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A Shout-Out or Two

For Toula from Been There:
"I just wanted to say to Toula who wrote about her net friend and thinking about him in a more than friendly way. I've been there. When I met Justin we just clicked. We got along great, we didn't have precisely the same interests but a lot of them were the same. I could just talk to him. Within days we were boyfriend/girlfriend. This lasted wonderfully for two and a half months. Then I started liking someone in my town. Eventually Justin and I broke up. It didn't work out with the guy in my town but the breakup was right. He lived 2000 miles away and the relationship was too hard without ever having seen him or heard his voice or touched him. I had nothing to hang on to in the empty nights where all I could think of was him. But now we're still best friends, I can still tell him everything, including all of my current love troubles, and he tells me everything too. We're perfect for each other, just not as boyfriend/ girlfriend. We agree that we make better friends than lovers. Online friends are great as friends; but in my experience without the human touch/sound/sight it's just too hard."

About Not Interested from Terry B:
There's an aspect to not interested's letter that may not have occurred to you. Have you read Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear? In chapter 11 (title: "I Was Trying To Let Him Down Easy") he talks about the art of saying no like you mean it, and how acquiring this skill would help women and girls a) be clear with guys who don't understand the finer shades and b) stay safe from certain kinds of predators who prey on women who can't say no. Our twisted culture gives guys some very weird ideas on what women mean when they say "no." Your suggested response was great, because it was unequivocal and difficult to construe as encouragement. But if Not Interested has a problem feeling entitled to say no when she means it, well, that's a whole other thing. Also, if she feels compelled (by her gender-specific upbringing or whatever) to "be nice" to guys right up until the point where she turns them down, she could be accused of "leading them on" by the more unsavory types, which could be painful for her, or even dangerous. I guess where I'm going with this is that the world can be a confusing place for a young woman, and she needs to learn to calibrate her responses to other people to her own feelings, not theirs (within the bounds of human decency). I speak from experience. Thanks."

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