It’s Still Just Me
I recently started a new job and sometimes managers from other stores are coming down to our store to help out. One of them was a guy who I seemed to have a recognition of interest with, so when the opportunity came up to meet him (and maybe some others) for a couple of drinks after work, I went with the flow, gave him my number and left, expecting to hear from him once he got off shift.
As luck would have it, my mom called me at exactly the time that he said he would be free and once she hung up, I called the job, only to find out that he had left already. I hung up the phone feeling disappointment, let down, a little hurt, a little angry and a little foolish. So what that I had made myself look pretty, put on a little makeup and had looked forward to it all afternoon? Things can and do happen where plans have to change but still...I was left with all these feelings and I didn’t like it. I wanted to be grown-up enough about it to shrug it off and not let it bother me.
But it does bother me.
And even more, it bothers me that it bothers me.
At 45 years of age, I’m no teenager. I’ve been around the block. I understand that expectations are often more fulfilling than actual events. I understand that things can happen (Life happens when you’re making plans) and that is, of course, acceptable. But I also understand that when a man doesn’t call you, that there’s a lack of interest there. Except, it wasn’t really a date. It was just a plan to meet. So why this, I guess, somewhat feeling of rejection?
Because I’m a female. Because I’m a female who had something to look forward to that wasn’t in the realm of my everyday routine. Because he was cute and it was cool that he had said “Absolutely” and he seemed to like the idea of getting together. Because it’s been a long time since I felt feminine or even noticed by an attractive male. Because maybe unconsciously I was building it to be something it wasn’t.
There is a danger that I fall into that I know other women fall into and that is the high expectations we put on the new person who really, is not the new person at all but merely an acquaintance who is on the fringes, if that, of our lives. But I know we tend to create romance and something where there isn’t and I know that this tendency is a sure set up for future failings. It kind of bothers me that with all that I know and all that I’ve been through over the years, that I can still be so affected by someone else’s actions in the realm of male-female relationships. It makes me wonder if I will always be this way. I sure hope not.