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Northwest Living: This one is for the boys
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Posted by admin Tue Nov 21, 2006 13:01:27 PST
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0 responses 0 comments Most of the women sitting in Chuy’s on Rosedale highway the other night took notice when a handsome, late-twenty-something guy walked in with his buddies. He was “over the top” handsome in his striped-shirt and square jaw.  We were still staring when we saw his smiling face fall.

We all turned to see what he was seeing and discovered that the source of his frown was a beautiful girl sitting with another young man.There obviously was some history between striped-shirt boy and the girl.

He immediately walked out, and eventually we also left. My friends and I, who usually get our drama via the hit MTV series “Laguna Beach,” were still talking about the incident in the parking lot when we noticed striped-shirt guy sitting in his truck and crying.

We considered getting his friends who were still inside, but then we realized that we knew this guy as the younger brother of a high school friend. We asked him if we could help, and his tears and story came pouring out. It was a story we had heard a hundred times, so we were well prepared with some advice.

Advice for a young man from women just a few years older.  We are your mom, your sister, your best “girl” friend and even your ex.  We are the girls who know.

Striped-shirt explained that he’d been working his way through college selling pest control service door-to-door while his girlfriend (the girl inside) was making hand over fist doing hair and nails.

They had been dating for a while and planned to get married until she started telling him about her clients, who were all in the same age group as Striped-shirt guy.

One was a guy in real estate who was “rolling” a new Hummer and had just started building his second home. Another guy worked in the oil fields and had just added a lifted truck and ATV to his fleet of motor vehicles.

The guy she was sitting with in the restaurant, a handsomely-paid correctional officer, for whom she decided to leave Striped-shirt guy for after the C.O. filled the beauty salon where she worked with dozens upon dozens of expensive flower arrangements in a bid to win her heart. It worked.

In the few months leading up to the break-up, she had mentioned all of these clients to Striped-shirt guy, adding that she couldn’t wait till he fulfilled the so-called money making potential she just “knew” he had in him so his bank account would be more on par with her and her clientele.

She would also add in that it was “so funny how all of these guys are the same age as you, yet they are making so much more money without a degree. I don’t understand why you have to spend all of this time on school when you could be making more money right now.”

Basically, she was tearing him down to build herself up, and disguising it all with a back-handed compliment by using the word “potential.”

She was attacking the one thing that a lot of men see as a measure of their self worth, their bank account. He was starting to believe her, and questioning his decision to become a teacher. He wouldn’t be making her idea of “crazy” money for a very long time. Why shouldn’t he quit school and go work in the oil fields or become a correctional officer?

This is where our advice came in. My  friends and I all had the same answer at the same time. This was her problem and not his.

He could do all of those jobs she had mentioned if he wanted to, but his life’s plan was to be a teacher. He wasn’t thinking about money — just his dream. He knew she was right about the money he could make, but he would have been miserable.

We told him that it was best that he cut this girl loose right now and not look back. Instead of feeling bad about not living up to her idea of potential, aka the big bank account, he could spend his time feeling good that he had the patience to stick it out in school and get a degree.

Hopefully, his perseverance would pay off in the long run and even if he never made the “crazy” money his ex thought was so important, he would have a job he loved, and most likely a girl who loved him for who he is — not his wallet.

There is definitely a difference in Mr. Right and Mr. Right Now.

E-mail Rachel at: rlegan@liveradio.com

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