In my job I deal with nothing but conflict. Out in the field that's ALL I ever dealt with. But I never ran away or avoided the conflict because it's just part of the job. I've grown a very tough skin and the ability to show zero emotion on my face. It's a talent I've worked very hard at and value highly.
But I can't do this when it comes to dating. In your career you can separate yourself and the other people from the politics- it's just ego, don't internalize. But with dating you're pretty much telling the other person that they're just not going to ever measure up to your standards. Eek, feeling discomfort.
I wanted to continue from the DC Bachelor #1 and talk about how I let him go. I would love to tell you we had a mature discussion which resulted in a parting of ways with assurances that there were no hard feelings and it was all mutual. But that's not what happened. Instead I met DC Bachelor 1 at the movies. He had made a statement that since he bought drinks I could buy movie tickets. I didn't agree to this. Normally I would have just allowed myself to be pressured into that but I decided not to this time. So as we stood in line, doing the dance to see who would go in front of the other, he finally sighed and went to buy two tickets. I stopped him saying I'd buy my own. Look I don't want to take him out but I didn't want to use him for a free movie ticket either.
He's a talker that wants to comment after every preview. He kept turning his body language towards me, leaning in to whisper. I took note of my own body language leaning as far away as possible. At the end we walked out and it was just tense between us (I'll take responsibility for a lot of that). He said we should do this again. I might have snorted ever so slightly. I told him to take care of himself and hastened to my car.
Terrible way to handle things. He seemed so ready to go in for a kiss and I was thinking how awful that would be to flat out push him away or worse, be blind-sided by him. These were the awkward moments I was trying to avoid and instead created another awkward moment. It was in this instant that I had a whole new level of compassion for those dates that went nowhere. I blamed the boy for his cowardice but here I was no different. What was I to say? Explain how my body language should clearly have told him I repulsed any physical contact, my grunts of acknowledgement at his pithy tirades clearly told him my disdain for his personality, and if he could not interpret that then let me just bluntly castrate him now and verbally verify all of these things??
No, I chose the coward's way out. I am in no way proud of these actions (or rather inactions) but I still scratch my head at how I should handle this. What about the guy I met the other day watching Italy vs. England? Interesting enough but I don't want to watch every World Cup match with him. This has prompted me to look into appropriate ways to turn men down in all kinds of scenarios. Will return in a few days with my findings...
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