between the lines

One of the age-old weaknesses of womankind is our proclivity for reading between the lines. Perhaps men do it too, but it’s by my female friends—and myself—that I see the most energy put into this behavior. And I have two conflicting viewpoints about it: on the one hand, I think it’s a pitfall to a healthy mindset; and on the other, I think what’s discerned through it can be very telling and can remind the reader of what she deserves—and what she doesn’t.

Yesterday I had dinner with the boyfriend of one of my closest friends. He has become a good friend of mine, and I adore him most of all for his incredibly rational take on everything. I have never been so sensically advised about my career, my finances, or my love life. In fact, I crave his input, because even when it’s hard to hear or I want to disagree with it, I know it’s based in solid facts, unbiased thinking, and logical expectations.

Last night he listened to my read on a situation with a guy I had some interest in a while ago and just shook his head. As I explained the email I’d sent asking this guy to do something alone with me for the first time (pathetic, of course, that I did that in writing), and as I described the obvious rejection of his response (suggesting instead that we do something with a group), this friend of mine began to grin, getting ready to lay into me with some wise and completely alternate explanation. “He’s not lego-ing it out, Lara.” (Good wording, I thought.) “He’s not over there strategically thinking. He’s just nervous. Maybe he’s not comfortable with being completely alone with you. Maybe that’s because he LIKES YOU.”

Maybe, we both agreed, my friend is wrong about that in that case; but I did admit that the prospect that this dating interest might have been thinking that way had never crossed my mind. I had seen it one way and one way only: if you’re into me, you want to be alone with me. Nuff said.

I hadn’t viewed my take on it as reading between anything—it just seemed obvious. And when I explained that to my friend, he conceded that it was a reasonable line of thinking. But, he suggested, maybe sometimes there was a little more to it. Maybe my own nervousness—the source, after all, of my avoiding asking in person—could indicate that people who are interested in other people don’t always show it just exactly as much as they feel it. Maybe actions aren’t louder than words. Maybe I was reading between imaginary lines.

The latter is a point I’ve become sensitive to as I’ve gotten older. By now I’ve seen it happen too many times. And I think I’ve gotten past it; but there are times when the line between misreading unsaid things and doing what’s best for me is hard to draw.

Consider this example: A few months ago I met another guy of interest to me; for a variety of reasons, it seemed unwise to pursue anything with him, but I liked him and he seemed to like me, so I decided not to think it through too much and just see what happened. And what happened is that we reached a point where things got good, and that may have given us each pause, because those obstacles were still there. And although I felt fully ok with the fact that this might have no real future—although I felt fully ok with just enjoying it for the time it could last—the minute it got good it also got confusing. When someone kisses you and enjoys it, he is supposed to want to do it again. Nuff said, right? So what if you don’t hear from him? What if you suggest doing something again soon and he passes that up? Is it reading between the lines to view that as passing you up—or is it the self-respecting, self-preservational, intelligent thing to admit?

My leaning on the answer to that is heavily shaped by an experience I had a few years ago. At the time, I had a boyfriend who seemed to be perfectly smitten with me turn up on my doorstep three days after taking me on a romantic weekend away to tell me that he couldn’t do “this” anymore. His explanation made little sense, as much of it included praise for our relationship being the best he’d ever had. Normally—probably any other time in my life—I would have asked him to clarify, to please try to make me understand how “seeing this go to marriage” and “being scared” could be reasons to break up. But what made this situation unique for me—and what made it pivotal in my thinking and perhaps in my maturing—is that he didn’t walk into my apartment wanting to discuss his feelings; he walked in wanting to walk back out. No matter what he said, the underlying point was that he did not want to be with me. And if there was one thing I could hear my inner self saying loud and clear, even through the tears that were already flowing, it’s that I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me. Nuff said and no arguing it.

In light of that, I did something I had never before done, which was decide I needed no closure; after five minutes, I asked him to leave. I never got any answers. I did want them—I thought I might wait a week and then call and ask for an explanation—but when I said that out loud, people kept telling me not to. The clincher was when my dad told me not to. When I said, “I think I’ll wait a week and then call him,” and my father unhesitatingly responded with, “If you talk to him again it’s because he called you”—when my father weighed in on my love life for the first time ever and assured me of what I am worth, I heeded his words, which brought me great clarification. It doesn’t matter how strongly you want to understand something, how much you believe in closing things out in a certain way. If someone else does not show you that respect, it’s either because he is a jackass or, as in this case, he just is not that into you (to steal a popular phrase).

Applying that same logic—accepting that logic—made me feel stronger. I still felt rejected, still felt completely blind-sided, but I felt stronger. I understood that people’s words and actions most certainly can indicate where their wantings lie, and acknowledging that is the most self-loving step I can take.

Lately, however, I’ve faced a quandary over that—wondering how to know when it’s the case. Recently I put a close to this situation in which the good part was followed by little else. I decided to put a close to it because of that acceptance that it’s not good for me to want something that isn’t. But what got me hung up, when I tried to explain this to the person, was his reaction to it. He did apologize for his not being in touch leaving me feeling hurt; but he also said he didn’t intend it to do that, he didn’t intend it to do anything—which is to say, he didn’t think about not being in touch. And he felt that should make it better (because it wasn’t malicious). I thought that made it worse, and when I expressed that, he said that I was “reading” his inaction as something much more than it was.

I’d hate to over-think or misread someone’s actions, especially if I’d be losing something meaningful in the process. But in this case I don’t think I was misreading anything. When someone kisses you and enjoys it, you think you’d stay on his mind, right? Words or lack of words, actions or lack of actions—these are the things that exhibit someone’s leaning. Maybe, accepting the point my friend made last night, I have to remember that in some cases hesitation is not the end all be all. But I can’t understand why I’d stay in a situation where a person thinks it’s fine to show me affection and then not show me anything; to have part of a conversation but not finish it. I’d hate to over-think or misread someone’s actions and lose something meaningful in the process, and I’m the kind of person who could worry about whether that’s what I’ve done for weeks. But I know that’s not healthy. And I know this, too: if he did care about me much at all, then he’d want to make things right. He’d make the effort to show me that I was not misreading anything; to show me that the problem was just that what I was reading was miswritten. When someone doesn’t make that effort, then the thing I’ve learned I have to do is let him go.