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Having recently broken up with his girlfriend, some of the girls there were not shy about dropping hints that they were interested in him, now that he was suddenly "available".
They did things like secretly erase the "to-do" list on the whiteboard in his kitchen, replacing it with flirty notes of their own.
One of them even followed him up to his bedroom when he needed a "breather" from being the party host, jumped on top of him in bed and pinned him down...serving notice that she was there to "play wrestle" with him.
Man, this feminine little vixen suddenly staring down at him--inches away--was irresistibly cute. And her playfulness carried pretty blatant sexual intent.
By now you're likely asking, "How could this possibly present a 'predicament'?"
Well, here's where he perceived there to be a problem.
He wanted to kiss this girls brain's out...and possibly more. But he felt he had to restrain himself.
After all, his best friend--who was meanwhile downstairs chuggin' brewskis with the boys--had secretly been carrying a torch for this chick for literally years, although he was too shy to ever ask her out.
Our hero firmly believed in the "bros first" mantra. As such, he wasn't about to do anything with this girl that would jeopardize his long-standing friendship with the guy.
So nothing happened between them.
After telling me this heartbreaking story, he followed it up with a very simple question.
"Did I do the right thing?"
As I formed an answer, I knew the topic at hand demanded to be addressed.
Here's the essence of what I told him.
In the moment, he probably did the right thing...as long as he made it perfectly clear to the poor girl that he found her adorable and was in no way "rejecting" her.
After all, she had made herself somewhat vulnerable there, and to flatly refuse her would be humiliating.
That's the sort of thing that turns flirty, cute women into bitter, vengeful nemeses out to ruin your good standing with everyone in your entire social circle. No kidding.
Now, no matter what she was going to be confused and disappointed.
So for that reason AND for the good of everyone's mutual friendship something HAD to be done about the overarching situation.
Otherwise the "awkward turtles" would continue to snap away mercilessly at everyone involved.
You see, none of us as guys should ever hold our well-meaning true friends--and their social lives--hostage over the simple fact that we're too chicken to ask girls out.
Yes, I've chosen the right word there: hostage.
And therefore, it goes without saying that none of us should ever allow ourselves to be held hostage either.
But just for the sake of argument, let's not point fingers. Let's look in the mirror and put ourselves in the shy guy's position for a brief moment.
If we like a particular woman in a social circle that we have in common with mutual guy friends, we've either got to gather up the stones to make that known to her in addition to the dudes, or gladly deal with the fact that she's going to end up dating someone else.
And that's not going to be the other guy's problem when it happens.
Putting one's "bros first" is not actually meant to apply to situations like this, because these situations shouldn't be happening to begin with.
If a guy who likes a certain woman is all about "bros first" himself, then he'll man up and ask her out.
Never mind the simple fact that we can't expect the women affected by this nonsense to go dateless on account of one man's "secret crush" on her.
You can think of it more pragmatically. What if one of your guy friends decides he's "in love with" a dozen or so different girls...but isn't getting around to asking any of them out?
How can he reasonably expect all of his bolder buddies who favor ANY of those chicks themselves to be kept at bay?
That's tantamount to claiming an entire harem of women for himself...even though he isn't actually with any of them.
It's not fair to take even ONE woman off the market for no good reason at all, let alone MORE than one.
This is all crazy, I tell you.
The solution is to have a different agreement in place with our male friends so we're never beholden to "control by weakness" ever again.
It should go like this.
1) If someone likes a particular girl, he either goes after her or forever holds his peace about it.
2) If first guy to openly claim interest in a woman should get the first shot at asking her out if others have remained silent about their interest. He gets a reasonable amount of time to get that done.
3) If a guy asks a woman out and she's not interested, she's "fair game" for the other guys--and if another dude successfully goes out with her, no hard feelings.
4) A dude's ex he was once "serious" with is out of bounds. Even if you ask him if it's okay to ask her out you can't expect an honest answer.
There...that doesn't seem too complicated, now does it? A little "20/20 foresight" goes a long way.
No matter what "bro agreement" you decide on as a group of friends, no man should ever get to "own the rights" to every chick he finds hot, then get all butt-hurt with his buddy for making a bold move where he wimped out.
Oddly, the more his friends cater to that sort of passive-aggressive weakness, the better he'll feel about his own inaction.
In a weird way, a true friend may be the one who does indeed ask the girl out successfully. Finally feeling the reality of losing out like that may be the one event that changes him forever.
I can relate to that one personally. Back in eighth grade I found myself in a position to ask a really cute girl out, but I just didn't get the job done.
Meanwhile, my best friend told me that if I didn't, he would. And he did.
Years later we're still friends. I had filed that lesson away immediately and as far as I can remember history has never repeated itself. It was that powerful a lesson, for sure.
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below!