DOPAMINE Mailbox: A Letter from Eigo-chan
All right, I received this email last night. I asked permission from the sender to publish this, of course, and she agreed.
Dear MitsuiSelphie-san,
Since you write such sweet stories, I assume you’re great with matters of the heart. I’m so sorry to email you like this, it’s just that I have no one else to talk to. I feel shy discussing love with my RL friends and family. I’m very shy in person and though I have a lot of friends, I don’t usually talk.
There’s this guy in my class who’s really nice to me. We become very close in no time and he often holds my hand. Everybody thinks we’re best of friends, I think so too. But since a couple of months ago, he started sending me letter and text messages with “I love you” but when we’re together, he isn’t saying anything about it. AND he keeps changing girlfriends right under my nose. I don’t know what to think with his “I love yous.” Do friends of the opposite sex usually say that to one another? Thing is, I think I want to misunderstand his messages because I think I’m in love with him. Please help me, I’m so confused.
xoxo,
Eigo-chan
Well Eigo-chan, I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m “great with matters of the heart” because I’m not! I’m telling you now, my life is nothing but a love disaster. However, since you’ve put such great faith in me, I can’t let you down. So here goes. Eigo-chan, boys your age (they’re in high school, I asked her) could be confused with what they really want. Here are some possible scenarios:
- The guy might be head-over-heels for you, however, he hasn’t felt “real love” before and hence he’s experimenting with other girls to determine if what he feels for you is actually “love.”
- His love for you might only be friendly love. Yes, there are friends of the opposite sex who say “I love you” to each other, but frankly, I’ve only seen a couple of those instances (including my own) with people your age. Still, it might mean that. I understand that you might shy away from asking him about it, but why not confront him about his messages once? Go straight to the point, ask him what he meant by his “I love yous.” You don’t want to “misunderstand” forever, do you? You don’t want to keep thinking if this guy really loves you or not.
- He might be messing with you. If you think he’s really your friend, then scrap this idea.
Eigo-chan, the way I see it, you have two options as of now — tell him you think you love him OR wait for him to fall in love with you or something similar. Based on your character, I reckon you’d wait until he tells you he loves you. Well Eigo-chan, if he never comes to doing that, let it go. Think of it like this — he was never really into you from the start. Take it as a learning experience and move on. However, if you want to fight for him, suck it in, gather all your courage and tell him you love him. It all depends on whether you think he’s worth the risk.
And that’s it. Whew…golly! I never thought giving advice on love would be this hard –especially since I haven’t had a happy-ending love story in my whole life! Anyhow, since I already started it, anyone’s welcome to send letters to the DOPAMINE mailbox. You can email me anything from affairs of the heart to problems at home and in school. Just take note that I will publish all letters here in DOPAMINE.
Okay, back to Eigo-chan’s problem. What can everyone else advise her?
As for the messing with you part, it might not be him. It might be someone else who’s texting that and wants to mess with you.
I’m speaking from personal experience. We have school e-mails (though I rarely give it out online), and that means everyone in the school knows your e-mail address if they know your name. Once someone e-mailed me a love letter from one of my classmates, but there was nothing IRL and I concluded that it was someone faking the mail address (quite easy to do) and trying to mess with me. This also became clear when we all got e-mails from the principal that were fake ones.
MitsuiSelphie: It’s pretty cool of you to have such an idea… with the mailbox and everything ^^ And as for giving out advice on love, I think it’s okay as long as you remember it’s just advice. When I was a mod at a large forum I got lots of people asking for advice even though I was the youngest mod at 12 around then… So I think it’s okay.
I’m also wondering a little bit about love myself… Since I read a lot of romantic stuff *cough*, but I’m not all that romantic IRL and I like my guy friends just fine as friends… Or maybe it’s just that I never really got around to that kind of stuff…
I wish I had some advice for Eigo-chan ;; Anyway MitsuiSelphie you gave some good advice from what I can see. The mailbox idea is very cool too.
Actually, I was just blabbering stuff. And basically, I had to think of Eigo-chan as a dream novel OC to be able to put things in perspective! Otherwise I would have had nothing to say to her. How pathetic am I? T___T
I don’t know if this would be considered advice, but just something that I was reminded of when I read this. In high school I had a close guy friend and he was the biggest flirt ever…he use to do those type of things just to make me blush and get all embarrassed. But I knew he never meant it…I asked him and made sure. Asking him what he means by it would be the only thing I could think of. How can you have a friendship if its all confusing like that?
I’m like Sia, I like my guy friends just as they are…It’s kinda of creepy to me thinking them as anything else. I mean do you know what I’ve seen these idiots do…hah
Regardless of what you do Eigo-chan I hope it all works out for you. & MitsuiSelphie, I think you gave pretty good advice, even if you say you were just blabbering.
^Do we all have similar stories??? I have a similar story too! Why oh why do such
sluttyflirty guys exist? *_* They’re like Wakato Hiroshi made flesh. *_*i have one. but i could be wrong. tha is like 65% wrong. but anyways… to me its alot easier to talk to someone you never saw. but yea.. love.. for my drama teacher… he said there is no love but lust. you could disagree, but i think what my teacher said is true. do you need to have kids if your in love? do you need to be married to be in love? how do you know your in love. yea first you say you love someone but soon or later the love you had for him will fade away. and i had friends saying i love you to me but he doesnt mean it as love love but as a sister and bother love. if i were you i would just go ask him. i know its easier said then done but once you ask him you will know what to do. anyways i told you i would 65% wrong but know i feel i was like 99% wrong. anyways good luckkkk~
I don’t think this is advice but here it goes. I know this guy that loves to mess with me. He likes to embarrass me and make me all flustered. At first I thought that he had a crush on me or something so I asked him to make sure. He said that he just liked to make fun of me and that’s just what some guy friends like to do. If this situation is really bothering you and it’s getting to you just go ask him about it. I mean, how can you continue being friends if it’s going to be so awkward and you are confused?
Ah I don’t want to come off as an expert either but I think you have a point there. Sometimes its easier to ask straight off the bat, whether the guy actually has feeling for you or not. I know what its like to beat around the bush (and still am beating I’m afraid ;;). A disappointing answer is better than no answer. =)
High school guys can be ridiculously confusing. I suppose its part of growing up - for them to want to be popular amongst the girls. But in the end, its how you, yourself, feel towards him.
Am sorry about the rambling. I wish you luck in whatever you choose to do, Eigo-chan!
Eigo-chan, based on my personal experience, I wouldn’t put much trust into those text messages. Maybe I’m just pessimistic, but I prefer to think of myself as a realist. Here’s why:
When I was in high school, I found myself shocked when my then-boyfriend (aka ex) told me he loved me. We didn’t even know each other for a whole school year, but he told me anyway. At first I didn’t want anything to do with him because it meant something drastic from just being friends. But against my initial instincts, I gave in. Now that I remember it, he was such a crybaby, I don’t know what I was thinking XDDD Anyway, it turns out that we would be dating for two years. In those two years, I gave him my heart, I really did. I would have done anything and everything for him. He said “I love you” so many times, and he even said he wanted to marry me. But at the end of those two years, he suddenly cut our whole relationship off, saying he didn’t want to deal with pressure from my family, since they didn’t like him. I was so depressed, but then I decided to move on because he wasn’t worth it for me to be so down when he obviously didn’t want to pull through with me. Besides, it was just a high school love, and how many of those do you know actually persist through time. Very, very few, I think.
Anyway, my circumstances might be different from yours, but the message is the same. You’re young, and maybe you think you’re in love now, but who knows what the future might hold for you later. You can tell him you love him, and maybe he loves you back and you guys can have a happy ending, but as the pessimistic realist I am, that might also not be the case. But that’s the great thing about being young: you will have plenty of other opportunities to find what you really what in life.
So really, the choice is up to you. Have faith in yourself, Eigo-chan, because only you know what your heart truly wants, and not what you can only assume it wants. Believe me, there’s a big difference in that last sentence
Wow, firstly I think it’s so cool that someones asking advice from DOPAMINE! Secondly, I think I’m even younger than you are, so I really dont think I’m in a position to give you any advide, but I agree, and think you should just ask him point blank. You cant be suspicous behind his back forever, can you?
Thanks, Wanna.Be. Glad to know that someone feels like I do. ^^ As for actually asking, it’s probably a good idea since you’ll definitely know. But sometimes it might be better not to know. It might give something an unique mystic air, but then again, if it drives you crazy, then it’s probably better to know.
Over here there are hardly any relationships at our high school. Probably because everyone’s too busy being asocial sitting at their laptop and tapping away. The one girl I got to know at our school had a boyfriend in uni (they met through kendo *cough*dreamynovelsmaterial*cough*)… I think what Jean-kun says about high school love sounds true (though I haven’t experienced any of that myself).
Sorry if this is selfish, but I just read through the original post again and thought I might have some stuff to submit to the uber-cool DOPAMINE mailbox. Now, to write it all…
Sia, got your email! I’ll respond to your questions for the Mailbox and the fan fic clinic by the last week of November, along with the November updates.