The F-Zone.

The Infamous Just Friends™ Speech.

It generally goes a bit like this:

YOU: I like spending time with you…

THEM: I like spending time with you…

YOU: I have so much fun when we are together…

THEM: Me, too.

YOU: What was it wanted to tell me?

THEM: You're so great and I really enjoy our time together, but I think we should be just friends….

YOU: [mouth open, jaw dropped, tears forming in your left cornea] ….

Need I say more? (It wouldn't be much of a story if I ended it there, so the show must go on…)

Let's just be friends.

These four words can strike a person temporarily sterile. Listen to those words. The words sound so friggin' innocent but can damage a person's psyche; corrupt their soul (you know
until the next person comes along, of course).

In reality, those words are a wasteland of profanity. That terminology comes to mean the equivalent of this: you are a complete and utter waste of time, energy and oxygen – I'd rather watch reruns on the Weather Channel than date you. It is the consummate get-out-of-jail free card; the rejection made simple (coincides with the whole dreaded "it's not you, it's me" theory). The potential for any type of romantic involvement between the two of you has been blown to smithereens (the dream is truly deferred and deceased).

Come on now, I know it's not just me. Think back here. Have you ever thought you were talking to someone but found the other person thought you all were "just cool"? I have. It is neither the business nor the bee's knees.

Sadly, after being handed the dreaded Let's Just Be Friends™ speech, you're obligated to then become a willing friend to the other party.

Hell naw, I don't want be your damn friend!

As a man, I am insulted by this. It's almost as if you think that when I first met you – the thought of friendship was dancing around in my head; as if I was anxiously awaiting the opportunity to talk to you until the wee hours of the night for no other reason than to hear you talk mess about your ex and to help you decide on that fly outfit to wear to your next company function. [In reality, I'm confuzzled as all get out! I spent my hard-earned money on you, I gave up going out with my crew to talk to you on the phone and I even gave you a special ring tone in my phone! Them ring tones are expensive as hell; does that sound like a friend to you?!!!]

I, um-err-umm, have deviated, so let's get back on track.

Please understand the dumped are a bit pissed about the whole situation. You've already cast them off, made them feel like crap, and all that not-so-good stuff. Don't insult them by asking them to hang out with you and listen to stories about people you're dating (who are apparently better than them). By the time you even get to the word friend, they're zoned out trying to figure out how to tell their friends that THEY dumped YOU, or counting up all the money they wasted on you.

Even better is the cousin of let's be friends, the even more irritating you're so nice, but...

NOTHING good ever comes after the word "but." Why even try to soften it up? In addition to that, don't tell anyone they are nice. If they are so nice, what could possibly be so bad that it counters the effects of their niceness? Maybe it's like when you eat too ice cream and you get a brain freeze: you're so nice, you begin to give people headaches…

Guess what? They don't want to know. No one wants to know. My advice to anyone I've heard talking like this: keep that stuff to yourself. Unfortunately, people choose to keep talking after the word "but" and this is basically the part where you get the emotional and egotistical equivalent of a swift kick in the balls (or uterus).

If that doesn't hurt enough, peep this… because we're friends now - there isn't even an outlet to for them to even vent (you know you can't talk to your friends when they have pissed you off). Being that I'm a man, this sucks to no end. Unlike the opposite sex, we don't cry. We don't call our friends and have "Eff him, girl" parties.

We get mad.

Heated.

Pissed.

We're upset with the girl, at her momma, her group of scalawags she calls friends (basically, everyone without a penis – but don't worry, it all eventually subsides).

Back to my point… in the future, if you're not interested, let the person know ahead of time so that they can use their two-for-one coupon for Red Lobster on someone else that will enjoy their conversation, some of those delicious Cheddar Bay Biscuits and the prospect of full clothes hunching by the third date. It'll save all of us in the long run.

That's my time.

- Mr. Smart Guy