Thursday, April 21, 2005

Being Pretty Specific

So I just met w/ my therapist. I really dig the guy. We had a long dicussion about how difficult it is the take the high road but at the end of the day going to bed with some integrity is well worth it. It's refreshing to have a male therapist who points out how misogynist so much of our culture is and understands that this makes my life cirumstances especially difficult right now.

I mentioned to him the thing about how I usually don't think anyone is ever attracted to me and that I believe it's much safer not to presume anything being said has much to do with you unless someone is saying it directly to you and is being pretty specific. Anyway, he told me about a study which was pretty irritating. It said that most men interpret sheer politenesss from women as flirtation of some kind whereas woman are far less likely to see politeness as anything but good manners.

This freaked me out because it confirmed my intuititon that a number of men I've met and been polite or friendly to in the past three years no doubt thought I was coming on to them. Jeez, I've been fairly clear if I wanted to socialize with someone of the opposite sex and generally I just was trying to make a new friend. I've asked a couple of guys out for coffee but, oh dear, never again. I'd like to date but I'm not asking another man that's for sure.

Good grief, now I'm a little afraid to be polite to any of them.

One more sweet thing about my therapist. I asked him if the person who will be replacing him is as smart as he is. He dodged the question. I got frightened because I've looked around for a long time for someone good who is both clever and empathetic. Turns out he just didn't want to say yes about my replacement because he was trying to deflect my compliment about how smart he is.

Cool.

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