The Art of Telling Girls the Wrong Thing

Girls who fish for the answers they want irk me. When I was in high school, people thought I was very smart. The problem with being smart is you always seem to get stuck in the friend zone. Cheerleaders like you, but they do not want to date you. Instead, I got to help them with their homework. I also had to hear them reflect on their problems. I was a good listener, so they often confided in me regarding their insecurities.

I had often talked to one of the cheerleaders about her weight. Being a cheerleader, this was always an area of concern for her. She did not want to look fat in her uniform. Truthfully, she was not overweight, but she was a little larger than the other girls on the team. I blame her constant concern on the image that society holds up as beautiful, but that discussion is for a different time. Anyway, she was constantly asking me if I thought she needed to lose some weight. I was not exactly intelligent when dealing with girls, but I sure was not stupid. Because I was not stupid, I knew that I could not actually agree with her. I knew she was fishing for me to affirm her beauty, and I did so consistently.

Did I mention that I hate people fishing for the answers they want? Well, I do. And every time I told this cheerleader that she was just fine the way she was, it would place another brick on the wall to my house of anger. I mean, she did not see me as someone she could date, but she was more than willing to accept help on her homework from me. I did not get to be her boyfriend, but she wanted me to tell her she was beautiful. And, she was trying to get me to say something just because she was insecure about herself.

One day I snapped. There are only so many bricks you can add to a house before it is built. The cheerleader came to me again, asking if she needed to lose weight. I could not stand it anymore, so I told her that she could probably lose about ten pounds. She looked at me like I had just taken a shovel to her dog, or punched a baby in the face. After our discussion, she decided that it would be a good idea to tell her boyfriend that I was rude to her. He wanted to fight me, as is the typical jock response. It was not until I explained the situation that he calmed down. In fact, he even ended up telling me that he got tired of her asking him the same thing.