I once had someone ask me repeatedly why I liked him.

Have you ever had someone ask you why you like them and you never really answered their question? Maybe you didn’t know why. Maybe you weren’t ready to answer. Maybe you didn’t know them that well. Maybe you thought they were looking for a specific answer but you weren’t sure what answer they were looking for. Maybe you weren’t sure if they were just on an ego trip or trying to be manipulative. There are many reasons not to answer. It seems like such a simple question until you attempt a genuine answer.

Normally, I don’t have much of a problem giving someone an answer to a question, but for some reason “Why do you like me?” isn’t always an easy question for me to answer. Sometimes it’s easy. For this particular person, it wasn’t. Why DO we like who we like? For me, it’s a different answer for every single person that I know and like. For some people it’s the same list of reasons for everyone. They have certain qualities or interests they want to be around and they want to remain in their box with the people they like. Well, I burned that box long ago. I won’t date you if you try to put me into a box. I will be friends with you because I have other friends outside of the box.

This guy I didn’t answer because I didn’t know him well enough to know how far out of the box he was willing to go. I actually like him because I know he has layers and is not just the person his family and church expect him to be and present to the public. He can talk about anything. He is kind of an adrenaline junky. He is interesting and makes me laugh. He knows right from wrong and is a fairly compassionate person. He was raised to be in the box. He can stay in the box for a while but not forever. He likes to go have fun. He will never be happy trying to stay in the box he was raised to live inside. Most people who can’t live inside the box their family and/or religion tries to place them into, move to larger cities or at least far enough away from their immediate family that they have room to be themselves. He drives a semi. It’s his escape. He is smart. He will figure out how to reconcile all the areas of his life. He isn’t quite there yet. He is still trying to figure out which aspect of himself to choose. Choose them all. None of us have to be just one thing or have one personality. He was raised to believe he has to give up things he enjoys and fit into the box when he gets married. I like this person because he can be a good friend and I identify with him more than he realizes. At the end of the day, that’s probably the answer as to why I like most people. I identify with them or some aspect of their personality. I have varying interests and all of my friends and men I have dated have brought out some aspect of myself or introduced something new that I was interested in experiencing. For me, that’s why I like anyone. They add to my life in some way. They all bring their own unique personality into the mix. They make life better either in friendship, dating, coworkers, or casual acquaintances. Some become lifelong friends while others occupy a short time period of my life.