One of the Guys?

This blog has long been considered "one of the guys", which is normally a good thing. Guys make fun friends. Guys yell at the TV during sports games, and tend to watch fun cartoons like Futurama and Family Guy. I happen to be fortunate enough to have a number of truly amazing guys as my friends, both here in Chi-town, and scattered around the world.

You'd think that after being "one of the guys" for so long, I'd understand guys better. The truth is, I only understand my guys, the ones who I drink bourbon and yell at the TV with. The others I can't even begin to understand.

I keep running into the same problem: I think a guy wants to hang out with me out of friendship. Most of the time, I think this because he said so. Then, after we've become friends, either he, or someone else, tells me that he's actually been attracted to me from the get-go.

Why not just be honest about it? I hate leading people on. Really, truly hate it. The biggest problem in not being honest about these things is that, ultimately, it ends up casting doubt on the entire friendship. Did he only want to hang out with me because he thought I was cute? Was the entire basis for the friendship a lie? Then I find myself over-analyzing everything (because, despite the bourbon and the baseball, I am still a girl, and therefore overanalyze), wondering if I somehow led him on, and gave him the wrong impression.

I guess the bottom line is that I really don't understand guys at all. I try to be very honest when I'm just looking for friendship, so as not to hurt someone. It would be nice if guys returned this favor. I can handle someone not being into me in a romantic way, as long as he tells me. But don't tell me that you're just looking for friendship, if it isn't true. That's not fair to me, or to our friendship. And if he is into me in a romantic way, well...it'd be nice to know that, too.