“He’s an asshole… You’re so much better than him.” Almost every woman has heard it once. It’s common to see a girl crying to her friend, saying, “I thought he was really cool,” or, “I thought he really liked me.” But, let’s face it: Sometimes that guy is just not that into you. You were drunk, he was drunk, you both ended up in a twin bunk bed and the next day it was awkward. You know what times to avoid walking through Red Square because you’ll see him. You avoid his friends because they will laugh at you. You both look at the ground when you pass by each other.
To many college women, this process is common knowledge. But, a short time ago, I proposed replacing all that awkwardness with a new concept called friendship. This may confuse some of the men reading this because, to the average 20-year-old college guy, friendship is generally limited to other males. A “sausage fest” is the preferred term for a time for most men to reflect-drink beer, watch the game, collect countless hours on Play Station- and generally sit around waiting to get “housed” on the weekend. While this is all good and fun, these are not the only things that friendship entails. Let’s not lie. For the most part, if a guy tried to be a girl’s friend, he most likely wants to get into her pants. But, maybe the opposite sex has something to offer in the way of friendship.
Although radical for my time, I attempted to avoid the awkward consequences of a hook up and endeavored into the realm of male-female friendship. I did the unthinkable. I e-mailed him. It was short and to the point, saying that I wanted to be friends. Sure, maybe I kind of liked him, but what was the harm in that? I never suggested any interest in a long-term serious relationship or anything more than a conversation and a laugh.
His response was not as cordial. I wasn’t aware that “Can we hang out?” was code for “I want to marry you.”
He bluntly replied, “I was just trying to have a good time, and time expired.” The e-mail closed with a line written seemingly gleefully by him and his friends: “Good luck with all your future endeavors.”
With that came, “He’s an asshole … You’re so much better than him,” from friends. While this was humiliating, confusing and infuriating, I went nearly a month still hoping he’d come around and that, in time, we could both laugh at our foolishness. I knew we would eventually meet and either come to a draw or a standstill. We could say “hi” or ignore each other. But what came to follow was completely unexpected.
I had decided to attended a party at his apartment. I said I would be cordial, respectful and assumed the fact that we’d seen each other naked might merit a hello. But as I walked through his apartment, I passed what he and his roommates had entitled “The Wall of Shame.” Mounted on the wall was the e-mail I had sent him and a note I had left on his door to retrieve something, an item consequently left outside my front door.
Profound anger, many tears, verbal threats and several outside offers to “take him out” followed. At the time, I asked myself so many questions: How long had it been hanging there? How many people had seen it? Why did he put it up? How could he face me knowing what he’d done? What did his friends think of me? What did he think of me? In retrospect, I wonder why it all mattered. What I cannot understand is how someone could do something so cruel, empty and heartless when I hadn’t hurt him or embarrassed him in front of his friends.
I didn’t intend to write this piece to make known some terrible thing that some “asshole” did to me. I don’t need to mention his name. Nor did I write so that all girls will lose hope in mankind. All I ask is that women recognize boys like this one and walk away like I should have.
I am still disgusted at him, at his friends, at all those that saw that note and laughed and, worse, at those who saw it, knew it was wrong and didn’t take it down. He will continue to avoid me, but I will walk with my head up. I will not avoid him or his friends or the places that I might see him.
To me, he is nothing but a worthless coward. I have no hate for him, but pity, and not just for him but also for other boys like him that most girls have known. I only hope that for the rest of college, he and his friends enjoy continuing to degrade women, despite knowing that they’d hurt someone else more than they will ever comprehend. Actually, I wish them luck with all their future endeavors.
