Last week, I was hanging out with my friend, Rosa, and we had an interesting conversation on girls being friendly vs. flirty
It was Saturday, and we were planning on seeing an 8:30 showing of the movie Captain Marvel at the South Side of Pittsburgh. It was around 5:00 when we were hanging out, so we decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory for some food before the movie. It was pretty crowded in there, and the hostess told us that it would be an hour wait. I immediately wanted to leave and go some other place, but Rosa wanted to wait for whatever reason. I was telling her that it was foolish to wait because we were going to be waiting for hours, but she said that we could wait. I was hungry though, and I was dying for food. I had a small breakfast and a little snack before we hung out, so I was legitimately dying of starvation. Nevertheless, I listened to her, and we ended up walking around South Side and just going through different stores. I was slowly losing calories and losing my will to survive.
Surprisingly, it was only a 45-minute wait, and Rosa rubbed it in my face that she was right about the wait not being long. I congratulated her for being right, but 45 minutes is still a long time. I’m okay waiting 15-30 minutes to eat at a restaurant, but after that 30-minute mark, you start getting hungrier than usual and time just drags. However, you can’t dwell in the past, and I’m just glad I survived that 45-minute wait. I have to thank God for keeping me alive during that time period.
Anyways, we were seated in the middle of the room, and our waitress got us some drinks and a bread basket. I asked Rosa if she wanted some bread, but she said that she was fine. I immediately attacked the bread basket like a hungry hyena. I was laughing as I was finally able to nourish my starving body back to health.
Rosa laughed at me and called me so dramatic, and I replied and cried, “I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to wait. I was fighting for my life, and you were killing me out here. You were killing me. I gave you 30 minutes of my life. 30 minutes, and you made me wait 45 minutes for some food. So, I’m sorry that I’m being dramatic, but you made me this way.”
We were both laughing, and I was honestly proud of the performance I gave. It does take a lot of work to be dramatic.
A couple minutes later, we ended up placing our orders. I ordered a steak and some fries, while Rosa got some shrimp. We started talking and making conversation, but then she changed the subject. She asked me if I was still friends with Blake and Steve, and I told her that I kind of was. It had been months since I talked to Blake, and I barely talk to Steve. Then, she said that she’s not friends with either of them anymore, and she ended up telling me why.
She talked about how Steve was mad at her because she didn’t text him regularly, and he felt like she didn’t care about him as a friend. Rosa was telling me how she always initiated conversation with him, and it didn’t make sense that he felt like she wasn’t treating him like a friend. She told me how he went off on her in Snapchat, and it just made her not want to deal with him. I recall this. I was talking to Steve, and he ended up sending me a screenshot of what he said to her. I looked at it, and I told him that he went a little too far with his comments. He agreed with me, and he was telling me that he got carried away and was being too brutally honest with her. I told Rosa this, and she thought his “honesty” was ridiculous.
Then, she explained the situation with Blake to me. Rosa ended up telling him that she has a boyfriend, and this came as a shock to him. Blake asked her since when, and she told him for the past few weeks. This angered him because he said he had feelings for her, but Rosa wasn’t aware of these feelings. So, Blake decided that he wanted nothing to do with Rosa.
Rosa asked me if I knew that Blake liked her, and I said, “Yeah, I knew that he liked you, but I thought that you knew, too?”
She responded, “No, I knew that Steve liked me because Blake told me, but I didn’t know that he liked me too.”
I knew that Steve and Blake liked Rosa since last year, and it was just a shock to me that Rosa didn’t know.
Anyways, she continued to talk about Steve and Blake, and she told me something interesting that Blake said to her. Blake told her that she flirts too much, and she asked me if I agreed with him. I replied, “Well, I’ll admit that you do flirt a little. I’ve seen it, and you’ve even admitted to me that you like to flirt a little from time to time. However, I think that you’re more friendly to other guys than flirtatious. It’s just that some guys think that you’re just a total flirt, and they can’t distinguish your friendliness and flirtation.”
She agreed with me, and she was asking me if she did anything wrong. I said, “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. Based on what you’re telling me, you were the one that was just honest with them. They were the ones that wanted something more from you, and they were kind of dishonest about how they truly felt about you.”
I told her that I was sorry that she lost friendships that she held dear. I looked at her, smiled and said, “Just know that you got a friend in me.”
She smiled and thanked me for always being a good friend to her. A couple minutes later, we ended up getting our food and started having different, lighter conversations together. We later went and saw Captain Marvel. After the movie, we went our separate ways.
The conversation I had with Rosa about Blake and Steve really bothered me. I started thinking about this Facebook clip my little sister Shawna showed me of a high school boy hitting a girl because she wasn’t “friendly” enough to give him her phone number, while everyone watched and let it happen. That’s scary that females just can’t say “no” to some guys. They can’t say “no” to guys that are abusive and angry. They have to be polite, and they have to give those men what they want. Otherwise, there will be consequences. We’re a society that gets offended by a Gillette commercial that pushes all men to be better and held to a higher standard, “The Best Men Can Be.” How dare Gillette tackle “toxic masculinity”? They’re making it seem like it’s all guys, it’s just a few. Why do we have to address it? It’s disrespectful for Gillette to tell us how to be appropriate boys, let us be boys, Gillette. We’re fine just the way we are. All of us, or most of us are fine. It’s a shame that there’s no such thing as a female being friendly vs. flirty for some guys, they’re just the same thing.
Thank you for reading “Friendly vs. Flirty.” Be sure to like, share and comment your thoughts on this story.
On Thursday, I will be posting “Keeping My Art Private” on the Warfield Zone.
The Warfield Zone 