And now, it’s time to peel back the curtain on the unique mystery that is the state of being a guy in the year 2001.  In the first of we hope will be a well-received series, we present “Why Guys Do The Things They Do.”  It’s a fun, harmless look at the fears and other factors motivating why your male friends do the things they do.  Note:  No actual guys have been harmed in the making of this column.  And, as Dave Letterman is so fond of noting, this is an exhibition, not a competition.  Please ... no wagering.

Our first question comes from “Courteney” who wanted to know the following.  “Why are all my single guy friends from college now asking me out on dates?  Why can’t we just do the same ‘friends’ kinds of things we’ve always done?”  (Note: names have been changed, and questions paraphrased to protect the identities of those involved.  Oh, right, like Ann Landers doesn’t pull the same kind of thing all the time.)

Well, “Courteney,” let’s skip over the obvious answer, and forget for a moment that you’re attractive, funny, smart, and single, plus a bit quiet and mysterious as well.  (If you ask me, this may be a big part of your “problem.”  Guys aren’t properly trained how to be friends with women like you.  More on that later.)

But let’s get right to the crux of your question.  Why the sudden change in status?  Where previously, your single guy friends may have been cool just “hanging out” with you, it’s clear something has changed, either with you or with them, or more probably, both!

To take a perhaps overly analytical look at the issue, when it comes to asking girls out on dates, the same criteria often cited in murder investigations can be used.  Yes, that’s right, we’re talking Means, Opportunity, and Motive.

In reverse order, let’s start with Motive.  What is the motive of “all your single guy friends from college?”  Well, let’s see.  They’re single.  You’re single.  Guys are generally (at least, from a statistical sense) interested in girls; smart, funny, and cute girls especially so.  And, also to look at the numbers, there is a definite shortage of single women around your age.  So when Joe Single-guy-from-college looks around at the field of available candidates of people to ask out on dates, if he’s any kind of gentleman at all, he limits the field using the following criteria:  “Woman?  Check.  Single?  Check?  Would I go out with her?  Check.”  It seems to me like you’re just very, very demographically desirable right now.

(I know, how romantic.  “Honey, I’ll never forget the first time I decided to ask you out.  You were just so ... demographically desirable.”  But any attempt to scientifically analyze affaires de l'amour is bound to sound a little callous, so please do forgive the limitations of language which allow me only to use these coarsest of examples in trying to make what is I think an otherwise reasonable statistical point.)

But I think you know what I’m getting at here.  It does your single guy friends no good to go after the girls who are married, engaged, dating, unavailable or otherwise “involved.”  Like it or not, as long as you’re single, you’re a potential date for these guys, and if it’s taken a while for them to figure that out, well, it’s been their loss for far too long.  Try not to penalize them for coming late to the party.

Opportunity:  Have you considered that many of these guys may well have wanted to ask you out, lo those many years ago, only to find their paths blocked by your having a boyfriend, or otherwise sending out general “not interested in dating” signals?  (Which, to my recollection, could include more than a couple of the intervening years.  You seemed pretty “occupied” during college, though I shouldn’t presume to guess what you’ve been up to since then.)  When the landing strip finally opens up, you’ve got men circling overhead like jets at O’Hare, all looking for clearance to land. (There's a pleasant image.)

Means:  For many of your college guy friends, college may have been a difficult or socially awkward time.  Now, years later, they’re just figuring themselves out, and are starting to try to figure you out, too.  And, as previously stated, you have a bit of an air of mystery about you.  You can be a bit tough to read, “Courteney,” so here’s a theory:  Maybe your guy friends project their ideal thoughts about what you might be like, and decide, “Hey, if she’s at all like that, I really should ask her out!”  Nothing you’ve said or done disproves the fantasy in their mind that you could be an ideal match for them, so why not ask you out?  I realize how flawed this thinking is, but I’ve found among my circle of friends that more than once, we’ve ended up going out with women because we thought or expected they’d be a certain way, when the reality was, we were just too preoccupied with that fantasy to objectively see the truth of the situation.

So, the big question; why the change?   Why could you just be “buddies” with these guys in college, while now they want something different?  There is no one answer.  Likely, it’s a combination of factors.

First off, aging.  It ain’t fun.  It reminds us of our own mortality.  Perhaps many of your friends are tired of doing the single thing, and have decided to make a real effort to look closer at the people in their lives whom they may have overlooked before.  (And forgive me if that’s an inappropriate use of the word “whom.”)  It’s one of the first lessons we’re taught in kindergarten – sharing is fun.  And now that we’re pushing past thirty, in that uniquely single way, we’re thinking, “Hey, you know what?  Sharing is fun.  Why not find someone to share all the cool things in my life with, and see what they can offer, too?”  All of a sudden, they start asking out everyone in sight.  And as previously stated, you’re quite the dating candidate.

Second off, companionship.  Whether they admit it or not, a lot of single guys have probably finished the “sowing their wild oats” stage.  Instead of cheap bar pickups, they’ve finally decided to turn their attentions to, um, how shall we say, a higher class of woman.  And "Courteney?"  You are definitely a higher class of woman.

So why do guys do the things they do?  It’s pretty simple, really.  We do the things we do, because we don’t know any other way.

Now if science could just figure out why girls do the things THEY do, then, we’d be getting somewhere.

http://www.match.com

http://www.breakupgirl.com  (if it ever comes back; damn you, Oxygen Network!)