If doctor phil and Dear Abby had a love child, it would be me. Except I don't ask for it -- people just volunteer personal information to me, unprovoked and unasked for. All the time. But without the weird letters and cheesy anonymous names.
More clearly stated, I have found myself, over the past six months or so, being approached by a ridiculous number of people (some friends, mostly vague acquaintances, and even a fair number of strangers) and presented with highly personal information, life stories, and/or confessions. Most of the time, it's on first dates. I have no idea why. But the first date confessions are ones I'll save for another blog post.
Out of these myriad conversations, I'll say about 5% deal with issues of extreme sensitivity: personal feelings, experiences, mistakes, and even confessions of highly illegal and harmful activities. It is about this five percent that I am writing today.
I am super honored that these people choose to confide in me, truly I am. I love that my friends and aquaintances and oddly enough, strangers, trust me enough to open their hearts and pasts and feelings to me -- something which has always been hard for me to do. I love talking about people's experiences and struggles and getting to know the people around me in a more personal, emotional way.
Each time a situation like this presents itself I am caught completely off guard. I usually get flustered and I always, always feel inadequate. I never feel like I am wise enough to deserve to be let in to someone's heart and trust so intimately. No matter what I say, I always feel like it isn't enough, or it isn't the right thing, or it'll be something they've heard a thousand and five times before.
Let's add to this situation my tendency to be overly blunt. I feel like when sensitive situations are discussed, it is often done with overly soft tongues, pretty words, and vague, cliche statements, which often enough leads to the issue being talking around and never really handled. It has always been my way of dealing with anything to cut right to the problem, ignore the emotional aspects of it, analyze it, and come up with a solution. The problem with this type of approach is that people who are in an emotionally, spiritually or mentally fragile state don't need that.
I feel like they're coming to me needing open-heart surgery, but the only tool I know how to use is an axe. Sometimes the patient is wearing a suit of armour, so the axe is exactly the tool I need to be using, and it works out well. Other times, the person is wearing what appears to be a suit of armor, so I swing the axe only to find out that it's really just aluminum foil shaped to look like tough metal. This is when I worry that real damage has been done.
I worry that my problem is insensitivity. In the past month or two, have had several good friends approach me out of the blue with extremely personal confessions of the type that fit into the aforementioned 5%. I honestly feel like I handled two of them completely wrong, and I am scared that I ended up damaging those friendships. They needed the type of careful surgery that can only be done with highly specialized medical tools, but all I had was a hatchet and a butter knife.
So I've made a new goal. I'm going to try and start handling these conversations more carefully and with more sensitivity, empathy, and love. I'm going to start listening more and giving advice less -- unless it is asked for. I'm going to throw away the axe and start using those sterile, sharp, effective medical knives that have been sitting in the back of my closet, mostly unused. Maybe this way I'll be more effective and I won't damage so many vital organs in the process.
As for those (potentially) damaged friendships, I am at a loss of what to do. Advice would be appreciated even if I don't know you and you just blog-stalked your way here. (Welcome.) Feel free to use either an axe or those sharp medical knives -- whichever you prefer.
P.S. (Be excited to read about the first date confessions. Ridiculous.)
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
First Dates and Cuddling
Let's take a mental field trip back a few years. I was but a few days away from my sixteenth birthday, had yet to discover the art of plucking my eyebrows, and although I was really great at flirting, I knew next to nothing about boys. I looked like this:
As my birthday approached, my BFF Emily took it upon herself -- as all best friends should -- to plan my first date. It was going to be a group thing. She asked a really cute guy that we barely knew if he would be my date. He agreed.
He picked me up in a convertible Mini Cooper. As we drove I realized that I knew nothing about this boy and that, terrifyingly, I had NOTHING to say to him. I think I may have talked about driver's licenses and asked if he was even allowed to have me in his car. He laughed and said he was, because he'd had his license for a long time. I wondered how old he was. He asked me no questions and offered no subjects of conversation. I was impressed by his good looks but I felt awkward and unsure about how to handle his apparent lack of conversation skills.
We went to Daniel's park where we met with the other two couples, ate, took pictures and talked about who knows what, then we played games in the tent for a while. Rachel and her boy went exploring, so Emily and Andres started to cuddle on one side of the tent.
I have no idea how it happened, but one minute I was sitting up a few feet away from my date, and the next second we were spooning. (This was my first introduction to what I like to call the ninja cuddle). I had never really cuddled with a boy before... let alone one who I barely knew and was who knows how much older than me.
I was barely 16, and I should have been over the moon with giddiness and romance at finding myself cuddling with what I thought was a VERY attractive older boy. But in reality, I had no idea what to do.
I hadn't been prepared for a cuddle session on this date. I didn't really know how cuddling worked. We lay there spooning, and he was running his hand up and down my side (not in a perverted way, but in a back scratch type way), and I laid there like a piece of wood. I didn't do ANYTHING. For some reason I was under the impression that if I breathed too much or moved in any way, he would get scared and run off like a startled deer. I didn't talk to him, I didn't move, I didn't touch him at all... He probably felt like a creep, trying to cuddle with this unresponsive, unmoving girl. Yes, I am embarrassed about that.
I'm sure if you could go talk to my date and ask about this, he would say I am the most awkward date ever. Because I probably was.
Moving On...
A few days after that, I went on my second date ever. It was a double date with a friend of mine. Each couple made cookies without a recipe to see which ones tasted better. The answer? None of them. They were all super gross. But we ended the evening by watching that movie with Will Smith where everyone turns into zombies and he strangles his dog.
In rough contrast to my first date, this date was awkward because I don't think we touched at all. Not during the cookies, and definitely not during the movie. My date and I sat there, a good foot and a half apart, not touching or talking or looking at each other and only half paying attention to the movie because we were so preoccupied with whether or not we should have been cuddling. So we half-watched this very long movie while the other couple (who had been dating for a while) intensely cuddled it up just 5 feet away. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to cuddle, or sit close to each other, or touch at all, or if he wanted to. So, like on my date a few days earlier, I did nothing. I sat there, unmoving, like a piece of wood, terrified that if I did anything it would be the wrong move and ruin the date. That movie lasted way too long.
Needless to say, there were no more dates with either of those two boys. One is now married and the other is currently serving a mission, but we've become super close friends. But these experiences (and various others that I'll probably talk about later) led me to create my touching rule.
The Touching Rule states that on a typical first date, where the people in question don't know each other very well, if at all, there should be minimal touching. Show respect for your date by not going faster than they're prepared for (my first date.) I say minimal touching because if you don't touch at all (my second date) it also gets awkward. Don't act like your date has the chicken pox, but don't be all up in their business either. Show respect.
Of course there are exceptions. If for example, you and your date have been friends for a long time and are comfortable with each other, by all means cuddle the night away. But I believe that if you don't know your date well, you should first get all up on their personality before you get all up on their body. Yes, I did just say that. Yes, I do regret it. No, I will not go and erase it, because the point still stands.
I have lots of other first date guidelines, but I'll do a list in my next post. Or eventually. But those two dates, though not my most awkward, were the beginning in a long string of awkward and/or embarrassing dates that would fill the next 3.5 years of my life. Be excited for more.
 |
| Emily and I on my first date. |
He picked me up in a convertible Mini Cooper. As we drove I realized that I knew nothing about this boy and that, terrifyingly, I had NOTHING to say to him. I think I may have talked about driver's licenses and asked if he was even allowed to have me in his car. He laughed and said he was, because he'd had his license for a long time. I wondered how old he was. He asked me no questions and offered no subjects of conversation. I was impressed by his good looks but I felt awkward and unsure about how to handle his apparent lack of conversation skills.
We went to Daniel's park where we met with the other two couples, ate, took pictures and talked about who knows what, then we played games in the tent for a while. Rachel and her boy went exploring, so Emily and Andres started to cuddle on one side of the tent.
I have no idea how it happened, but one minute I was sitting up a few feet away from my date, and the next second we were spooning. (This was my first introduction to what I like to call the ninja cuddle). I had never really cuddled with a boy before... let alone one who I barely knew and was who knows how much older than me.
I was barely 16, and I should have been over the moon with giddiness and romance at finding myself cuddling with what I thought was a VERY attractive older boy. But in reality, I had no idea what to do.
I'm sure if you could go talk to my date and ask about this, he would say I am the most awkward date ever. Because I probably was.
Moving On...
A few days after that, I went on my second date ever. It was a double date with a friend of mine. Each couple made cookies without a recipe to see which ones tasted better. The answer? None of them. They were all super gross. But we ended the evening by watching that movie with Will Smith where everyone turns into zombies and he strangles his dog.
In rough contrast to my first date, this date was awkward because I don't think we touched at all. Not during the cookies, and definitely not during the movie. My date and I sat there, a good foot and a half apart, not touching or talking or looking at each other and only half paying attention to the movie because we were so preoccupied with whether or not we should have been cuddling. So we half-watched this very long movie while the other couple (who had been dating for a while) intensely cuddled it up just 5 feet away. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to cuddle, or sit close to each other, or touch at all, or if he wanted to. So, like on my date a few days earlier, I did nothing. I sat there, unmoving, like a piece of wood, terrified that if I did anything it would be the wrong move and ruin the date. That movie lasted way too long.
Needless to say, there were no more dates with either of those two boys. One is now married and the other is currently serving a mission, but we've become super close friends. But these experiences (and various others that I'll probably talk about later) led me to create my touching rule.
The Touching Rule states that on a typical first date, where the people in question don't know each other very well, if at all, there should be minimal touching. Show respect for your date by not going faster than they're prepared for (my first date.) I say minimal touching because if you don't touch at all (my second date) it also gets awkward. Don't act like your date has the chicken pox, but don't be all up in their business either. Show respect.
Of course there are exceptions. If for example, you and your date have been friends for a long time and are comfortable with each other, by all means cuddle the night away. But I believe that if you don't know your date well, you should first get all up on their personality before you get all up on their body. Yes, I did just say that. Yes, I do regret it. No, I will not go and erase it, because the point still stands.
I have lots of other first date guidelines, but I'll do a list in my next post. Or eventually. But those two dates, though not my most awkward, were the beginning in a long string of awkward and/or embarrassing dates that would fill the next 3.5 years of my life. Be excited for more.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Duh Duh Date.
I've decided that I want to write a book about dating. Yes, I know that I'm 19. How much experience could I have, anyway? Enough, I think. It wouldn't be a self-help or a motivational book. Probably more like a collection of my best and worst dating experiences with my views on them. It'll probably be funny. It'll be called
Dating Only Sucks if You Suck
(So Stop Sucking)
or....
Dating Sucks, Here's How to be Good at it.
It'll be rad because many Mormons are of the opinion that "suck" is a swear word. And that's fine. But honestly, my writing style won't appeal to those members anyway. What it will appeal to is teenagers and young adults. So be excited. Maybe it won't be a book, maybe it'll be a blog. Maybe I'll start it here.
Believe me, I know I'm no expert at dating. I have a tendency to mind-over-matter my emotional capacity to that of a teaspoon or possibly a stoic rock. I have a tendency to use my head and not my heart when dating -- mostly because I'm terrified of emotional dependance and the risk of getting hurt. But that same tendency has led me to be able to make a LOT of observations about dating, about gender differences, and about the myriad misconceptions everyone has about everyone else -- especially in Mormonland.
This being said, I have spent hundreds of hours in the apartments of my guy friends, talking to them about their dating lives, their pet-peeves and their perspective of women. I have spent maybe half the amount of hours doing the same with females. Luckily, I AM a female, (Perhaps an emotionally disabled one, but a female nonetheless) so I think I have a fairly balanced view of the sexes.
In conclusion; (I'm one-hundred percent sure I have no idea what the correct usage of a semi-colon is, so friends who just mentally corrected that, shut yo' mouth... Please.) But in conclusion; That'll be the next chapter in the short and choppy life of BLOG. A warm up exercise to get my head thinking and the writing started. I probably won't give away all my secrets, and I definitely don't want to come off as preachy, but I'll probably tell stories and give my viewpoints. Feel free to share your own. Not all the posts will be dating centric, but consider this post the WARNING sign telling you to beware that you're about to enter into the very blunt, very opinionated, possibly very skewed world of my dating life. Welcome.
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