me he really liked me. I had already sort of assumed as much, but actually hearing it from him confirmed all of my suspicions. Originally, I dismissed it as a mild crush-type thing, but my friend – we’ll call him Max – revealed to me that these feelings were driving him to near-insanity. A weird part of me felt a sense of satisfaction; I was flattered. But I was equally as appalled by the depth of my shallowness for feeling gratified and the fact that I didn’t feel the same.

Although I cared for both him and our friendship, I never thought of him in the romantic sense. To me, it was the equivalent of dating your brother. And dating your brother isn’t very sexy, right? This kind of thing didn’t normally happen to me (I was usually on the other side of the love see-saw), so I felt ill equipped on exactly how to handle it. At first, I blew it off and acted as if it never happened. I tried not to be awkward, but his constant, unwanted, and often blatant intrusions became too much for me to handle. I didn’t need to know that he fantasized about me, or that he scribbled my name all over his notebook. I didn’t need 5 emails a day, or 10 text messages. Or missed calls. Or a voicemail box full of the same old sob story.

I deduced that Max didn’t need my attention, but that he needed medication. His infatuation became unattractive – repulsive actually – even as a friend. Eventually, I became visibly annoyed by his mere presence, and by the sheer enormity of how fervidly he liked me, and how he had no qualms or reservations in letting me (or anyone else who would listen) know.

To me, most people in the grip of infatuation are crazy. Maybe not crazy in the medical sense, but infatuated people tend to behave in an irrational, obsessive manner when it comes to the object of their affections, even if they’re perfectly reasonable about everything else. Infatuation feeds on hope, but unfortunately infatuated people can see signs of hope in almost anything, so the best thing to do was to avoid Max as much as possible. And I did. I ignored his calls, and deleted his text messages, and pretended I was preoccupied when I’d spot him at parties.

Max and I aren’t friends today, and I’ve since learned that he wasn’t crazy, but that it was the first same-sex attraction that he decided to act upon and verbalize. In a way, he was using me as a way to come out. I didn’t realize it at the time, as I was more concerned for myself than for him. I probably should have made it clearer that I didn’t want a relationship with Max: that I didn’t have feelings for him beyond friendship, and that I felt some distance between us necessary. We should have figured out how to be friends, and how not to be awkward. I should have been gentle-but-firm rather than caustic and apathetic. I could have been more assertive and put some physical (and emotional) distance between us rather than hitting my ever-present mute button. I just didn’t want to walk on eggshells because I didn’t want to hurt him, and acting fake would have hurt him more in the long run. Is there a way to tell somebody that you’re just not that into him?

Years later, I’ve had my fair share of dating and often one-sided relationships. I’ve been dumped or dismissed without warning by my significant others by them simply pretending that I didn’t exist anymore, that I was invisible.  It made me incredibly distraught, insecure, and hurt. Karma’s a bitch, right? But, I also tried to learn from each bad relationship and put things in perspective. I’ve realized how cruel and cowardly it was of me to treat Max that way, and to just blow him off.

Don’t make an effort to call, but don’t dodge and ignore him either. People feed off of attention, but guys also feed off of being ignored. Ignoring him will only make things more awkward. And it’ll make him angry too. Being non-responsive just dramatizes and drags out an already uncomfortable situation. It’s not a good idea to insult your suitor by using that old stale stand-by,  “It’s not you, it’s me,” because it is him, not you.

Finally, a simple but stern “I don’t like you that way” should suffice, even if you have to repeat it more than once. Eventually, the infatuation should fade. He’ll learn to get over it and actually respect you for being honest. After that, it’s up to the both of you to decide whether you can co-exist, if the friendship is salvageable.