“The worst kind of guy.”

I write a lot of questionably inappropriate content on this blog. 

There was the complaint about acting your age (still one of my favorite posts), the time I took my clothes off in Asheville (that hyperlink will get some interesting traffic), and various frustrations about dating.

Unfortunately, this post will fall in the last category.

I’ve been waiting to write this post, perhaps out of some slight respect for anonymity. But I feel a duty to write it – for myself, and for women everywhere. But to be entirely transparent, this is not the article that I originally wrote.

This piece was initially calling out a guy I met when I was in Europe. I coined him a f—boy – and if you’re at this point, and thinking “what’s a  f—boy?”, allow me to enlighten you. There are conflicting definitions.

Urban Dictionary calls them weak. Slate calls them “the worst kind of guy, or at least one who represents the worst trends of the present moment”, and perhaps most accurately, Online Slang Dictionary calls them, “a male who is constantly seeking romance and/or sexual congress with women.”

I met this particular “fb” at a bar. He was pretty attractive – charismatic, outgoing. You know, just the kind of guy you’d want to meet while traveling and single. I liked him – for about two hours.

We talked a lot about our lives outside of this trip, our religion, etc. We had a lot in common. But perhaps because I didn’t engage physically, despite his attempt, he shifted his attention to another girl. I was fine with that – I’d rather not compete for some random guy I met on a vacation.

But it escalated. He didn’t like that I stopped paying attention to him. He asked my sister to let him into our hotel room while I was sleeping to “talk to me, and definitely not hook up with me.”

She refused, because you know, consent. 

She and I talked about it the next day. I thanked her for sending him away, grateful for a sister that knows better than to listen to some guy who pretends to have good intentions. I will disclose that there was more to this – more questionable, unattractive behavior that brought me dangerously close to exposing him completely.

But I’m going to stop there. I’m not going to expose his behavior, I’m not going to brag about what I chose to do or say because at the time, I felt like he needed to hear it. Instead, I’m going to make an unpopular case for compassion and understanding.

We live in a society of unlimited choices – where it’s okay to completely ghost someone via text (I admit, I’ve done this), because it’s easy to find someone else. A society that places a high value on superficial things, a society that teaches us to constantly play “Go Fish” via Tinder, OKCupid, and match.com. Historically, I’ve argued that these services are a waste of time, that they’ve contributed to our hookup culture, etc.

I don’t believe that anymore. While I think that culturally, we’re suffering, I no longer think this is the cause. Instead, I think we’ve lost our compassion.

I think that we’ve lost the ability to be vulnerable.

Rather it be because of relationships and validation dependent on social media, on insecurities, or too many choices – we’ve lost our faith in each other.

I’m not an exception. When I had that experience abroad, I was very quick to judge this man. His behavior proved a point to me – that I couldn’t trust him, or probably anyone.

Everyone must be flawed, right? And once they reveal their flaws, they must be punished, right? It’s my duty to tell them they’re wrong, right?

Wrong. Absolutely incorrect. It’s not my job.

As a human being who has experienced failure in life and relationships, as someone who has doubted, who has been insecure, and who has desperately grasped for some kind of hope in this world – it is not my job to hold someone’s flaws against them.

Instead, I will choose to give him compassion. Guy, wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing – I choose to give you the benefit of the doubt. I choose to look beyond one bad experience, and hope for your well-being and happiness.

And I ask you – the rest of you – to try to do the same to the people that have wronged you. I challenge you to try. To recognize that none of us are perfect, but wonderfully flawed – in a way that will always be much more rewarding than perfection.

That’s how we learn. That’s how we grow. That’s how we gain compassion – from making mistakes, and witnessing others making mistakes.

There’s something much more rewarding in that.