Our Boy Troy: Guy wooing and Friend zoning

Dear Troy,

Do you prefer to woo or be wooed?

Since when was this ever about me?  However, I suppose I can still answer your question.  I’m assuming to woo someone would be the same as to court someone, as in pursuing a relationship.  There’s no simple way to answer this question.

I suppose I like to woo; to pursue a relationship with a girl by giving her attention and spending time with her.  On the other hand, I also like to be wooed.  Nothing makes a good day like figuring out that someone is interested in me.

So to be brief, I prefer to woo and be wooed back.  I prefer a courting situation where the wooing can be represented by a pong ball in a game of pong (of the Atari variety; I know where your mind went).  I will woo you and you will woo me back and we will continue the woofest until we finally decide that there has been an adequate amount of wooage and we can move into some sort of relationship; at least in my utopia.

For all you other girls out there that are more interested in every guys’ opinion on this subject I have this to say:  It once again depends on the guy.  I apologize for always having to fall back on this reality, but it is just that: a reality.

The shy, quiet type generally prefers to be wooed seeing as how they probably aren’t going to make any moves themselves.  It is possible; however, that if you woo first that there is a wooer inside said shy guy (not of the Mario variety; I know where my mind went) just waiting to woo back and sweep you off your feet.

The more confident type prefer to be the dominant wooers, so my advice for dealing with those guys is to make yourself available and let them make the moves, otherwise you might annoy them and/or push them away.

Any guy that is not predominantly shy or confident probably don’t care who woos, and are more in agreement with my pong model.  I hope this answers your question and that you enjoyed my conjugations of “to woo” and my use of the verb “to court.”  I hope I never refer to that process as courting ever again…

-Troy

Dear Troy,

On campus I meet a lot of guys that I find attractive, but it seems to me that we automatically go into the “friends” category.  What kinds of behaviors should I look for that tell me a guy is interested and how should I let him know that I’m interested without being too forward in front of his friends?

On any college campus there are going to inevitably be a good amount of attractive people, so this fact does not surprise me.  The fact that you automatically go into the friends zone is something I find funny.  Not funny in a humorous way, but funny in an ironic way.  I see this happen to so many guys, that to find out it is happening to girl is quite surprising.

Girls get put into the friend zone for roughly two reasons: the guy is either spending his energy on some other girl, or he finds the friend zone-e undesirable.  One might argue that a girl could get friend zoned because the guy believes their friendship is too important to risk losing.  Funny thing is, no matter how often you hear this; it is most likely never true; not if you’re hearing it from guys anyway.

Most guys never think that logically when it comes to relationships; they would rather date someone and risk it than just have a friendship.  Now to expand on the idea that you might be undesirable.  I’m not saying that you’re unattractive, I’m just saying that for some reason the guy doesn’t desire you.

This could be for any number of reasons: he doesn’t like blondes, he’s not thinking about girls right now, he doesn’t like your laugh, you remind him of his sister, or whatever random reason that you could never plan for.  All this is assuming that you are in fact being friend zoned.  Chances are you may not be, at least not 100 percent of the time; it’s just unlikely: some guy is bound to at least give you a chance.

First of all, girls seem to view guy-friends than guys seem to view gal-friends.  Guys in general will shy away from having gal-friends completely because it’s just not preferable with all the catty stuff you girls like to do.  However, when a guy does break the mold and have girls that are also friends they are usually girlfriends of friends or just happen to be in their social group.

I have gal-friends that are inside and outside my social group, so it is possible for this to happen as well.  When guys do have girls that are friends they tend to never really let the possibility that they may date at some point leave their mind.  Unless you have been friends with a guy for a long while, he will probably entertain the idea of being with you.

I have, and still do think that if some of my gal-friends asked me out I would give it a shot.  Me, and guys like me, would almost prefer this because we want to be in a relationship with a girl who can also be our best friend.  However unfortunate it may be, not all guys are like me, but I can say that even if they aren’t and you are their friend, they would probably still consider dating you just because you are a girl.

In summary, you may not actually be friend zoned by these guys, and even if you are, all hope is not lost.  To answer your question on how to tell whether a guy likes you or not:  if he is spending any sort of long term energy on you then he probably is into you.  That is, if he is spending money on you, or he is calling you or sending txt messages frequently; if you were to simply ask him to go somewhere then he would probably agree.

A way to show him that you’re interested in him without turning him off?  The best advice I can give you is to be straight forward.  While there is reward in both parties being coy and playing the relationship game, if you’re straight forward with him then there will cease to be any confusion.  The number one problem here seems to be communication, remember that.

-Troy

Dear Troy,

So I liked this guy and he liked me back.  Stuff happened over break and I ended up texting him that if he didn’t like me that it was okay because I’m not the clingy type and he probably wouldn’t want to date me.  He texted me back and was mad, because I think he wanted me to just say that I didn’t like him.  When we got back to school he started ignoring me.  I still want to be his friend, but it’s hard when he’s ignoring me.  According to my friend, his best friend said that he just didn’t want me to like him.  Why is he ignoring me?  And why can’t guys be friends after stuff like this and breakups?

First of all, I’m sorry to hear that he is being so immature about this situation.  There are a couple of reasons why he could be ignoring you.  First of all, the fact that he wasn’t very honest with you up front about him not wanting you to like him is very sketchy and means he’s doing something very drastic.

For some reason in his mind you two just don’t mesh.  It could have been friends that made him think this, that he likes some other girl or some other revelation.  Normally when guys do that; when they blatantly ignore you, it’s not just for you: it’s for him too.  He’s trying to disconnect you two ( less of a disconnection and more of a severing) because it’s easier to not talk to you than have to worry about having a relationship with you at all.

Guys can do this thing where they look at two possibilities in the future and when they have to make a decision between the two futures, the immature, but common thing to do is to pick one and then completely stick to it.  They will cut themselves off from anything that would have led to the second option.  You happen to be the second option.

The reason guys can’t be friends after is because they have the tendency to stick their heads in the sand like an ostrich instead of dealing with a situation. The fact that he let the information leak but didn’t tell you makes it so, in his perspective, you don’t exist anymore, so he can’t hurt you.  The only thing you can do, if you truly still want to be friends with this guy is wait and give him a couple weeks, or a month or however long and then hit him up on Facebook or something.  Otherwise find cooler, more mature guys, like me

-Troy

Dear Troy,

What does it mean if I carpool with this guy to school everyday and he keeps giving me weird compliments like I have a hot bod, I’m the coolest girl, and he offers to buy me an ipod radio for the car and not make me pay him back.  He is my boyfriend’s best friend and my good friend as well.  What does this mean?

He digs you.  Completely.  He is so into you, but he doesn’t think that he has a chance right now.  That can be seen in how forward he is with his compliments and what he is willing to do.  He would probably never try to break up you and your boyfriend, but maybe so beware.  He also probably thinks that he would be a better boyfriend than his best friend or he wouldn’t move in on his best friend’s girl.

I wouldn’t worry about it, but he definitely likes you, and not in a just friendly kind of way.  He wouldn’t spend that much energy or money on you.  I bet he would also say something along the lines of he’ll always be there for you, and if you and your bf ever get into a fight and he finds out I would be willing to bet money that you’ll get a text or Facebook message or something letting you know that he will talk it out with you.

I could be wrong about this, but I’ve seen this scenario and been a part of it myself too many times to not be right.  You’re welcome.

-Troy