Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl with enviable Rapunzel-esque hair sitting by her window, up in the highest tower of her castle, waiting for Prince Charming to come by on his white horse. Fast forward five hundred years and a girl is staring anxiously at the phone, waiting for the cute guy who asked for her number last night to call. Twenty-ish (?) years later and I am sitting in front of my computer; I can’t help noticing that he’s also online on Facebook and wonder why he’s not writing to me already. Would another half hour online –screw early morning classes- help him register my presence online and motivate him to actually send me a message? We are after all the generation that grew up with the Paulo Coelho fallacy: “When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
But the ugly truth is that if he hadn’t bothered to contact you (or me) the entire day, it is rather 100% unlikely that he will suddenly remember your existence late at night. Unless he’s looking for a booty-call, which doesn’t sound very promising.
Well, that’s not news, you might think. And you still find your own behaviour incomprehensible.
Why?
To borrow the words of one of my favorite twitter guys, “We overanalyze situations because we still entertain hopes, whereas the truth is very simple and straightforward. When someone is into you, they will text you.” (I am currently looking for a pretty frame, because I want this quote on my wall; right above my desk, where I can see it every time I am tempted to spend more time refreshing my Facebook home page instead of cuddling with my new favorite book –Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, tres recommended if you ask me- in bed.)
There you have it, the most intrinsic factore of the entire situation: hope.
You might have managed to make peace with the fact that someone might just not be that into you. You are not ice cream (French fries, nutella, etc. choose your poison of preference) and thus not everybody is going to like you. After having gone on many first dates and significantly fewer second ones, I have come to accept that guys not liking me back is simply fair game.* If I’m not into someone, how can I expect others to always be into me?
But there you have it, crawling under your skin: hope.
It’s that hope that keeps us up late at night, makes us check our inbox, hogs our thoughts and conversations. The hope that something will magically knock sense into the other and they will eventually call/ message/ email/ graffiti/ serenade you. All means of communication are welcome but for pigeon post.
But, truth be told, there’s only one situation that is painfully similar to what I’m describing: Do you know this feeling when you’re in bed, feeling snuggly, half-asleep and you really need to pee? Desperately? Like, right now? You feel that if you don’t pay a quick visit to the loo, you’ll never be able to enter this deep sleep stage. You have to get out of bed, otherwise you’ll stay there, tossing and turning, which, just like waiting for someone, is hopeless. And you cannot survive on coffee alone forever, right?
*Try explaining that to a friend though; they always opt for the “how can he not like you? You’re gorgeous and such a lovely person” approach, which is quite the mood-booster, but does not help with creating a healthy relation with rejection.
