5 Things Man Will Not Tell His Partner

As part of my on going research in to what teens want to know I often read teen magazines for girls and if there’s one topic that dominates these fine publications it’s guys. What do guys want in a girl? What do guys like? How do you make guys like you? And, of course, why do guys do the things that they do? Well last week I was at the beach reading one of these magazines, and enduring the puzzled looks of people passing by, when I got the idea that maybe Teen Advice should explore this topic in a little more detail. So in my quest to tell you everything you need to know in order to survive the teen years I decided to break the guy code and start by letting you girls in on five little things that teenaged boyfriends like to keep close to the cuff. Now before all you teen guys start emailing me angry emails let me tell you that in the interest of equality next week my partner in crime/life, and the “She Says” part of our “He Says/She Says” feature, Tina Kells will break the girl code and let you in on the secrets girlfriends keep. So guys, stay tuned for next week, and girls get ready to discover the secrets boyfriends keep.

1. We like being “the boyfriend.”
   Girls often think that guys are players-at-heart who love the single life and only settle down because society tells them that they have to, but nothing could be further from the truth. Sure there are some guys who get a serious case of the GIGS (Grass Is Greener Syndrome) every time they make a commitment to a girl but these guys are the exception not the rule. We other guys have a word to describe our flakey won’t settle down counterparts – immature. For the most part guys love being in love just as much as girls do.
2. We don’t like when you pull away from us.
   Guys are competitive beasts so you’d think that the hard to get game would make us give chase, and in the beginning stages of a relationship it does, but once we’ve settled in and made a commitment to you we want the chase to stop. If you keep it up, if you keep pushing us away with your right hand while pulling us closer with your left, you’ll quickly find that we start pulling away altogether. Once we open our hearts the game totally changes for us. We don’t want to chase you forever so when you pull away from us, we pull away from you in what amounts to a psychological tug-o-war. The more you pull away the more we respond in kind. Keep it up and everyone just gets tired and calls it quits. So once you’ve landed your guy don’t keep playing hard to get, instead let him know that you’re happy you were caught.
3. We want our friends to like you… but not love you.
   In guy world the approval of our friends is very important so it makes sense that we want our friends to like you. But what we don’t want is for them to covet you. When we hook up with a very hot girl and our buddies ogle her it is a real turn off. This is why so many really pretty girls find themselves single. We just can’t handle the thought of losing you to one of our friends because if that happens we lose our girl, one of our boys and a big chunk of our egos. So if our friends like you and think you're cool that’s great but if they wish they could have you that’s bad. Unfortunately this is totally out of your control. Rest assured that as guys get older we get more secure and this one matters less but in the meantime know this - if you’ve ever been dumped by a guy who you thought really liked you shortly after meeting his friends take comfort in the fact that you were probably just too hot for him to handle.
4. We want you to like, but not love, our friends.
   This one goes along with the other one for obvious reasons but there is a little more to it. Obviously we don’t want you ditching us to be with one of our buddies but we also don’t want you to work overtime trying to win our friends over. Sometimes no matter how great you are our friends will only act luke-warm toward you. This is most likely not your fault and usually has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them but as long as our friends and you can hang out without incident the boyfriend in us is happy. We don’t want you to go out of your way to get our friends to like you because we want your energy focused on us and only us. We don’t want you to care what other guys think about you. We want your efforts and attentions to rest firmly on us. Is that immature? Probably. But hey, we’re guys!
5. We worry that YOU will dump US.
   If there is one thing I see over and over in the girl magazines it’s question after question about how to keep a guy interested but that’s not really very hard. When we like you, we like you and that’s all there is to it. In reality we probably spend more time worrying that you’ll dump us than we would ever spend thinking about dumping you. So relax and stop fixating on how or when our relationship will end and just be our girlfriend. That’s all it really takes to keep a guy happy.