Why do guys pretend to be your friend?
There is a popular stereotype of men as liars, cheats and bullies.
As opposed to women who are widely seen as more honest and caring.
Guys who pretend they like you while they want to date you, never care about your partner and will cheat on them at any cost. It’s true that there are some guys like this but unfortunately the majority of guys pretending to like you are just afraid of being alone or don’t really care about you at all.
Reasons he may be afraid of your boyfriend.
Why do guys pretend to be your friend?
This question is a puzzler, and we have seen hundreds of answers. It seems that there are three theories:
1. The guy didn’t want to hurt you or your partner’s feelings.
2. The guy thinks you are an easy lay/beg for him and he doesn’t want to disappoint you.
3. The guy wants to impress you by being “the one who can make her fall in love with him”
The first theory is a little weird, because it seems that guys don’t usually like hurting women’s feelings because they know the girl can take it, or she doesn’t get upset about it anyway (this is also why she will never tell men off if she loves them). But the second and third theories seem pretty close to the truth, so I think we should focus on them instead of the first one (but feel free to toss out any other explanations we may not be aware of).
The first one says that he did not want to hurt your feelings and didn’t want to cause problems between you two in case things worked out with him too well. It could also mean he was genuinely clueless that you were seeing someone else — though this is probably unlikely since most guys will know when they are overstepping their boundaries (and as we discuss in more detail further down this post, it’s rare for a man not to know how he can earn more respect from women). So here’s what I think this theory boils down to:
Reasons he may be reluctant to overstep his boundaries.
Don’t be afraid to open up to your guy friends. A lot of guys are scared to get too close to their buddies because they think they will be teased or rejected. However, if you take the fight out of these situations, you’ll find that you are much more likely to make new friends than not. The truth is that often times the people who feel threatened by your guy friends are the ones who want the best for you. It’s totally ok to talk about what’s going on with your life with your guy friends. You don’t need a big group of guys just so you can talk about them and tell them how much they mean to you; however, have some other people in the group who would never dream of saying anything negative about their own guy friend… or anyone else for that matter!
The rare men who genuinely care about you.
Many guys who have feelings for you do not care about the man you are dating. They probably don’t have the courage to say so out loud, or they’re afraid of what will happen. If a girl is showing interest in a guy who wouldn’t even consider dating her, then there is something seriously wrong with her.
If she really cares about you, it’s your turn to show her how much you care by being more generous. If she doesn’t actually want to date you and only takes pity on your relationship because of your looks, then this means that she isn’t interested in the long-term benefits of a marriage. If she only wants to sleep with you for fun, then this means that she isn’t interested in your future — either as a marriage partner or as a partner for life.
So if you don’t want to be with someone just because they look good or because they are rich or handsome that doesn’t mean they aren’t great. In fact it could mean quite the opposite — that they are perfectly fine as individuals and can be quite wonderful partners without any special attributes whatsoever. So if you are seeing someone who doesn’t seem like he’s interested in getting married and/or settling down with you right away (that is, an uninterested guy) then it’s time to stop playing blindfolded and see which way the wind blows.
The majority of guys who have feelings for you.
This really is a good question, and one that I’m sure many of you have pondered. To answer it: no, not really. I don’t know whether it has something to do with being a man or a woman, but I would wager that the answer is more complex than “just because”.
Men and women are different in the way they process social information, and that means they can interpret it differently. Men tend to see everything in terms of (a) conflict (i.e., you’re either on my side or on theirs; your decision will help or hurt me), or (b) threat (i.e., this person has done me wrong and wants to harm me). Women, on the other hand, interpret information in terms of (a) support (i.e., someone wants me to be happy), or (b) comfort (i.e., this person makes me feel safe).
I’d like to share two experiments with you that were both conducted by researchers who were interested in understanding how people process information about others so as to better understand the differences between men and women’s social perception processes…
The first experiment was conducted by psychologist Marlene Behrmann at Harvard University on five groups of men and women…
1) A group of male participants were shown a picture of an attractive female friend saying something mundane like “I just turned 25!” and asked if they thought she had aged well over time. All participants indicated that she had aged well over time but only 47% said she looked better now than she did 20 years ago; only 19% said she looked worse; 40% said they didn’t know; and 29% said they weren’t sure what she looked like now…
2) Another group was shown a picture of an attractive male friend saying something mundane like “I just turned 50!” and asked if he thought he had aged well over time…. Again, all participants responded positively—70% said yes; 28% said no; 20% weren’t sure…
3) The third group was shown a picture of an attractive female friend saying something mundane like “I just turned 10!”—again all participants responded positively—and when asked if she looked better now than when she did 15 years ago: 71% said yes; 24% answered no…
4) A fourth group was shown a picture of an attractive male
Conclusion: The various reasons why do guys pretend to be your friend.
So he pretends not to like you in fear of your boyfriend beating him up or many other reasons. It could also be because he is reluctant to overstep his boundaries out of respect for you and your partner. Men like these are rare. Many guys who have feelings for you do not care about the man you are with, so they may pretend to be your friend in order to keep their relationship on an even keel. When they do this, they may not think it is a big deal or at least, don’t think it means anything to you. You may find that you have been extremely vulnerable with them, and that once they leave the room, it is difficult to rebuild trust.
I can’t bear to put this here as I want it up on my website but I still need some feedback from readers before I can post it here
