This blog is intended to help and bring insight to people. Please feel free to share this with others. It’s not a platform for shaming, embarrassing, or calling anyone out. Any comments of that nature will be deleted.
While it is addressed to the men, women are welcome to read, comment, and share, especially since their perspective would be quite valuable.
This is the fifth in the series How to Get the Girl. Everything before this so far has been the man praying, thinking, scanning, surveying, and deciding. To help catch you up, here’s a table I made that summarizes the series so far.
(Making the table was almost as long as writing the blog itself, so please appreciate it. Blog links are clickable. That took forever!)
[table id=1 /]
Why should I tell her?
Some guys may wonder, why bother telling the girl anything at all? Maybe you’re in pretty close already. You get to hang out and talk. In fact, you’re almost like in an exclusive relationship already, just not acknowledging it. So why bother right? She’ll figure it out eventually and you two will transition automatically into romantic, then marital bliss, right? Not necessarily. Now, some couples have done that, true. But many others have gone the same way, only for one or either party to be disappointed (usually because of the lack of decisiveness of the man). Examples:
-
Why tolerate disappointment? Say what you need to say. Scenario 1: Girl thinks they’re just friends. Guy thinks they’re more than that. She starts making other friends. He gets jealous. She can’t understand him. Whose fault? His two times – for not saying anything then for getting jealous over a non-relationship.
- Scenario 2: Girl thinks they’re becoming something more than they are. Guy seems to be giving her special attention. She is always available for him when he invites and vice versa. Then he starts to like someone and he tells her. He’s surprised that she’s acting hurt and affected. Whose fault? Both of them – girl for assuming they’re more than friends, him for giving her reason to assume.
- Scenario 3: Girl and Guy are super close friends. Guy is too scared to make a move beyond friendship, but constantly stays around the girl, shooing away potential suitors. (nambabakod) Girl wonders if she should wait for the guy to make a move or just entertain someone else. Whose fault? Guy for selfishly holding on to someone he doesn’t plan to pursue, and Girl for letting him.
In short, a lot of disappointment, false expectations, and wasted time can be avoided by just saying how you feel and what your intentions are. So stop living in this fantasy world and make something happen in reality.
How do I tell her?
Great question!
1. Keep it simple. Too many guys treat this like a proposal. It’s not. Save the big gestures for when it really matters. I don’t understand spending so much time and energy on this kind of thing, when you’ll have a lifetime to do that with your wife. Besides, what if she says no? You’ll regret spending all that money. (Last year, I heard about a similar concept – promposal: an elaborate, romantic scheme to ask the girl to the prom. Seems like a lot of unnecessary effort to me for a single date for one night.)
2. Be clear. This is very important. As difficult as it can be, and I know the feeling, you must make your feelings and your plans clear to her so she knows exactly how to respond. Don’t leave room for misinterpretation.
- How do you feel? I-like-you.
- What do you want? To-see-if-we-can-be-more-than-friends.
- What happens next? May-I-date-you-and-pursue-you-so-we-can-get-to-know-each-other-better?
Even if the girl says no, I’m sure she’ll appreciate the effort you put into being clear and honest with her. It’s definitely better than the majority of her interactions with other men.
3. Be assertive. Once you’ve told the girl your feelings, you’ve only just begun! Some guys get to this point and relax. They’re just glad to let it off their chest. The girl on the other hand is now wondering what happens next. In short, keep the ball in your court. It’s your move. What’s next? Let her know and she will respond.
4. Be gracious. If she says, no. This is not the time. Just respond graciously and thank her for being honest with you. That’s much better than a girl who will let you keep thinking there’s hope when there never was any. You were honest and clear, now she’s being honest and clear. Say thank you and then change topic. Maintain a polite poker face, but text your guy friends that you’ll want to – play basketball, Tekken, DOTA, pig out, etc. Whatever you need to bounce back.
Regardless of the outcome, there’s something to be thankful for.
If she says no, then you can rest assured that this is not the time to be pursuing this girl. Should you wait for her? Should you stay close and keep trying? Should you move on? Well, go back to Blog#1 and restart the process.
If she says yes, you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. Because you’ve only just begun.
Warning:
- DO NOT take this step if you just want to get something off your chest. That’s just selfish. If you only wanna express feelings, without any plans of acting on them, what is the girl supposed to do? Is she supposed to pursue you now? Those are the actions of a boy, not a man.
- DO NOT take this step if you haven’t thought things through and counted the cost. Don’t start dating her and then be surprised it would make you give up time, money, pride, and other things. Don’t be surprised if she wants you to get into different things or doesn’t like all of your female friends hanging around. Getting into a relationship changes you! That’s why I never dated in my student years. I knew I didn’t want to sacrifice anything.
Tell the girl if you’re ready to back up your words with actions.
DO take this step, if you’re ready for adventure, joy, and kilig, along with sacrifice, pain, and a lot of patience. Take this step if you’re ready to do whatever is necessary, including but not limited to swallowing your pride, saying you’re sorry, being open to new experiences, and pursuing especially when you don’t feel like it. It’s the best. 🙂
I laid down my intentions to a girl I liked. After asking for her permission to pursue and date her, she told me that she will pray for it. I told her maybe I can follow up with her decision after a week but she requested to make it two weeks.
Basically, the ball is in her court already. She even told me to treat her as a friend for the meantime until she allowed me to do so. My VG leader told me to relax and pray while waiting for her decision. However in this very good article, you mentioned that men needs to be assertive, does it mean I need to make a move after telling her I like her? I’m not good at reading women’s language to be honest, and when she told me to treat her as a friend for the meantime until she gives me a hint, I understood it as it is.
Do you think I am missing something here? Hoping for your reply Pastor Joe! God bless!