Teenage (and college) guys, when a girl says she just wants to be friends, take her up on it. If she’s anything like I was, she’s not yet comfortable articulating the details behind that statement. Perhaps some girls say it to soften a blow when breaking up, but when I said it as a teenage girl, I meant it. Deeply. The boy I said it to made the wrong assumption that it was an insult.
Now that I’m older, I can put to words what I couldn’t back then. Here’s my translation…
I want so much to be friends with you because I like you a lot but I’m not ready to be physical yet. I’m saving that for another day. That is not a rejection of you; far from it. I want to enjoy you in all of the other ways – intellectually, emotionally, laughingly, talkingly, hanging-outingly. I want to tell you who I am, what my dreams are, and hear all about you and yours. I want to hang out downtown and laugh so hard we cry. I want to go to the fair and the beach and nowhere in particular. It is the highest compliment I could ever give you, actually. Someday, if we find that we are meant to be companions for life, physicality will come with your commitment to me and my commitment to you. Until then, if I can’t even articulate why I want to just be friends, I’m not even close to a place where I can imagine doing the kinds of things you want to do. So trust me when I want your friendship. Take me up on it. There’s a lot of time to simply have fun together. Then you’ll have a loyalty from me that is beyond the shallow physical stuff.
Boys out there, be friends with girls. Girls out there, be friends with boys. Don’t believe the lie that teenagers are only meant to have crushes on each other or dump one another. This is a time when you can develop friendships you’ll never forget by the time you’re my age.
I felt compelled to write this after hearing a song from 30 years ago. It immediately brought to mind the feelings I had when telling the boy I liked so much that I didn’t want to “go out,” I just wanted to be friends. It was eighth grade and he was my first love. He was so insulted by it that he never spoke to me again over the following five years of school. That lack of resolution stuck with me for a good decade.
