The Tsundere Drawback

'Tsundere (ツンデレ^?, pronounced [tsɯndeɽe]) is a Japanese character development process that describes a person who is initially cold and even hostile towards another person before gradually showing his or her warm side over time. The word is derived from the terms tsun tsun (ツンツン^?), meaning to turn away in disgust, and dere dere (デレデレ^?) meaning to become 'lovey dovey'.' - Wikipedia

Not necessarily in a romantic way, and not necessarily gradually warming up over time- it can come out in dribs and drabs, almost like a very mild and very annoying but possibly endearing personality disorder that only manifests itself around specific people, or a specific person.

You probably know a tsundere character, even if you don't watch anime. Helga from the cartoon Hey Arnold!, who acts downright abusive and cantankerous towards her secret crush; Sherlock Homes from the TV series Sherlock who needles his long-suffering friend John with smug superior sarcasm; even Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, who's generally bad tempered about everything but has plenty of 'aww, so you do care!' moments.

My name is Tash, and I'm tsundere.

So is it as cute and funny in real life as it is in popular culture?

No.

Real life doesn't happen like that. Being tsundere is in fact very, very inconvenient, and in more than one way.

There's the first, obvious way: people (okay, guys in particular) that I take a liking to make my brain go weird. I go from being easy to talk to, fun, friendly and intelligent to not being able to make eye contact, aloof, even prickly. At best I'll be giving the silent treatment- not because I'm bored of someone, but because my brain inexplicably draws a complete blank- and at worst I'll come off as polite but frosty. Again, not because I want to be, but because my whole system goes into default defence mode.

It takes a long time for me to properly warm up to guys, even just as friends. I'm naturally guarded. Hell, it took me a whole year to fall for my now-ex (who was a close friend for a long time before we started a relationship, and who subsequently got bored of me after three years of  being in a relationship). But once I eventually warm up, I'm the most loyal and caring person ever. See? Tsundere. Of course, however, this doesn't go down very well as a first impression.

Which leads me to the second downside. Making an effort to be warm from the outset in social situations that make me uncomfortable actually makes me come across as unnatural or just plain weird. Here was my internal monologue today (I was in a queue in one of my favourite geeky shops, and there was a guy with a pretty awesome Nintendo bag in the queue next to me):

'Wow, that's a cool bag. Maybe I should compliment him on it? Uh-oh, he spotted me looking, abort, abort! No, I should make eye contact. Don't forget to smile! Yay, he smiled back! You should look away now. I said look away! TOO MUCH EYE CONTACT!! Great, now he looks weirded out and is looking in the other direction. Way to go, dumbass.'

So training myself to be warm to everyone equally isn't going so well. Which brings me to the third and final downside.

Being friendly to guys and male friends who I'm not romantically interested in and them getting the wrong idea.

Before you cry 'bitch!' let me explain: I don't flirt, I don't tease, I just smile, listen, chat- you know, all of the normal friendly things- because I don't feel like I'm in an awkward situation. Unfortunately, it seems like merely being kind is a sort of green light to guys. I can count four guys in the past singular year who have taken my natural non-tsundere nature as a 'green light'- three of which I only met once! One is a little more unfortunate because he has been a friend for a few years and it's horrible to have to hurt his feelings, but what all four have (or had) in common is that fact that they don't seem to take 'no' for an answer.

'I don't see you in that way' seems to morph in their minds into 'I don't see you in that way yet.'

'I'm not interested in a relationship' becomes 'I'm not interested unless you change yourself.'

'You're like my brother' becomes 'If you show me a different side of you maybe I'll feel differently.'

No, no and no. And yes, as ball-crushingly soulless as it might seem, I have tried the 'brother' line in sheer desperation.

Tell them to their faces in cold, callous terms (or in some cases again)? Well the problem is, none of them have actually told me in plain terms to my face what their agenda is, and have therefore not given me the opportunity of doing so without making a fool of myself and them denying everything (despite two mutual friends clue-ing me up on two separate situations, which reassures me that it's not all in my head). Instead they (well, three out of four now that one seems to have finally given up) text endlessly, or message endlessly on social media.

Of course this can only end with hurt feelings. I've been on the other end myself, so I truly empathise (although I was much better at the whole giving up thing...) My empathy and sympathy won't help me or these guys- who really don't deserve this- though.

What do you mean, 'stop being so picky?' Isn't it even worse to humour someone when your heart's just not in it? Life isn't about taking anything and everything you can get at the expense of others- at least, it isn't to me.

So what should I do? Set my tsundere side as a default and freeze out everyone without discrimination at first? Stop being nice to my male friends and become a total biatch towards them (except for the friends who are already spoken for- funnily enough and thankfully I don't have this problem with them)? Try to be equally warm and friendly to everyone?

Probably the latter, I suppose. Easier said then done though: you saw the awkward-salad that was my non-encounter in the shop today.

I'll try to be more open with everyone, then. But only because I want to!! Got it? [/tsundere]