Since when is “Friend” a verb?
Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Absence makes the heart grow nitpicky. It’s been eleven days since I last saw The Wedding Date and even though I have very little to complain about, there’s one tiny little detail that’s been bothering me for the past… well, several months actually.
And we’ve talked about it, and I’ve assured The Wedding Date that I’m okay with it, but I’m not, not anymore.
It all began several weeks ago when we were snuggled up on his couch about to watch Modern Family.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I replied, “I want to ask you something first.”
“Uh oh.”
And so began my State of the Union address.
“The thing is,” I explained, “I write a blog. You can read about what’s going on in my love life on the internet every morning. But you… you don’t write a blog. I don’t know what’s going on with you.”
“Finally!” he exclaimed.
“Finally?”
“Yes! I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that. Most girls—most girls would never make it this many months without asking that. My friends keep asking me if we’ve had ‘the talk’ and I keep telling them, ‘No! You won’t believe it! This girl is so chill…’”
Chill?
I don’t know that a man’s ever described me as “chill” before, except for my first boyfriend, who used to call me his “ice queen” but I suspect that had more to do with my refusal to engage in below-the-waist activities than anything else.
“Well, it is only our fourth date,” I replied. “I’m not going to demand that you stop seeing other people, I just want to know if you are.”
“Seeing other people?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not.”
Well then. Frankly, this came as a bit of a surprise.
On that note, I decided to press on.
“And how do you feel about me seeing other people? I’m thinking of making a trip to Pittsburgh over the holidays to visit that guy I told you about. But I don’t want to mess things up between us.”
[Note: this conversation took place before I came to my senses.]
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ve been telling my friends,” he replied. “I knew what I was getting into with you. You told me all about your blog, and your ‘experiment’ and I don’t love it, but I’m okay with it. For the time being. As long as when you’re with me, you’re actually with me, not thinking about someone else the whole time.”
“Of course,” I assured him.
“Good. Anything else?”
“Yes, actually. One more thing: why aren’t we Facebook friends? Is it… is it because of your family or is it because of your co-workers?”
Ordinarily I wouldn’t care about endowing our relationship with the official Zuckerberg stamp of approval (and I’m certainly not angling for the change in status that my friend Meghan wrote about yesterday) but I’d like to be able to… you know… go through his pictures so I can submit them to one of those websites where they tell you what your children are going to look like.
Or convince him to start using that Four Square app so I’ll know where he is every MOMENT of every DAY.
Or send out nasty, hate messages to any and all female co-workers/ex-girlfriends who dare to post on his wall.
Or send friend requests to his parents, cousins and college roommates, complete with a friendly little note of introduction written in both English and my piss-poor Spanish.
Or maybe, just maybe, level the playing field a bit.
He does, after all, have full access to just about every thought that tumbles out of my head. And yet I can’t even muster up a single photograph to show my BFF when she asks about my date for New Year’s Eve.
Evidently, it is in fact because of his co-workers, in particular the co-worker whose date he was at the wedding where we met back in July. She doesn’t know about me, and from what I understand, she was none too pleased about my attempts to “steal” her date in the first place, even though we only danced once and didn’t even exchange numbers until weeks later.
Am I making too big a deal of this? Probably. I like the way things are going between us, and I don’t want to get all bent out of shape over a damn friend request, but nor do I want to turn a blind eye to what might potentially constitute a red flag.
(Especially as I’ve done little else for the past few months and we all know where that got me.)
Thoughts?
Related articles
- Crossing The Rubicon: Navigating the Facebook Relationship Status (katrichterwrites.wordpress.com)
- How to Get a Girl to Stay the Night (katrichterwrites.wordpress.com)
- Do You Swing? (katrichterwrites.wordpress.com)
Fieldwork in Stilettos 
11 Responses to “Since when is “Friend” a verb?”
First off, let me say how much I enjoyed writing for this blog and the thoughtful responses I read yesterday. Quite the platform you’ve got here Kat!
Secondly, you are definitely “chill” when you want to be. And not in the ice queen kind of way. I think it comes from a wealth of experience and maturity as well as the elegant control required to master dance of any kind.
Now, as for the Facebook request – Wedding Date has a serious predicament on his hands. He’s friends with his co-worker and in favor of workplace etiquette, he cannot de-friend her, nor move her to “limited profile only” without causing some kind of uproar.
That said, he absolutely can friend you. He needs to move ALL of his co-workers into their own separate friend category so he can control which posts are visible to them and which are not. Then, any and all “personal” posts that he wishes to conceal for propriety’s sake (i.e. not making Miss Co-Worker jealous) are easily hidden from undesirable eyes but visible to his.
This may sound a bit shady, but it’s a temporary solution to what I think is a temporary problem – if things get serious, she’s going to find out eventually.
Thanks, Meghan! And that’s a really good suggestion 🙂
Hmm. This is tough because it all depends on the vibe you get from the guy. And really, only you can know what that vibe is. It’s likely one of two possibilities:
1) He’s an ass who’s okay with keeping you secret from friends and co-workers because he’s not serious about you and wants to lead a double life of making the effort to hold together a secret longish distance sexless relationship with someone he’s not interested in at all, or
2) He really just doesn’t want to hurt the poor girl’s feelings. Yet.
Is that really so terrible? If #2 is true, then it actually kind of makes him a decent guy. Granted, you don’t want to go too long into this with him worrying about someone else’s feelings more than your own, but I wouldn’t push this until you’re more positive about how you feel about him. So. If you’re ready for the FB relationship status, just TELL him you’re ready for the FB relationship status. Or, if you just want to be friends with him on FB, then send him the friend request. Sometimes you just have to be forward. And something tells me you won’t have a problem with that. 🙂
Yeah, I don’t get a bad vibe, so I think it’s option #2, I just don’t want to sit around like an idiot in the event that it is actually option #1.
Red flag (for me): is there some other reason why doesn’t he want you to see what’s happening on his Facebook page? How would Lady Friend know he added you anyway, (unless she was counting his friend numbers every day for changes, and put 2+2 together)?
Hmmm…
Sorry, I don’t see a red flag. He sounds nice. And like he’s waiting for YOU to move things to the next level. Some guys prefer when the woman nudges things forward…so they know they won’t get into hot water by moving too fast in an unwanted way. Just enjoy what you have and when (if?) You are ready to become his “girlfriend,”…make it known. When I started seeing my current beau (we’ve been together 10 months now – we’re both in our 40s and been married before), he FB friended me and I ignored his request…until we became “officially a couple” in real life…because my ENTIRE life is exposed to my friends on FB. And in my career, I have to be a tiny bit choosy about who gets access. So don’t be too hard on the guy. Relax, enjoy, and when the time is right to change things, you will. 🙂
It’s FACEBOOk! Seriously! Guys don’t typically post nor do they get involved with Facebook drama. Don’t look for problems when there aren’t any. Meanwhile, enjoy the privacy the two of you have. I hate being witness to relationships in my fb news feed, get a room already and save the flirty innuendos for bbm or iMessage or whatever android has.
I know, I know… I keep trying to tell myself that 😦
OMG, this is too funny, tech support doesn’t let us see his FB, not that he even uses it that much (so he says), but we are “friends” on it, as someone else posted yesterday, FB has become just one more thing to worry about and use to quantify the relationship/friendship/etc. Obviously those of us that are older have a broader view on just how important a role FB should/should not play in a relationship.
[…] Since when is “Friend” a verb? (katrichterwrites.wordpress.com) […]