A young friend of mine came into my office one day a bit upset. At first I thought it was work related.
He began to tell me about a young lady he obviously had an interest in, now I find relationships in this day and age interesting to say the least. All of the social norms have been deconstructed and there is little in the way of civility, in fact, ironically, all of this high tech information age has reduced civility to a text message. I am glad that I am from a previous generation or two. None the less I felt terrible about how this young man was feeling and I offered him a simple construct related to relationships. You need to become familiar with the fence. He looked at me rather quizzically, the fence? Yeah, the fence. Let me guess, you’ve liked her for sometime and so you’ve been her “friend”. He nodded. That’s a mistake, you see the first time you meet a potential mate your going to be sorted. It might take a couple of meetings, it might take a few months, but at some point you’re going to be put on one side of that fence. You’re either going to be put on the just a friend side or on the mate side. You my friend meant to be on the mate side but through your own timid actions placed yourself squarely on the friends side of the fence. He just looked at me like a bomb had gone off. I went on it might not be too late, if you are direct and tell her you’d like her to go out on a date or otherwise try to jump over to the other side of the fence you may make it. The longer you wait, the taller that fence grows though so unless you are very clever your chances are dwindling daily and at every encounter. She sees you as a friend, because you were a friend to her but you had an ulterior motive. Trust me, I went on, I am very familiar with the fence. Before my wife and I were married I started down the same path you did. We had several friends in common and when I told them that we were just friends and that I didn’t want anything serious, they both declared, you don’t want to be on the friends side! Once I realized what they were saying I changed my objective. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I was not starting out on the friend side of the fence. I decided to make sure she knew it too. I was aggressive in my pursuit and you should be too! Because in the end it’s always easier to go to the friends side of the fence, but damn hard to get back over it! He said thanks, he was obviously formulating a plan. Later I found out he had not been able to jump the fence, but I am sure from now on he is more decisive on his approach.