(When am I not having a discussion with Seana?) Out of the blue, she hit me from the left field with a comment about my argumentative and debate aspect, especially in regards to how it affects my relationships, or specifically, my lack of relationships with women.
I don’t know where or how we got on the topic of my “relationship” status, but there it was, when she said something along the lines of:
“You really want a girl who you can argue with, huh?”
Of course I replied “yes” to this. Let’s look a little further into this, just for clarification. When she and I talk about “argue” we refer to debates and discussions, not in “fights” or real arguments. Within the week, I am going to do a rant on the differences between a debate and an argument.
Anyhow, so, yes, I would like to be with someone who gets into a passionate discussion about their beliefs, whether they agree with me or not. Stand by your guns! And then, here comes the left fieldy:
“Have you ever thought that when you get like you do, that you intimidate or scare people off? When you start talking, you make it hard for people to keep up with you, and even sometimes make them feel inferior. You should try to tone it down a little bit, so the girls you talk to do not feel like they are not intelligent enough to be with you; that they have a chance.”
I have reflected on this throughout the night, and decided to rant about it because, not only is it true, but it made me realize something very important.
First, I love to talk about beliefs and values. I love to share ideas and thoughts. To me, this is the only way that we, as people, can continue to learn and grow at any sort of non-millennial time frame; we can learn from each other. However, I have known for a long time how people can intimidated by this. As far as I am concerned, that’s fine, but it is not going to stop me from doing what I love and talking about what I love.
Second, I came to this realization. Whenever I am dealing with people, I always treat everyone as equally as possible. My basis for judgement is on merit, not on superficial or uncontrollable details. The person is who counts. However, if I get into a situation where I am interested in someone, I complicate things. It’s not a matter of self-confidence, as I’ve got enough to share.
What I do is I fall into the irrational and almost unconscious thought that I am the one who always has to do the work to impress. It has, honestly, never really occurred to me in a real way that someone could like me before or during all this hoopla. I think it was her “that they have a chance.” bit. I build these inane walls up and will not let someone I am interested in see in, because I have this hypocritical belief that nobody would feel the need to impress me, but only I feel the need to impress them. I do not know if this is making any real sense, but I hope it is.
I have been bound by a societal standard without realizing it. I have been bound by a hypocritical belief without realizing it. I have set an irrational standard that when I found myself interested in someone there was no way it could be vice versa, that I would have work to accomplish something. It has all become clear (at least to me, heh) in my discussion with her that I have completely missed out that someone could actually be trying to impress me! I have missed out on the fact that not only are there people out there who want a “chance,” but many do not even think they have one.
Even though this was a super introspective piece that mainly served to clear my mind and put some of my thoughts in my head straight, I hope someone gets something out of it. If you have a response to it, I would really enjoy to here it, so please email me, and let me know.