Women
(were God's second mistake)
What an insane weekend! More than ever I am convinced that having two genders just creates problems.
On Saturday night I got a call completely out of the blue from one of Nate's internship friends, Bethany. I've only met her twice, once with all my guy friends from college on the dance floor, and once at her (and her roommate's) Halloween party. But she invited me to get some food with her that night after class, so ss soon as I was done, I got off the T at Station Square and walked to the South Side. We ended up going to Fat Heads (a restaurant) and staying there for about 2 and a half hours, just talking. I mean, about everything: work, life direction, politics, foreign cultures, the benefits of teaching, favorite books, eating habits, friends, painting, you name it, we talked about it. This is a girl that has read "Dave Barry Does Japan" AND The Wheel of Time series. That's cool no matter how you look at it. She's also pretty and entertaining. Oh, and brilliant; the people of Nate's internship are some of the brightest young minds in the country. She spent three and a half years in Japan and speaks French and Japanese fluently. I was pretty impressed. I had a great time.
She offered to drive me home afterwards. Insisted, really. After she called me to set this up. And the drive is not small; it's a 20-25 minute trip each way. I've got a T pass, and the T drops me off in front of my apartment, a fact that I mentioned some 18 times but she refused to listen. It makes me wonder.
Point of Confusion 1: This is a woman who, to my face, proclaimed her love for Nate. Granted, she was wildly drunk at the time. But damn girl, you can't pick any better than that. Nate needs to clone himself because every time a woman spends 5 minutes with the man she realizes that he is light-years better than whatever she has.
On the other hand, Sunday night, Nate came over to watch the Steelers game (11-1, oh yeah!) and said that she had been acting a lot more distant to him lately. And now she completely initiates this thing - when I've never called her on my own - and drives me back to my apartment. What gives?
Point of Confusion 2: I am coming to believe that being inexclusive is actually more problematic than being exclusive. Just because I want to talk to you doesn't mean I want to date you. I've had friends of the female persuasion for many years, and the one plus that being in a long-term relationship grants is that women don't automatically assume the reason you're talking to them is because you're trying to get them back to your apartment. On the other hand, I've also witnessed women completely lose interest in talking as soon as they found out I was in an exclusive relationship, so its a 2-way street. 'He's not on the market, he's not worth going after', it the thought, and you can almost see the change in expression right then. Of course, considering some of the utterly horrendous things I've witnessed my gender do/say along the same lines, I shouldn't be as angry. But at least for some women, the knowledge that my goal in talking to them wasn't sex-based - wow, what a surprise - was comforting. It meant I was genuinely interested.
But now that I'm inexclusive, it's all changed. I talk to women I've known for years or ones I'm just meeting, and the immediate suspicion is that I've got romantic/sexual/dating motives. I'd like to open all conversations with, "Hi! I'm Mat! I have absolutely no romantic, sexual, or dating-oriented plans towards you! I'd just like to get to know you!" Yet no matter what you say, it could all easily be a ploy for exactly that purpose. Thanks, the rest of my gender.
I should mention that I like having friends that are women. It's so tough to do but so rewarding if you can pull it off. Women friends - who think you're talking to them for them, not for yourself - can provide such an interesting and different perspective on things. I've been blessed with one or two of these in my day. Very very tough. Very rewarding.
The thing is, had I had dinner alone at a restaurant with a girl who then drove me back to my apartment when I was exclusive, I wouldn't have thought I did a thing wrong. Ironically, now that I'm inexclusive, a scenario under which I could have invited her inside and she could have spent the night at my apartment and have it been totally acceptable, I actually feel more guilty then if I had done it while I was exclusive!!
So my mind was whirling with all this most of the night. Women are the most confusing things on this planet.
So later that night, my friend Martin and I played Burnout 3 for 3+ hours. Fantastic. Total comfort, no confusion, no hidden motives, just two guys racing at 200+ mph and crashing rivals and themselves all over multiple continents. Elapsed thinking time: 14 seconds, when I was deciding whether or not to have another glass of Pepsi.
If only it was always that easy!
What an insane weekend! More than ever I am convinced that having two genders just creates problems.
On Saturday night I got a call completely out of the blue from one of Nate's internship friends, Bethany. I've only met her twice, once with all my guy friends from college on the dance floor, and once at her (and her roommate's) Halloween party. But she invited me to get some food with her that night after class, so ss soon as I was done, I got off the T at Station Square and walked to the South Side. We ended up going to Fat Heads (a restaurant) and staying there for about 2 and a half hours, just talking. I mean, about everything: work, life direction, politics, foreign cultures, the benefits of teaching, favorite books, eating habits, friends, painting, you name it, we talked about it. This is a girl that has read "Dave Barry Does Japan" AND The Wheel of Time series. That's cool no matter how you look at it. She's also pretty and entertaining. Oh, and brilliant; the people of Nate's internship are some of the brightest young minds in the country. She spent three and a half years in Japan and speaks French and Japanese fluently. I was pretty impressed. I had a great time.
She offered to drive me home afterwards. Insisted, really. After she called me to set this up. And the drive is not small; it's a 20-25 minute trip each way. I've got a T pass, and the T drops me off in front of my apartment, a fact that I mentioned some 18 times but she refused to listen. It makes me wonder.
Point of Confusion 1: This is a woman who, to my face, proclaimed her love for Nate. Granted, she was wildly drunk at the time. But damn girl, you can't pick any better than that. Nate needs to clone himself because every time a woman spends 5 minutes with the man she realizes that he is light-years better than whatever she has.
On the other hand, Sunday night, Nate came over to watch the Steelers game (11-1, oh yeah!) and said that she had been acting a lot more distant to him lately. And now she completely initiates this thing - when I've never called her on my own - and drives me back to my apartment. What gives?
Point of Confusion 2: I am coming to believe that being inexclusive is actually more problematic than being exclusive. Just because I want to talk to you doesn't mean I want to date you. I've had friends of the female persuasion for many years, and the one plus that being in a long-term relationship grants is that women don't automatically assume the reason you're talking to them is because you're trying to get them back to your apartment. On the other hand, I've also witnessed women completely lose interest in talking as soon as they found out I was in an exclusive relationship, so its a 2-way street. 'He's not on the market, he's not worth going after', it the thought, and you can almost see the change in expression right then. Of course, considering some of the utterly horrendous things I've witnessed my gender do/say along the same lines, I shouldn't be as angry. But at least for some women, the knowledge that my goal in talking to them wasn't sex-based - wow, what a surprise - was comforting. It meant I was genuinely interested.
But now that I'm inexclusive, it's all changed. I talk to women I've known for years or ones I'm just meeting, and the immediate suspicion is that I've got romantic/sexual/dating motives. I'd like to open all conversations with, "Hi! I'm Mat! I have absolutely no romantic, sexual, or dating-oriented plans towards you! I'd just like to get to know you!" Yet no matter what you say, it could all easily be a ploy for exactly that purpose. Thanks, the rest of my gender.
I should mention that I like having friends that are women. It's so tough to do but so rewarding if you can pull it off. Women friends - who think you're talking to them for them, not for yourself - can provide such an interesting and different perspective on things. I've been blessed with one or two of these in my day. Very very tough. Very rewarding.
The thing is, had I had dinner alone at a restaurant with a girl who then drove me back to my apartment when I was exclusive, I wouldn't have thought I did a thing wrong. Ironically, now that I'm inexclusive, a scenario under which I could have invited her inside and she could have spent the night at my apartment and have it been totally acceptable, I actually feel more guilty then if I had done it while I was exclusive!!
So my mind was whirling with all this most of the night. Women are the most confusing things on this planet.
So later that night, my friend Martin and I played Burnout 3 for 3+ hours. Fantastic. Total comfort, no confusion, no hidden motives, just two guys racing at 200+ mph and crashing rivals and themselves all over multiple continents. Elapsed thinking time: 14 seconds, when I was deciding whether or not to have another glass of Pepsi.
If only it was always that easy!
Labels: Hand-Eye Coordination Practice, Those Of The Feminine Persuasion
posted by Mat | 9:58 AM
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