a letter - to guys (part 1)

We all know the girls that i am talking about...

they are time bombs and they are ticking

and the only question's when they'll blow up

- Mood Rings, Relient K

To guys,

First off, i don't speak for all women so don't assume that something i write here is law. The point of this letter is to explain that sometimes even girls don't get girls. Second, guys... you are confusing too but that's a topic for another time. Third, this is part one and (because girls are really confusing) i'm anticipating there will be at least a part two coming at you sometime soon.

A few weeks ago, a good guy friend called me at 10:30pm confused and deeply hurt by a girl that he thought he was in a relationship with. As he explained his side of the story i was shocked by how confusing i found her actions but also by the fact that i completely understood where she was coming from even though her actions made no sense. To clarify... i couldn't believe that she would hurt my friend like that, but i understood why it made sense in her head to do that. As i tried to explain her reasoning to my friend, i realized, not for the first time, that girls literally make no sense to guys sometimes. We say one thing, but completely mean another. We explain our side but don't really explain anything at all. Now, girls, before you get all up in arms remember i'm on your side. i'm a girl too. But man, we are terrible sometimes. 

All that to say, i thought i'd write you guys a letter. A letter that can hopefully shed a bit of insight on the female mind. And if all else fails, just listen to the song Mood Rings by Relient K and wallow in the fact that literally no guy understands us (or listen to their album "Forget And Not Slow Down" - rumor has it it's about a girl/breakup). 

Feelings.

Another close guy friend recently went through a break up. One night when we were talking he said "Wow, i really hate the 'F' word." A  little confused about what he meant, i asked him to explain, and what he meant was not the four letter word that originally popped into my head but another one... feelings. 

She broke up with him because she wasn't sure of her feelings. This was something that confused him because his were very clear. But instead of feeling anger towards her for breaking my friend's heart, i felt sympathy. 

Guys - you are generally very logical people. You think things through step by step and once you reach a step, there is another step that makes sense to take (generally speaking). Girls, on the other hand, are generally guided more by feelings. i don't know if you've ever noticed but a guy will more likely start a sentence with "i think" than with "i feel" and girls are the exact opposite. The way that God wired our brains is different and therefore our processing happens differently. 

Sometimes, in order to cause what we believe is the least amount of hurt, we girls will shy away from our feelings, cutting them off completely. When my friend's girl broke up with him because she wasn't sure of her feelings, i don't believe that she doesn't have any for him. Instead i believe the exact opposite - that she has too many feelings for him and doesn't know how to process that. So instead of taking time to figure it out together, she broke it off so that she could have space to dump the confusing feelings and figure them out solo.*

In some cases, girls choose to use our feelings, or lack-thereof, as a mask because we believe that by cutting you guys off, that will allow us space to understand what's going on in our heads. We are over-thinkers so often we overthink our feelings and mess ourselves up. Then we take that out on you poor unsuspecting gentlemen.

Feelings suck. Both for guys and for girls. But that doesn't mean that they can't be good. Guys, sometimes we just need space to figure it out. And, yes, space is scary. But believe me when i say, crazy, girl feelings are much easier to process with space.

 _________________________

*Ladies - i'm not saying it's bad that they broke up, just trying to explain for those poor guys out there where a girl might be coming from)