Let's Just Be Friends

This is just ramblings on one of my life's experience. I hate it when a man says, "let's just be friends" when what he meant was "I'm going to make my assessment whether you can be my potential girlfriend or life partner". The worst part is when they've made their decision (and it's a NO), they'll just vanish without a trace. That's how you knew actually what they meant by 'being friends'. If any of your male friends has ever said that and is still around, they're your friend. But if they disappear without a trace after some time, most probably they've actually assessed and rejected you as a potential life partner/girlfriend.



In dramas, you'll hear this kind of dialogs when one of the parties is hinting to have a more serious relationship and the other party is not ready for any commitment. In this case, I'm referring to those stating up front when they want to befriend you, with great stress on the word 'friend' as if that will give them the license to dump you anytime they see fit. Except, you don't dump a friend do you? These guys will insist you go out with them and say, "Come on lah... it's just a friendly outing. We're friends, what's wrong in going out with a friend". (Warning: These people I'm mentioning are not a total stranger. If a stranger said that to you, my advice is to run away as fast as you can. Don't ever think those rape cases mentioned in the news will not happen to us.)



My messages to these people:-



Firstly, please don't abuse the word 'friend'. I really value that word and very often I'll take that word at face value. Friend means someone who'll stick with us through thick and thin, admittedly at a varying degree depending on how close we are with that friend. Vanishing without a trace however, did not fall under that idea of friendship to me. My Collins 2 in 1 English Dictionary and Thesaurus (my trusted companion all through university life until now) defined friend as 'one well known to another and regarded with affection and loyalty'.



Secondly, that man is assuming the woman will get hysterical and crying buckets of water tears when he told her "we shouldn't continue seeing each other anymore". That's apparently why he chose the safest route i.e. vanish into thin air, instead of dealing with the hysterics and tears. For all he knew, she has never even thought of him as anything more than friend, or has already put him in her potential husband reject list before he told her to just be friends. The only reason she just smile or agree to his suggestions of being just friends is because she didn't mind being friends and nothing more than that at all.



This has happened to me several times in my journey through life but it's not a great lost actually. You don't need this kind of 'friend' around. At first, it baffles me but immediately I get my "aha!" moment and don't know whether to laugh incredulously at their immaturity or slap my forehead in amazement that such people exist. Next time someone said that to me, I'll just roll my eyes and leave them gaping waiting for my answer.



And some of my friends have weirder experience. They are just being friendly to a classmate or colleague, as friendly as you can be to classmates or colleagues that will never be anything to you if they're not in the same class or office, when suddenly they received a tearful note asking "why you went out with another guy, how could you break my heart like this, how could you do this to our relationship, etc.". And these guys have the gall to announce to their friends they have break up with so and so. Hello... when do you ever have a relationship in the first place??



That makes me wonder how weird some people can be and what a distorted social understanding they have. Probably they crave for some drama in their life that they exaggerate things and then going through life believing in the things they exaggerated in the first place. Or they genuinely don't understand how things really work. That when someone lends you their notes when you asked from them does not mean you're in a relationship. Even writing that down sounds incredulous. Can someone literally be like "katak bawah tempurung" in this borderless world? Well, maybe it is not that borderless a few years back, but still.