When you meet a woman and you have a nice chat or two, and before you know it, she's giving you this, "I just want to be friends" talk.
It feels like a putdown. She's announcing she has no romantic or sexual interest in you. That's fine if she has no such interest, but why do I have to listen to her announce it to me like Martin Luther nailing his 99 theses to the wall?
I've never told a girl early on, "I just want to be clear, I'm never going to lend you money or give you a ride to the hospital or be there for you during tough times and when your other friends are shunning you."
I'd never dream of making such an announcement.
It usually strikes me dumb when a woman makes this little speech to me. I usually just assent but then I feel one-down. I've allowed her to put me below her.
I need to change things up. I think I'll go with, "I'm not going to put definitions on what we might be to each other. You brought this up. I didn't ask you out on a date or lean in to you for a kiss. So you're making this pronouncement that you will never have romantic or sexual interest in me and it's a putdown and I'm not going to put up with it."
I understand why women do this because most guys think that if a woman talks to him for longer than a minute, that means she wants to sleep with him. So I understand the female's desire for clarity, to avoid leading a guy on and for taking compassion on his feelings.
The things is, I'm not sure clarifying that you guys are just friends will do any good. If a guy is dead-set on sleeping with you or making romance with you, he'll just lie and say he's OK with just being friends. But any guy who says that is just putting himself one down and failing her test to see how strong he is and in all likelihood, he'll only ever remain a friend.
I've had a lot of female friends and very few of them, if any, developed into anything more than friends.
