Stereotypes!

There was a guy where I sang a couple weeks ago that started talking to me. He was covered in tattoos and had all sorts of facial hair. He started talking about his “old” wife. I asked him if he had a younger one but apparently he only meant that she was not his wife any longer. He had all sorts of girls names printed on his body though. I wasn’t sure if they were his children’s names or if he simply hadn’t learned his lesson about how his track record with permanence is less than worthy of using needles and ink to express his sentiments!…May I suggest henna?

The guy asked me what I thought he did for a living. Without a beat, I said, “Construction worker?”…uh…nope…he apparently was an accountant…but he was looking for a job. (Oh. Really? I’m surprised! There are so many accounting firms in search of people to select “off the grid” under the ethnicity box on their application.)

So why is it so easy to give someone the wrong impression? One bad day…one flippant remark…one visit to the store in sweat pants…The love of your life could be standing right there in front of you thinking, “hmm…what a mess!”…one (okay…maybe 4 or 5) misplaced tattoo/s…someone with dog hair on their coat (yeah…that’s mine…if someone has dog hair on them, there is absolutely no way I’m going out on a date with him! I’m actually lucky if I don’t sneeze on him before he even asks.)

The question is do we always need to be on our best behavior? It’s like being an extra character in a show. You can phone in your “passenger number 2”, but what if a producer is watching for that perfect “passenger number 2” in a movie with the same title? You wouldn’t get chosen for the role unless you played the role as though you were the most important character on the stage. Actually, that’s sort of why my “passenger number 2” likes to take a tap solo in front of the main character once in awhile. Of course in most cases this hasn’t gotten the best response from the powers that be but oh well…I just better not be stereotyped as the “unruly passenger number 2!”…

The bottom line is that being the best at being you while still heeding your social barometer will go a long way towards achieving anything you want out of your life. And if you plan on expressing yourself on body parts that people might see one day, don’t worry about that accounting degree…

...But she's a witch...

I have a friend who dates random girls from time to time. He meets them in various places and they hardly ever pan out for some reason. Sometimes we wonder if it’s just him being too picky, but of course, what the heck do we know? A couple weeks ago he told me that he had met a great girl online. She was a lawyer, smart, funny, attractive…finally the perfect girl right? A few days passed and he stopped into my office and said, “There’s a problem. She’s a witch.”…uh… “What do you mean?” I asked. “Did she make you pay for dinner?”…He said, “No. She’s a real witch. She writes spells.”…hmm…That can’t be good. I didn’t tell him, but I was a little worried. It’s not that I have any judgments as to who is right or wrong in their belief system (though I have my own personal views that I follow closely), but I firmly feel that what works for people as individuals holds an awful lot of power over circumstance. What if she puts a pox on his house or something? Personally, I don’t practice Wicca. In fact, I’m a catholic. In theory, I should condemn her to eternal hell-fire and burn her at the stake…wait…or is that the Baptists?…No matter. To each his own. I firmly believe that as long as people have something that sets their idealistic foundation in place, I have no reason to question it. Besides, I might need a witch for something one day. Who knows? I like to keep a cross section of the world’s population at my fingertips in case I need to write a paper or something. I carry honorary memberships with the African American population, the gay and lesbian association, children with special needs, the Jewish community, the poor people, the rich people, the dirty people, the clean people, the liberals, the tea party!…I like people! I am happy to add “guy who is going to marry a witch” to the list! (I’m assuming he has to marry her right? There can’t possibly be a way out!)

What the heck happened to Steve?

There used to be a guy would comment on these blogs. Well…Something happened to all of the comments on the entire site and everything was deleted…then I never heard from Steve again. Unfortunately, it was right after his final comment about nice guys finishing last and pretty much giving up on the whole thing…uh…Steve?…Did you jump ship? Well I hope you didn’t give up and leave the country (like I have often considered myself!) I just thought, “hmm…I hope my blog didn’t send him into a downward spiral of cheese sticks and vodka.” (Again…the cheese sticks are sort of my thing…but oh well…MY blog!)

I’m sure that he has long since dated someone new, or at the very least met a line of girls who are just about the same or worse than the one he was speaking about a few months back. You know…so many of us write dating off completely but eventually we all get back on the horse. I suppose the trouble is that once we’ve established our personal likes and dislikes, we do tend to be standing in line at the gate of all the wrong horses to get back on.

I thought this over extensively. (What do I have to do?…I was driving down the highway and ran out of things to dwell on…so off my mind went…right into the cesspool of psychological disharmony!) How young would we have to be to not have established some sort of dynamic with the human race yet? Givers need takers so they seek out takers who take too much. If another giver comes along, our minds immediately think that there must be something wrong with them. (This is not a great testimony to our own giving nature really…though it does clear up some of our growing misconceptions that have festered upon watching people choose mates “who aren’t as nice as us” because “nice guys/girls finish last.” I once spent some time picking up after a guy, making his meals, shoveling his driveway, getting the groceries, wiring the house for sound and internet…then he decided that I was “too nice” and ended up with someone who would tell him to “get your own damn dinner! What is wrong with you? You don’t have feet?”) Strangely enough, it makes a little sense. People want to work for the things that matter to them or else it quickly becomes less interesting.

That being said though, If we have spent our lives working overtime to prove ourselves to the people around us, when we meet someone who isn’t asking us to prove anything it can be very easy to not recognize that person as a possibility and dismiss him/her. Is it because our definition of love is skewed by past experience of what it may have been? Whether it’s childhood dynamics or early dating experiences, we may have the tendency to be drawn towards people who treat us badly because it is what is familiar to us. We all have people in our lives that have screwed us over. If we were to really think about it, are “all” the people we’ve met since, exactly the same as those people? We might feel like they are. But is it really “all” or is it just the ones we’ve counted in as having potential? I have to say that I have passed many “nice guys” up because of lack of chemistry over the years. I don’t remember their names though. I’m certain they were dismissed very early on. The ones I tried for were the ones whose names I remember. They were narcissistic, condescending jerks…. I LOVE THEM! Why?…well…because I love a project. Will they ever make good life partners?...I am certain they will not. Can I spot one 50 ft across a room? Definitely! Do I identify him as someone I don’t want or as someone I want a chance to meet and show him that I am worth his time?…uh...well…baby steps!... No... I don’t want him. He’ll never be what I want for my future but he is the definition of what hasn’t worked for me in the past!

Great! Now we know it’s us!…Good to know…but how can we change what our lifetime of experiences has convinced us is what chemistry is?…don’t know…but I am making a set of questions to answer when someone comes into our lives:

Why am I attracted to this person?…If it is because that person reminds us of someone in our past, consider what those common traits are. If one of those traits is that that person doesn’t care whether you live or die, dismiss!

Is this person too nice?…If your answer is yes because he/she didn’t playfully tell you that you were fat as you ordered dinner, take a second look at this person. You may want to eat again one day!

Is this person exactly what you’ve always said you were looking for when people asked why you were single?…If so, send him/her away just so you can prove to everyone around you that you were right that he/she didn’t exist and wallow in self pity! It’s a lot of fun!...hee hee...

I contend that just being aware of what we are looking for and why, will go a long way towards choosing someone who will compliment what we have to offer instead of setting ourselves up to fail over and over again….Steve…I hope you met someone who appreciates a nice guy and not more of the same! Happy day!

Why am I getting Forbes Magazine?

I have to say that Internet ordering traps are ridiculous. For some reason I started receiving Forbes Magazine a few months ago. It had my name and address on it as though I had ordered it so I went online to find the company. I contacted them and explained that I was getting it by mistake and asked them to stop sending it. They told me that they couldn’t stop it…huh?…but I’m not going to pay for it.…I can’t imagine that it’s good business to send magazines to people who aren’t going to pay for them. Is Forbes run by the government? Possibly there was a clause in the stimulus that gave all US citizens Forbes magazine for personal betterment? That’s great! I will put it to good use…like the $3 a week that was in my paycheck last year. I almost bought myself a boat.…I know! I’ll have to put the next one that comes in the bathroom for guests to read.

I get so upset when I’m forced into things. I know that people would say that no one makes you do anything. Not true! I know that I didn’t order a magazine. They are making me receive it. Then again, they won’t be “making me” pay for it. How much do we have to give away until someone values what we have to offer?…Ironically, I think that the more we give away, the more we devalue our time. I wonder if it’s human nature to think that what costs more is better? If Forbes can afford to send me their magazine for free, I’m assuming that they have no need to sell it. They definitely don’t need me to subscribe to it! It must be so bad that they can’t even give it away! If that’s the case though, I think they should just put it in the grocery store entrances with the real estate listings so we can decide if we need it or not. It would save a lot of paper.

So how does this apply to our lives when it comes to dating? It seems quite clear to me. (Thank you Forbes) As long as we seem like our time and energy has no worth to us, person after person will continue to take it from us with no regard for the actual value of it. If there is a small price to pay, people won’t be as quick to waste so much of our time. We shouldn’t just mail ourselves to random people! Maybe if we followed this simple rule, it would save some of the content on our pages for people who feel like reading!