That’s Not Your Man, You’re Just Another Plate On Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

As you prepare to slave in the hot kitchen with three generations of women in your family, you’ll probably find yourself excited by the thought of your crush coming over. The fact that he’ll be meeting your family, tasting your cooking, and finally devoting the entire holiday to being by your side, has you beaming with joy. This is what true love is all about, and maybe, just maybe, you guys can make things official. That is until he tells you he plans on house hopping for Thanksgiving.

Fantasy over. Reality has set in. That isn’t your man, girl. You’re just another warm plate to him.

What do you do when you find out that the man you concocted an entire future with isn’t on the same page as you? Think of the man in this situation as a “player.” He’s just bouncing from house to house, satisfying everyone he said he would see while simultaneously getting his itch scratched. You can’t be mad at him. You assumed, as most of us women do, that just because he agreed to spend a holiday with you, that this means that things would become serious between you two. In actuality, though, it just means he was hungry.

This is a mistake a lot of women make. You see, women are much more complex in our thinking than men. We can be very analytical. We dissect the meaning of every word and every gesture. We take simple things and make them more complicated than they truly have to be. Men, on the other hand, are more straightforward. They mean exactly what they say. If he says he’s “coming over to grab a plate,” he’s literally coming over to grab a plate. Then, he’ll probably head to another friend’s house to watch the game. In his mind, he took your Thanksgiving invitation as an opportunity to get a home-cooked meal. He wasn’t looking at this as an invitation to your heart.

But you, you saw the invite differently. To you, inviting a man over to your home with all of your family present was going to be a step in the direction of a beautiful relationship. You’ll get to see how he gets along with the fam, see how the fam responds to him, silently planning your entire future with him, and so forth. You’re slightly crazy, to be honest, but who isn’t?

So what do you do when you find out you’re just one plate of many plates on this day? You make a vow to yourself to start seeing things for what they truly are—no more reading between lines that don’t exist. No more concocting a future in your mind with someone who isn’t on the same page as you. Communicate your feelings more, even at the expense of being embarrassed. It’s better you two have an understanding than you finding yourself hurt on Christmas because you went all out for him, and he did nothing for you.

Protect your heart, ladies. Be safe out there!