Thoroughly Upsetting

Well, it is time to make everyone's head explode! Okay, not quite that bad. In fact, not nearly that bad. I mean, my comment, "You're not going to like my next update," was a direct reply to Emmett's post about cheers to me for being a menace to society. And it doesn't involve unspeakable evils, either, so no, I don't have a girlfriend, and no, I'm not engaged, and no, I'm certainly not engaged to Camille or Rachel. And, despite the fact that Maren is psychic, I really doubt that what I'm talking about here is the subject of Maren's dream. You may rest more or less easy concerning this post.

Besides, I've previously determined that any seriously upsetting news will be delivered by phone or in person, so that anyone involved will have the chance to rant at or slap me. Have a nice day!

Anyway, I got asked to a girls' preference dance. The one day I wear the stupid wristband! I really wanted to wear two wristbands that day. I don't know why. Normally, I only wear one, but the idea of wearing two wristbands just seemed compelling. So, the ONE DAY I wear the Datestrong wristband, I get asked out. Of course, that wasn't why it happened, it just adds extra irony. Mmm, irony. Good for the soul. The girl who asked me out is someone I sit next to all the time in one of my classes, and sometimes we eat lunch together, and I'm fairly sure she just wanted to go to a dance and asked herself which boys she knows, so all is well. We had dinner, went to the dance, and made up random dance moves for about two hours. She likes circles, by the way. We left early, found a hill to roll down a few times, talked a long time, played some games, and called it a night.

First, I have to laugh at myself, because a guy who is truly anti-dating would probably also turn down girls who ask him.

Second, sparked by something my date said to me. Consider people who make you feel comfortable being exactly who you are. What is it about them that lets you share whatever's on your mind? I can think of two different cases where this might happen. First, the person you're with and the bond you have invites mutual respect and openness from a long history of friendship and honesty. I'm going to be a bit cynical and say I think that's the harder and much rarer of the two. The second one is less of a case of equal sharing and more of unidirectional sharing. We humans tend to think in opposites. Binary opposites, they're sometimes called. The relevant one here would be You/Me. Certain people seem consistently safe to be around, and seem to try to understand and not judge. I think people like this privilege "You" over "Me" when relating with other people, or in a less healthy person, have a bias against "Me" that is stronger than any bias they have against "You." The result is that such a person volunteers very little information about him/herself, but will be, or at least act, interested in long rants by their partner.

Now, this sort of attitude has both good and bad aspects. It's very easy to gain a person's trust, find out a lot about them, give them a comfortable friendship, and help them. Such people would also find it very difficult to talk about themselves and find the same sort of comfortable relationship they're so good at providing, which would result in feelings of isolation and a frustration at being unable to communicate properly.

Okay. I think I'm done.

~Paul