When Your Friend is Being Played

Dear Zane,

I know I have sent you plenty of messages and you might have grown tired of me but I do need some advice for a friend of mine... or more so for me so I will not steer her wrong. See this friend of mine is head over hills for this guy that we work with. She has helped me out when I was having those problems with my ex so when she came to me, I thought that I could help her. She is 6 years older than me so I thought that what I was telling her would have been nothing new to her but it seems like she is just not getting it.

Let me be more specific.This guy at work to me is nothing fine. I, myself, would never have thought of him sexually but my friend, like I said, is head over hills for him. She has been chasing after him for a year, if not longer. At first, it was the secret admirer thing and then by her telling too many people at work, he got wind of it and took advantage of it. He has known about her crush on him for 5 to 6 months. She still tries, even though every attempt she has made to further their relationship has failed. He blows off her advances but turns around and flirts with her.

When she finally did take my advice to leave him alone for a while, you know just to see what he did, it lasted for 2 weeks before he started to text and call her constantly. And as soon as she started to show interest again, he was back to blowing off her advances but still flirting. Now she found out that he has been going out with another one of our co-workers for lunch but when she asked him to go out to lunch with her, he gave her some bull reason for not going. I honestly think that he is not interested in her but loves the attention so he strings her along, but I could be wrong.

My friend is a good catch. She has a bachelors degree, she is smart, funny, pretty, and from the stories she tells me, a freak in the bed, so why does the unattractive, pimple faced, squeaky voiced, sometimes rude, shit talker man have her under his spell?Should I just leave it alone because it is not my problem? Or should I continue to try to help my friend out? To me she doesn’t deserve what he is doing to her, and even though he can be cool sometimes, I am losing respect for him. In my eyes, if he is not interested, then he needs to just tell her that so she can move on to bigger and better things, instead of him stringing her along for his personal fun. Please help me out. I know you are busy so I will not expect a reply quickly... but the sooner the better.

Your loyal reader and fan,

Desperate to Help A Friend

Dear Desperate to Help A Friend:

He is clearly playing her for a fool. He wants her to be his fan and not his girlfriend. I know some men like that, one in particular, who has women swooning around him constantly but he does not take any of them seriously because they are not the type he would settle down with. Some men prefer to have women infatuated with them instead of true feelings. He sounds immature and she should move on but you cannot make her. If I were you, I would be extremely blunt with her. Hell, tell her to email me and I will tell her the deal. If he had any true intentions toward her, she would not have the run the man down like that.

She needs to delete his cell phone number, ignore him at work, ignore his texts, his flirting, and this time stick to her guns. Try to deflect her interest to someone else. He is not the one because, at this juncture, even if something did happen between them, he would never take her seriously. As for why she has it for him so badly, it could be many things such as she is used to getting every man she wants and refuses to give up, she has low self-esteem and is used to being treated the way he is treating her, or she sees something in him that no one else sees. Sometimes you see the most successful, beautiful women with idiots and wonder why. It is because women are won over with their ears and men are won over with their eyes, visually. If a man says the right things to a woman, he can get her to do whatever he wants.

Tell your friend to wake up and smell the coffee one last time and if she still keeps running after him, leave her to the chase and bury your head in paperwork while at the office. Stop listening to her nonsense in regards to him as well. If one of my friends keeps doing something silly, and trust me it has happened, eventually I tell them not even to discuss it with me.

Blessings,
Zane