As typical with my blog, I’m going to refer back to an American TV series to set the post tone. There’s a scene in the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Prom” where Angel breaks up with Buffy because (long story short) he’s a Vampire, she’s a Slayer, ergo – not good (it’s like somebody from Made in Chelsea going out with somebody from Geordie Shore). Buffy then confides in Willow and relays the conversation she had with Angel.
Willow, being Buffy’s best friend immediately jumps to Buffy’s defense “he’s a super maxi jerk person” she says (being the potty mouthed person that I am, I would use a term more akin to “he’s a twat” or something along those lines). It’s the natural human reaction from somebody who cares about you to make HIM (or HER) the bad guy (GIRL). Through these conversations about love interests, we’ve come to learn that the acceptable course is to vilify the person in question.
I’ve done it, you’ve probably done it – we’ve all done it. It’s human nature. “He’s an idiot!” “She’s a fool!” “What a dick!” “They don’t know what he’s missing!” “Shall I hunt him down, remove his penis and feed it to him?” – all natural reactions when a friend is sobbing and snivelling all over your new favourite Topshop jumper because they’ve been rejected. The easiest thing to do is point the finger and blame somebody for the hurt that you or a friend is feeling – we live in a blame culture society.
If somebody likes you and you have to have the awkward “it’s not me, it’s you, I just don’t like you” conversation, you’re not doing it to be the bad guy or to hurt somebody, you’re usually doing it to be the good guy. You’re not avoiding calls, ignoring texts or sending half hearted replies – actually having that conversation is harder and requires bigger balls. But the person in question may not see it that way. Their ego is bruise and its human nature because he’s hurting.
A recent situation I found myself in made me think about this more clearly, because I, like everybody else have been guilty of vilifying someone because they don’t like me. I’ve had a recent “Charl likes a boy” (shock, horror) crush and he’s made it clear to me that he’s not interested in me in any other respect other than as a friend. As mentioned above, the natural reaction of friends when you tell them of this situation is that said boy is a tw!t. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. He isn’t good enough for you.
& I sat and thought. Really?
No, honestly. Really?
People have different tastes, just because you aren’t to one persons tastes, there’s no one to blame, there’s no one to vilify in this situation.
Food example: I like olives. Scrap that, I love Olives. Stuffed, drenched in lemon juice and with feta cheese – I could eat them all day long. Some people don’t like olives (I personally think that these people are crazy, BUT that just means more olives for me). What I don’t like is mustard, some people, they love mustard. Some people could slather their loved one in mustard from head to toe and lick it off. Mustard makes me gag – I think there’s nothing more foul tasting that has come into contact with my taste buds…. but does that make me a bad person?
Does the fact that somebody doesn’t like you make them a bad person? I’ve not reciprocated somebodies affections before – that doesn’t make me a bad person. It’s just down to personal opinion, if we all liked the person who liked us there would be no heartbreak, there’d be no music (imagine a world without songs like Baby One More Time or End of the Road by Boyz2Men – I don’t want to live in that world) and Ben & Jerry’s would probably gone out of business a long time ago.
Another fab post!
There are certainly ways to do the whole break up. ” it’s not you , it’s me”, admittedly in my 25 years of living and only one relationship, I’ve been on the receiving end of it but it was done in a nice way, and whilst distraught we got past it and still remain friends to this day (over 7 years after it ended) sometimes things are for the greater good.
The thing you mention about food is interesting in the fact that I’m a fussy eater and don’t digress too much on a week by week basis. It sounds daft to say, but there are days I feel it explains my singledom for so long. I’m not attractive and my personality (so I’m told) makes up for it but I can feel that not liking that much to eat, puts me far into that freaky character and will be a very long time before someone takes a chance