Straightforward Passivity

Good news everyone! I have a girl entry to make. The shortage thus far is accounted for by my lack of social life this school year.

Let's get down to business, shall we? I will give the interested reader some background. I will leave out enough details so that this person will be very difficult to identify unless: 1) you are her, 2) I have already told you this story.

I'd been acquainted with this girl for some time before moving to Provo for graduate school in September. Starting in October, we went on a few dates, not in rapid succession. I can't imagine worse discussion on a date. We had a hard time stringing sentences together. An hour and a half would pass as if to be an entire day. After our third date, I walked her to her car and said, "Boy, we don't have a whole lot to talk about do we?" We both laughed it off, but it wasn't really funny.

I know what you are thinking. Why would I ask this girl out on three dates if they were so dull. Recall that I was acquainted with her for awhile and know she is a solid girl. That kind of thing goes a long way. I thought it might just take a little while for us to get things off the ground. No reason not to be patient. Also, my mom translated, "Boy, we don't have a whole lot to talk about do we?" According to her, it translated into girl as, "You sure are boring!" Is this true? I certainly didn't mean that. I just figured we didn't connect.

So, I figured I wouldn't call her again. A few weeks later I was going to "A Christmas Carol" at the Hale Theater in Orem (I include this level of detail for posterity's sake). After the first five girls I asked turned me down, I called her to ask if she wanted to go. She agreed, so we went out that night as well. Things weren't much different than the previous three dates, so that was that.

I can't think of a time when I contacted her between that night and a couple of months later. So it was February when I ran into her and noticed she gave me a pretty unpleasant look. I wondered what the deal was. After some investigation, I figured out that it was possible I'm a butthead for calling her boring, so I tried to get in touch with her to chat. Also, as I already said, she's a great girl, so a friendship still makes sense. It was only three dates and there was no physical contact at all as far as I can remember, so there is no reason things should be weird.

Well, over the course of the three weeks after my first attempt to get in touch with her, I tried to get in touch with her a few more times. I didn't have any luck.

Finally, there was light at the end of the tunnel last week Sunday. I checked my email and had one from facebook telling me I had a new message from Gertrude (that's what we'll call her to protect her identity). Gertrude and I were about to reconnect, and I could feel that it would be magical; indeed, it was so. I received the following message:

Hey, sorry I haven't called. Life has been really busy with work and I'm dating someone, so I haven't had time to call back. Just thought you should know, I've had a lot of fun getting to know you better and you're a great guy, but I've been thinking about it a lot and I don't see things going further between us. I'm sorry if I've hurt you at all and hope the best for you. Take care! Gertrude

For some reason the end of this message reminds me of this song. There is probably no relationship between the two.

This message followed about three weeks of absolute silence from her end. A simple text saying, "Ewww, get away from me creep" would've been great after the first time I tried to call. I would've got the idea.

It should not be overlooked that this is a textbook message to send a guy who is interested in you to let him know you don't want to see him anymore. You can just paste that baby right over into your own message to someone and you're done. It includes all of the cliche phrases you'd expect and accounts for three weeks of silence by citing busy for an excuse.

The problem is that you actually have to talk to the other person to figure out if the situation necessitates a dear John. After all, nothing feels sillier than being the giver or receiver of a message like this when it is unwarranted. It comes off as presumptuous, and you seem like you lack people skills. The take home message is that if some guy wants to declare his undying love for you, let him get started first. I know it is annoying to listen to when you aren't interested back, but you may as deal with it to prevent such an embarrassing misunderstanding.

Super Sunday

Church today went really well. My bishop (ecclesiastical leader) gave a spirited sermon on dating and marriage. Some people where out of this topic, but I'm all for it.

There is no need to get into the particulars of the talk, but suffice it to say he thinks we should all get off our electronic devices and socialize.

******************************Unrelated Material Next****************************

I was thinking this evening about how bad news always seems like an emergency while good news can wait until the weekend. I've noticed that whenever I get bad news, it shows up at 4:00 am while good news comes on Saturday or Sunday. It's as if i need to be depressed right away, but if there's something out there that could lift my spirits mid-week, it's never urgent enough for a phone call.

There is a connection between this and compliments/insults. I have a compliment to pay someone, but it hasn't seemed important enough to pick up the phone and call. In fact, I will probably put it off until I don't remember what my observation was and there won't be any compliment to pay. Fortunately, I have a bad memory, so I won't have to feel any amount of guilt for ignoring the opportunity to brighten someone's day.

If I had an insult or criticism for this person, I probably would've called Wednesday afternoon around the time I thought of it. I may have left it in a message feeling that this person needed to hear it immediately or they would have no chance of correcting their behavior. Yes, I would be quite on top of this if it were an insult.

Probably the biggest reason I don't seek out the chance to give a compliment is because I figure the person wouldn't really care. It escapes me why I think someone would care about a criticism I have for them. Admittedly, when someone gives me a compliment, I take it far less seriously than when someone calls me a jackass although I'm far more surprised to be complimented.

Girl Musings and More

I have an observation. I was reading the blog of an acquaintance today. I noticed that she tries too hard to seem smart. I have another acquaintance whose blog I read occasionally. She makes no effort to appear brighter than she is; rather, she just presents her ideas and is clearly a talented writer. This has led me to thinking.

It's obvious that the first girl I mention doesn't have much confidence that people will think she is clever, so she shoots beyond the mark. The second girl knows she is bright and just says what she has to say. It comes off very insightful and natural.

I can't help but think we are always perceived negatively when we make too great an effort to have people notice something positive about us. The desire to overachieve is almost always a consequence of low self image.

We've all probably had someone flirt with us who was trying too hard to seem better than they are. It may be that they try to appear more interesting, insightful, smarter, adventurous, easy to please, righteous, or better looking than they really are. Ironically, in their effort to appear too good to resist, they are often the easiest to dismiss. I'm sure most of us have been on both sides of that one.

Don't Read This One Unless You Think Everything I Say is Fascinating

This is my favorite time of the school year. I get to figure out where I'm going to be for the summer. I've been a different place each of the past 5 summers. I don't think this summer will be any different.

I had a phone interview last night with a company in Portland. They are the first health insurance company I've applied with for the summer. All the other ones have been in the property and casualty insurance industry. It seems like health insurance has some similar characteristics to P&C, so I'm excited about this one. Either way, I want to work on a project with a ton of data this summer. Also, Portland seems like the kind of place I'd be happy to settle down. I'd love to check it out for a summer.

Other possibilities so far are located in Hartford, CT and Los Angeles. Both of them would be exciting places to be and would be very interesting jobs. Both are P&C as well.