Girl's Behavior

Please Stop Being Too Nice

Without being even a decade old, I’m cynical and bitter. Long experience has taught me to guard, to scoff, and to dismiss compliments for being misguided at best and destructive lies at worst.
You completely disarmed you. You walked in, made fun of my computer choice and the videogame I was playing, and left. I had no idea who you were for weeks-no idea we even worked in the same department. But every time a brunette guy walked in, I know I slid a glance.

I fought this. I told myself it was a stupid crush; it’ll go away. It has to go away. Please, please go away. You teased me and stole small moments of your shift, just to come back and mock me. You offered your computer expertise and we talked about MMOs and FF7. You seemed to like brunette girls. Just not this brunette girl, I know.

I flew halfway around the world. I worked in a strange culture for a year, and I kept waiting, kept up the facade, please, let this go away. You’re a player and a flirt. But when I came home to visit, and you kissed me, and said you liked me, I couldn’t keep my wall up for a single second. Even when I went back, after only two weeks in America, you messaged me and fell asleep on Skype at 5 am talking to me for months.

You didn’t want long distance. Yet you wouldn’t leave me alone. I was prepared to step onto that plane and never hear from you again. I’d had my brief flush of requited power. “This crush couldn’t go on forever,” I thought, naively, hopefully. You chased after me for months. I let you. I see your flaws-your inability to discuss your feelings in depth, your seemingly random decisions about the girls you date. Yet I love you all the more for them. Your nerdy interests, your dedication and your work ethic, your religious devotion without being a nut job. Your sense of humor, your laugh, your taste in movies, books and music. I let you in. For you, I’ve never been so defenseless.

You dated someone else. Your cousin had to be the one to tell me. It crushed me. I wrapped myself in anger and hid from you online. You saw me on Skype, on AIM, only when I made the mistake of letting my guard down. And you sprang conversation onto me every single time, as if nothing had really changed. You knew I liked you, and that I was crushed, yet you still kept after me.



I came back. I let mutual friends convince me to let it go-it’s been four months since then. You broke up with your girlfriend. From the moment I walked back into an American bar, you practically begged for my attention. You brought me cookies, because I jokingly demanded that or world domination. You gave me rides, even when I tried to refuse the first five times. When I was cold, without asking, you put your coat around my shoulders. You leaned into me at movies and tickled me at bars. You sent me messages every day, contacted me first, invited me everywhere. When I blushingly admitted at a group dinner I couldn’t resist a guy in a suit, you showed up to an outing in a three piece, and asked how I would rate you in it.

And my heart-my reckless, foolish, brave heart-thought it meant something. I can’t take back my admittance… that as hard as I have tried to eradicate it, this crush has rooted itself in me for two years. Maybe you’ll never talk to me again, finally fed up with my lack of control, as you see me as “just a friend.”

I’d welcome it. So long as you try to keep me in your life, you will be in my heart and my dreams, the two places I cannot scrub clean of you.

I only ask that, if you wish to remain friends, you do one thing for me. Don’t flirt. Don’t reach out and touch me. Each time you do, I feel my core, the deepest part of me, shiver in pleasure, only to wilt, realizing-like you do when you wake up from a beautiful dream-that reality will never be as sweet. Don’t ask me to hook you up with my single female friends… even in jest, even when drunk. Stop offering me rides, stop finding me when I’ve disappeared from a rowdy party. You are the last person I want to see-as I probably escaped because I couldn’t stand to see you smile that smile at the cute bubbly blonde.

Be my friend. Be nice. But please, stop being too nice. This is the cost of my friendship. In return, I promise never to utter such a blasphemous thing again… that I like you, and I fear, I always will.
Please Stop Being Too Nice
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