Every relationship I have ever had has begun as a massive guilt trip; they bloom from me hanging with a dude purely out of sympathy and then they grow into me slowly becoming more and more attached to the person. I know that admitting to hanging with dudes out of sympathy makes me sound like a horrible person but the truth is I really struggle with confrontation or plainly ignoring someone, and I feel too bad turning down a guy’s actions of unrequited love so I nonchalantly give in. When I first start hanging with the guy, I find myself comparing him to every other guy that I think is cooler and whom I should be with, but give it a couple of weeks and I guarantee you the tables will have turned. The annoying things I hate about the person develop into the cute things I love about the person, and before I know it I lose all feeling of control, and I keep running back for more. What follows is an example of a perfect execution of what I will call the sympathy method to getting a girl. It is particularly useful for nice guys who are really well intentioned but unfortunately lack the attitude and confidence to get the desired girl.

I started hanging with this one guy, who for confidentially reasons I will name something ridiculous like Jack Fields. Jack was pretty persistent to see me a lot so I went along with it. He was a little bit immature and very socially awkward, but he was really nice and for unknown reasons he was able to keep me slightly interested so I decided I’d let him stick around for a while, in the hope that maybe it would just fade into nothing. Then one day he was walking me to where I needed to be, and this homeless guy on the street called out ‘how did the ugly guy get the hot girl?’ Way to go to make things even more awkward, homeless guy. As if that wasn’t bad enough, three minutes later he went to give me a kiss goodbye and whilst doing so accidentally bumped into a woman with a pram and the woman’s baby almost fell out of said pram (which is actually hilarious in hindsight) and then said woman gave Jack the absolute stare of death. After these two occurrences so close to each other I felt so insanely sorry for Jack, I mean it was actually heartbreaking. From that moment I made a resolve to be extra nice to him because I felt like he needed a confidence boost.

A few days passed that I hadn’t seen Jack, and then I went out with some girlfriends and had an epiphany of sorts. I met an incredibly good-looking guy, who ticked all of the right boxes aesthetically, but then I started speaking to him and he turned out to be a huge jerk. In that moment I was overwhelmed by feelings of affection for Jack, who was not a jerk at all. I suddenly appreciated that he was different from most guys I go for and that unlike the guys I usually go for, I didn’t feel this constant need to impress him or to continuously hold on to what thought would keep him by my side. I thought about how sweet his little smile is and worst of all, I realized that I missed him.

This has now happened to me repeatedly. The last guy I was with had this huge beard, when I first met him I thought it was so ugly that I just could not take him seriously as a boyfriend candidate. However using the sympathy method outlined above he soon enough won me over; to the extent that by the end of our relationship I kept telling him the beard was hot and that I thought he should definitely keep growing it. This was a lie but I thought it would prevent other girls from hitting on him. I mean, that’s how whipped I had become. Anyway, the fact that this has happened to me several times has led to me believe that maybe there is no such thing as love at first sight, and that instead, it is possible to fall for people you usually wouldn’t give the time of day to. Ignore the superficialities and open your mind, you will be surprised at how much you have to learn from the people you least expect to.