Single issues, Part one

I want to talk about relationships, or lack there of at this rate (I do have a friendship that's 'complicated,' but I'm not going there this time).  By relationships I mean friendships and/or acquaintance-ships turned crushes.  There are people that I am actually attracted to from time to time, but I get increasingly bummed out when the feelings aren't mutual. And to put the icing on the growing attraction not being mutual, the friend of the sex/gender that I'm attracted to does and says things as a friend that is beginning to depress and subsequently anger me in that special passive-aggressive way. 


The particular observation that is more personal than not is that of the following phrases/sentences: 

• "x looks hot/beautiful/gorgeous and has y and z qualities that I love about x" or 
• "My ideal mate has to have such and such a quality; do this, wear that, dance a certain way, drink beer..." 
• And so on.

I'll say this: being a friend/confidant has its drawbacks. Being a shy, passive-aggressive black woman with self-esteem issues also has its drawbacks, the aforementioned sentences being one of them.  It's things like these phrases that a) encourages reclusiveness, and b) helps me to gauge where I stand with friends I'm attracted to (I stand in the 'chopped liver that you can tell anything to' section). 


Of course, the repressed, passive-aggressive part of me wants to violently shake the next person who wants to befriend me and treat me like 'one of the guys' by sharing these intimate tidbits with me. I'm tired of being the 'honorary dude' in that respect. Tell me anything you want, except who you're attracted to. Unless you put in a disclaimer (something like, "it's nothing personal but," or "no matter what I say you'll always be....") to soften the blow to my fragile sense of self-worth as a potential mate. 


More to come later, when I discuss why this is such a problem with me.