Illegal boundary crossing

After seeing last night’s episode of Lost, I simply had to blog about this particular topic. I wonder if men had the same reaction to Charlie’s obsession over Claire and her baby as women did. I would imagine most shrugged it off while many women probably had the hair stand up on the back of their neck.

I’ve had this happen a couple of times with guys where you meet them, and suddenly, they expect you to be in contact with them every day – even if you’ve been clear that the interest is not mutual from the romantic angle. It is about the worst thing a guy can do and automatically starts raising the red flag and ruining any potential to ever change your mind about that interest. Because after all, if a guy is this needy now, imagine what he’ll be like down the road? And why should he think he gets to jump ahead of 20 years of other friendships and families to expect daily communication?

One of my best examples of this is around the time my step-dad passed away. I’d met this guy a few weeks earlier. He made it clear that he had an interest, but I wasn’t really feeling it on my end. I was honest about that, but not the specifics of why, but admitted that perhaps my hard shell might come down once I got to know him.

So, the day my step-dad passes away, this guy calls me. I told him what happened and he asked if I needed anything. I told him I appreciated the offer, but I was fine. I had a lot of family and friends around, so I would be okay but that I was going to be extremely busy over the next several days and I would call him when I was ready to talk. He proceeded to call me every.day.for.the.next.eight.days. Do you think it mattered that I never called him back? No.

I sent him an offline IM and told him that I was confused as to why he kept calling when I specifically told him I was busy with other things (and quite frankly, much more important), and that I found it very disturbing. He apologized and said he didn’t mean to freak me out, but he did…and every other person I mentioned it to.

And I’m sure that most guys that do this aren’t psychopathic killers, but our defense mechanisms can’t tell the difference at that point and that’s all we have to go on. Once we start ignoring those little hairs on the back of our neck, then we could ignore a legitimately dangerous situation. But even from the relationship factor, I told the guy that it’s indicative of the fact that everything would be on his terms and that he would not respect my wishes.

And strangely, I’ve even told this very story to other guys who agree that this behavior is creepy…and then they do the same thing. It’s interesting that my guy friends have so ingrained in me that men need their space, yet it seems so inconceivable that a woman would want hers too. Why is that? And why aren’t men as bothered by this type of behavior? Or are they?