This is what it's like when worlds collide

Well, my family life, my right-handed social life (Curtis, Courtney, high school crew), and my left-handed social life are on a nearly inevitable course toward one another. My left-handed social life consists of Eric, Mike, Heidi, Jackson, Craig, etc--or the Shop Rite crew. I thought I was going to be going camping this friday with the leftys but now it turns out Eric's staying home and probably with Craig because they both have to work Saturday morning. So instead, Mike invites me to Kelly's parents or grandparents summer home in Shawnee for Friday to hang with him, Kelly, and Jackson and Ashley. So, I'm all for that.

Then, my cousin has a birthday party at 5pm on Saturday, so I've got to stay a couple hours for that. With this all planned, Curtis calls me from Courtney's house and invites me over for Drunk Survivor II on Saturday with about 16 people or so participating, although I doubt we'll get that many participants.

So, in a few short hours, my weekend is set and I'm ready to start. So why do I still feel so lonely? Maybe it's a lack of female companionship. I can't bring Christina to my family for obvious reasons. I can't take her to a righty party because it's embarrassing lpus I don't think she'd enjoy herself. And I can't take her to a lefty party because Kelly hates her and it's Kelly's house, so that wouldn't be right. So, I'll have to wait. Either way, I should really just call her to show I do have interest. Even if only to talk.

My main fear is that I won't ever get a chance to get to know her better because I'll hesitate and she'll get a boyfriend or something. But if I seem too anxious to hang out or whatever, I might scare her away. Fortunately, we have a pretty healthy relationship with one another and can just talk, so hopefully if I call her, random chit-chat bullshit can turn into making plans for meeting up and hanging out. She was always my consolation for when other girls didn't show interest or pissed me off. Now she's the focus. Either way, I'll still have my friends.

There's something I've picked up over the last couple months. Making friends, or getting girls interested, relies on not putting too much pressure on the other person. This is mistaken as girls only liking "assholes" because assholes really don't care what the girl thinks of them and the girl spends all her time dealing with that. But it's not only assholes. Obviously, decent people are getting girlfriends. In fact, assholes lose their long-term chances because it's more complicated than simply not caring.

It's all about pressure. As I said, assholes put no pressure on a girl in regard to how her decision will make him feel, so she can go ahead and do stuff with him fully knowing that she can back out at any time and he won't be affected (this may not necessarily be true, but it's what the girl thinks). This is why assholes get a LOT of play, but aren't as good at holding long-term relationships.

The big part of it all is confidence. Not only confidence that the girl will agree to go out with you, but confidence in yourself in general. You can't make it seem as though her decision will make or break you. You can't make it seem as though she'll be doing you a favor by going out with you. On the contrary, she should feel somewhat grateful you're taking her out. And that's not a sexist remark. The same could be said going the other way, but since I'm focusing on a guy liking a girl, that's what I'm going to stick to.

So, in the end, it's all about making it seem like something she would want to do not to satisfy you, but out of her own accord. A pity date is worthless. If it seems like she's starting to do it because she feels sorry for you, you're better off staying home and cancelling plans. This'll show that you have a life outside of her and can enjoy yourself without her, which will make her more apt to go on a quality date with you.

It sounds like this is a fear tactic, like you're making her jealous or playing hard to get. But it's not. These tactics are simply misplaced attempts to show they have a life away from her and take the burden of being a source of either bliss or misery away from her. They are ways of taking the pressure off, but with all this other stuff that hurts things. No matter what, always show that you enjoy yourself with her (only if this is true!) but that you don't NEED her. Not yet anyways.

In short, you don't love them hoes. It's blunt, but it's honest. How can someone say "I love you" without really knowing the person. Can you fall in love with a face and a body? No. Can you fall in love with another human being? With a sense of humor and depth and emotion and companionship? Hells yeah. So it's not until you've been in a relationship long enough to really know the other person, and their motives for their actions and everything that goes into them that you can truly mean it when you say "I love you"

There. A healthy look on relationships. I could have used this advice last year BADLY.