Passing by one of my coworker’s cubes, I see this picture from a distance. It looks like a wedding picture, so I ask, “May I have a look at that? Wow! You look beautiful. I really like your hair long like that,” I tell my attractive, middle aged, mid-length hair coworker. Mistake.
So I ask Diddles, “What the F?” He says, “Look Peter, my wife will come up to me and say (pointing to herself), ‘How do I look?’” Diddles replies without much thought or hesitation, “Um, ya look fine.”
“WHAT!” she exclaims, “WHAT’s wrong, why do you think I’m so ugly?????”
I guess if he doesn’t do back flips, she’s not happy. I guess he should have said, “You look gorgeous, unbelievably sexy, I have to have you right now (in that old baggy t-shirt with the stain on it from that team building exercise you did for your old work several years ago)!” Can’t she look in the mirror and decide for herself how she looks? I mean he married her; he must like or even love how she looks. How will men ever be able to please women? And given the choice to try, it becomes clearer to understand why one may choose not to.
Take for example my buddy Izzo. He is no longer with his girlfriend; sweet, smart, athletic and cute though she is. So instead of hanging with her yesterday afternoon as I would have easily (stupidly?) chosen to do, after an epically fun and icy ride (i don't mean cold, I mean 3 inches of ice), he decides to go out with some idiot kid alcoholics. Mostly 21 year old boys who can’t believe they can now drink in public but also including a stick figured smoker gal with tight slacks and heals who says things like, “That turkey is SO cool, like amazing, you don’t even know!, I've never met a live turkey like that before”… to get plastered on wine and vodka with them. They were wine tasting, but at $10 a taste, some decided, “Let’s just go get a bottle of vodka.” Cut to the chase.
At least with that group, you don’t have to worry about offending or pleasing anyone. There must be some logic there. Apparently Izzo is smarter that he appeared yesterday.
3 comments:
Doesn't it feel crappy when people can't take a sincere compliment? What's so hard about just saying thank-you? Why is it so hard to believe good things about ourselves? Why is it so hard to let someone water the seeds of our goodness? Why is it so hard to water our own?
Pleasing and not pleasing is hardly a gender issue--it's a human one. Some people are impossible to please. Some people are easy to please. I don't know why, but I bet everybody has their reason.
As for others' relationships/ choices, there's usually a whole messy underbelly unknown to the outside. I find I'm happier not trying so much to understand and just letting them be instead.
wiser words have rarely been spoken. Pleasing is indeed a human one and if I stereotyped it genderwise - then yes, guilty as charged.
and as long as no one is harming me or the ones I care about, stuggle as I might to comprehend, mine is not to understand. mine is to wonder, and let it be.
Sigh.
Sigh Sigh Sigh.
At least that turkey was pretty fuckin awesome.
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