Independent Women

Before I comment, I want to give credit where credit is due. Most of my ideas spawned from an article that I read by Cliff Young entitled "What Men Really Think About Successful, Independent Women". Any direct quotes from his articles are in quotation marks and italicized.

"Being friends with females is great, but most guy-girl friendships need to be clarified at some point. I once heard somewhere that in every guy-girl non-dating relationship, one person or the other at some point wants the relationship to go further than just a friendship. Think about it, if it’s not you, it’s probably them. "

• While I give Cliff credit for his words, this is a thought that I have expressed many times - I think even in a blog entry. Men and women can't truly be friends - at one point in the friendship one or both people have wanted to pursue a relationship. The good thing is to know that there is a chance the guy is interested if you just want to be his friend and if you like him that maybe he just wants to be friends. This can be a very sticky situation for either person. If you are the one that just wants to be friends then you feel like you have to be careful to never "encourage" the relationship - in some cases, you even worry about being nice because you think they may interpret it wrong. If you are the one with the crush, then you probably read something into every touch, ever comment, every action that the other person makes. You think "does that mean he likes me because he wanted to sit by me?" or most likely it means "we're pals and I let you know that we were just pals by always having an excuse when you invited me somewhere". The problem is knowing when he/she likes you back and it is mutual beyond a friendship. Good luck solving that problem! I still don't have a good radar when he is just giving the friend vibe and I am not good at giving "just the friend" vibe without being too harsh. To help figure out where your friendship/potential relationship lies, I say just go for it. If you ask him out and he says no then nothing is lost and you have your answer. The friendship may be awkward for a few weeks/months but eventually you will move past it and back to the friend plane.
• Good news is that just like you have crushes on someone, by the law of averages someone has a crush on you too!

"Women want to be pursued, they want to be needed in a relationship and they want to be treated like a lady - chivalry is not gone or outdated (you may want to “Google” the term if you’re unsure of what it means; that would be a good start."

• I was so glad to finally read this in print so I know that I am not crazy. In the article, this point fell under Lessons Learned for men. This is something that I have thought about over and over recently. I just want a guy to ask me out, pursue me a little bit - I don't want to ask you out, I want you to call, ask me out, act interested, call me back, etc. I don't mind asking a guy out but I lose interest faster if I do that. Instead, I want to be pursued, romanced, etc. I want to be excited about the ride the relationship will take and I want to enjoy the ride of not knowing what might happen next - whisk me off to the mountains for the weekend, show up with a flower in the car seat, take me out on a date to play putt-putt or go to the driving range (not dinner and a movie), go rollerblading or on a bike built for two on the Silver Comet trail...