Back, finally, to the issue of guys and game. The original question: is it true that a guy may in fact be very into you but may not possess the god-given game to make a move?

For the record I reached out to the entire male Blog Board on this issue. This is a group comprised of eight sometimes-adults with varied female experience and fairly level-headed approaches to the state of the dating union.

It took me an entire weekend to sift through their responses – a fascinating collection of precious email anecdotes and painfully honest gchat conversation that made me feel way better about my 20+ years of over analysis. Girls, next time you slam the phone down and scream, “does he even care at all!!??” please remember that yes, he does care — he just sometimes cares very wrongly and confusingly.

To the point – in a word – yes.

Sometimes – apparently many times – a guy is very into you but does not know how to make it happen. This issue is an absolute Pandora’s box of the male psyche, but I will try to splice the many responses into a few finds to help you understand why it would be really helpful for you to just tell his buddy you have a thing for him and take it from there.

Things I’ve learned:

• Game is very dependent on circumstance. Simply, the more risk of embarrassment the less ability to make a move. Scenarios that damn-near cripple a man include: you work with him, you once dated a really good friend of his, you are a really good friend of his. To quote one guy’s response on the third scenario, “I would be scared absolutely fucking shitless”.
• Many good guys (define as you will) are very preoccupied with not seeming like an asshole. They don’t want to come across as the archetypal meathead slinging cheap lines at anything with cleavage. Nor do they (and this is significant) want to be with a girl who would go for that. Still they struggle to find a way to be respectful while also smooth, witty, well-timed, and possessing of an excellent exit strategy. To this end one sly guy answered my question with one of his own: what would girls prefer? No game or bad game? I didn’t have an answer.
• Guys believe girls often seem very unapproachable. They’re either in girl packs (which can be added to the complex circumstances list), falling for the attention of assholes, or just playing too hard slash confusing to get. This is part of the larger, fascinating fact that girls can always tell when other girls like a guy, and same for guys with guys, but in most cases neither sex can figure out the other. Solution: opposite sex wing men. This deserves an entire post. Stay tuned.
• And finally. I write sentences with “slash” too much. From my absolute favorite commentator, “I was a goddamn philosophy major. I have read Lonergan and understood it, but I just read the blog entry from today and I am fucking confused. Thought I would get that off my chest. Thank you.”

No real solutions but at least some clarity. This – now for the fourth time in three months- brings us to the same conclusion: get set up.
But – word to the wise – be sure to get a full background check…