Natalie Ellen Bean has a few theories of her own.  On our daily trips home from school, she can offer some pretty interesting perspectives on teenage behavior.  (That is, when she’s in the mood to talk.)  I think it’s been at least one hundred years since I’ve been in high school, so I thought it would be intriguing if she shared a few of her observations with the rest of us.  After all, she is a good little witch:)

Hi!  I’m Natalie.  While mom’s working on her next post, I told her that I would be happy to write an article.  I’m fifteen, I’m home watching Olympic hockey with my dad on a Friday night, and I’m writing an article on my mom’s website….don’t judge me:-)

I just have to talk to the “nice guys” out there who might read mom’s blog.  I have a theory that there are ultimately two types of young men on earth.  Maybe they’re like this when they’re grown-up, too, but at my age, I know that I have come in contact with both types so far.

Young men in the first group are known as the “Nice Guys.” These guys usually fall into a sub-category of “just a friend.”  Most of the time these are the boys we meet in elementary school and grow up with.  They help us through thick and thin, we can turn to them for anything, but we always think of them as “just a friend.”

The “Nice Guy” group also includes the really nice boy that we meet at our new school.  He is someone to laugh with, hang out with, and the one who “has our back” even when we don’t realize that our back needs protection.  But alas, we girls still think of him as “just a friend.”

The second group of young men are widely known as the “Real Jerks.”  These are the guys who play the “Nice Guy” role so well that they end up breaking our heart.  Either they tell us that we mean everything to them, and end up telling the same thing to three other girls behind our back, or they lead us through a long relationship and end it painfully with some ridiculous excuse.

So, girls like me can look at both of these groups and easily decide which group describes the type of young man that we want to date.  It’s obvious that we should choose the Nice Guys, right?  So why do we all get drawn into the gravitational pull of the Real Jerks?!?….I don’t understand it yet.  I’m only fifteen, and yet I admit that I have been acquainted with a lot more jerks than nice guys during my first two years of high school.  Girls my age are constantly finding themselves falling head over heels for these bad boys (who often masquerade as good guys for awhile to suck us in), while the real “Nice Guys” are standing by, patiently awaiting their turn.

WHY?!?  Why are the nice guys forced to wait around and watch us fall in love with all of the jerks?  There may be a reason for this.  It’s because the good guys ARE so nice, that we tend to push them into “the friend zone.”

They aren’t stupid.  They are well aware that we put them there, but they don’t know how to escape our friend zone without harming our friendship.  It’s not like we put them safely in the friend zone on purpose, we just had no idea that they liked us “that way.”  Because they’re so nice, we have no clue that they have romantic motives.  They don’t say anything and they don’t express their romantic interest in us, because being forward (like a bad boy) is beneath them.  So, while we are busy drooling over these jerks, our poor nice guys are in the friend zone, quietly standing by.  After all, they want us to be happy.

I have a message that I would like to share with all of the “Nice Guys.”  You are just going to have to wait it out.  I’m so sorry.  Believe me when I tell you that this cycle that I have just described is not going to end.  (At least not anytime soon, while we are still young.)  The truth is, you “Nice Guys” will always win in the end.  Whether it’s that girl that you have been friends with since preschool, or the girl that you just met at college…you will get your chance.

First, we have to date all of the douche bags before we will finally realize that you are the ones that we have been waiting for.  It’s a sucky cycle, I know.  But we girls will get through it eventually, and learn how to improve ourselves after we make stupid choices.  So that by the time we do “see” you, we will gladly take you right out of the friend zone, and you will mean more to us than any jerk would ever have a chance to.

No matter how much you guys tell us that the guy we are dating is not the right one, or that we should be treated better, this is just something that we have to figure out on our own.  Once we do that, we will be able to realize that you guys told us all of that because you were the ones that really cared.

Thanks for listening.  This has been a guest article from Natalie Bean.  I would just like to tell all of the “Nice Guys” to never surrender, never give up.

Tags: bad boy, friend zone, friendship, high school, I'm fifteen, nice guys, teenage behavior, teenage dating, types of men