Everyone I know, including myself, has been guilty of sending mixed signals to someone at some point. We women seem to be masters at it – especially when it involves wanting something from our men.
Female: “No, babe, I don’t want anything for my birthday. Let’s just save our money.”
In translation means: “I know we don’t have much money, but I still want something for my birthday.”
Now being the old bitch that I am, I have learned that mixed signals do not work. They are time-consuming and are always disappointing. So, why do we do them? Life is confusing enough and then we add mixed signals to the game. Not cool.
I once dated a guy who was the king of all mixed signals. This was his go-to in his repertoire.
Male: “Do you want to go to this thing with me? You don’t have to go, but I’m just asking.”
So, that leaves me scratching my head because he included the “you don’t have to” in the sentence. Now, to married people that might sound polite, but in the dating world it comes across as, “I want to go to this thing without you, but I have to ask you so you don’t get mad at me.”
Which then has me asking him, “Well, do you want me to go?”
The reply (of course) being, “If you want to go, but you don’t have to.”
Ugh!! So annoying. Knowing that every relationship comes with a lesson, I decided to take this mixed-signal situation seriously and dove into my self-help books.
What I discovered was awesome. First of all, there are mixed signals on how we deliver information and mixed signals on how we interpret them. Someone can be as blunt as possible and we could interpret them as a mixed signal because our ego is filtering it the way it needs to be heard. Our ego also comes into play if we are the ones delivering mixed signals. If you are the person giving mixed signals it means that you are insecure in the situation. I found this to be true when I looked back at my old self. I wasn’t confident enough to tell guys exactly what I wanted, so I played the “guess what I’m thinking?” game and sadly expected them to be psychic. Guess what, ladies? Guys can be a lot of things, but psychic is not one of them.
Now that I have done my homework and tested my theory, I can proudly say that when a guy (or anyone else) asks me that awful question, “Do you want to go to this party with me? You don’t have to but if you want to, you can go,” I take it literally for my benefit. I ask myself, do I really want to go? Plain and simple. No suffering anymore, no more wondering if he wants me there or not. I’m making my decisions based on what I want out of the situation and it’s AWESOME!
How about you? Are you guilty of giving mixed signals? If so, why do you think that is?
