The Idea of a Person
The idea of a person--our own hopes and expectations of who and what someone is or could be--that's what we want a person to be. If we want someone to love, we give our idea of the person we want traits that make them more desireable. We idealize and optimize those we say we care about by accepting and idea instead of the actual person.
I know I've been guilty of this plenty of times. I was once accused of caring about my idea of someone and not that person--all as a reason why I should back the hell off of them.
The girl I thought liked me has been guilty of this as well. I think what happened was something (What, I don't know) happened in her life and she wanted her boyfriend to listen to her and talk with her about the things she actually cares about. I say this because I'm fairly certain that the following things are true:
1. My initial assessment that this girl had a boyfriend and, as a result, isn't worth the effort.
2. That she was shooting me signals over the past few weeks.
3. That she's not going to send me any more signals.
Before I started to think she was shooting me signals, I'd talked to this girl about teaching--she's studying it, I used to do it, and my sister still deals with it. I'm willing to bet her boyfriend isn't a teacher. Most of the signals came about after a conversation about teaching. My knowledge of the subject made her more comfortable.
I'd say we all want some degree of sympathy from others. I think she must have been at a distance from said boyfriend for a while given her radical shift back to near-silence on her part. This is naturally after he boyfriend must have visited her over the weekend.
Since she's satisfied now (or for the time being, if you want a colder assessment), she's not shooting any more signals at me. I created a chance to. I cracked jokes with her, but she just didn't respond. That's why I think she was drawn to her idea of me, not the real me. (She's never once that I can recall asked me about my writing.)
I sure this is the sort of thing that will eventually come out of the subtext of my writing, so I thought I'd address it now while it was fresh in my mind. Feel free to ridicule my stream of consciousness writing if you like. This post is more for my benefit than anything else.
The good news--my instincts were right about this girl from the beginning.
I know I've been guilty of this plenty of times. I was once accused of caring about my idea of someone and not that person--all as a reason why I should back the hell off of them.
The girl I thought liked me has been guilty of this as well. I think what happened was something (What, I don't know) happened in her life and she wanted her boyfriend to listen to her and talk with her about the things she actually cares about. I say this because I'm fairly certain that the following things are true:
1. My initial assessment that this girl had a boyfriend and, as a result, isn't worth the effort.
2. That she was shooting me signals over the past few weeks.
3. That she's not going to send me any more signals.
Before I started to think she was shooting me signals, I'd talked to this girl about teaching--she's studying it, I used to do it, and my sister still deals with it. I'm willing to bet her boyfriend isn't a teacher. Most of the signals came about after a conversation about teaching. My knowledge of the subject made her more comfortable.
I'd say we all want some degree of sympathy from others. I think she must have been at a distance from said boyfriend for a while given her radical shift back to near-silence on her part. This is naturally after he boyfriend must have visited her over the weekend.
Since she's satisfied now (or for the time being, if you want a colder assessment), she's not shooting any more signals at me. I created a chance to. I cracked jokes with her, but she just didn't respond. That's why I think she was drawn to her idea of me, not the real me. (She's never once that I can recall asked me about my writing.)
I sure this is the sort of thing that will eventually come out of the subtext of my writing, so I thought I'd address it now while it was fresh in my mind. Feel free to ridicule my stream of consciousness writing if you like. This post is more for my benefit than anything else.
The good news--my instincts were right about this girl from the beginning.
Labels: Commanding Thoughts
posted by LEN! at 11:47 PM
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