Acting like an idiot!
Well I’ve just written out a blog post just to try to express my thoughts regarding this “awkward thing”. To be honest, I probably did not do a great job of explaining just what this new initiative is! However, I am not going to make any further attempts to explain. I think that in practice after I have written a few posts, what I’m trying to achieve will become clear.
So in this post here, I am going to launch headlong into trying to address one of these situations. This has been going on for so long, and I have so very much wanted to deal with it. However I just have not known how to address it.
I actually don’t know where to start in dealing with this thing. Perhaps I’ll start at the end. I’m starting to see that hugs exchanged between me and my eventual husband will be more than an expression of tenderness. Rather the status of being able to release ourselves to hug one another freely will represent a huge prize and reward for battling through all the awkwardness and uncertainty and persevering and making ourselves vulnerable to rejection from one another and still through everything showing one another care and consideration…. etc etc!
So this is another big reason why this is awkward. I am shaking my head as I write this, as it feels so overwhelming! You know when there is a situation with a guy, and no-one has made the slightest expression of romantic interest, and yet because there remains the possibility that there could be…possibly….something…sometime…possibly, the situation remains awkward! Or is this just me?! Am I the only one who goes around creating awkwardness out of nothing, even before anyone has said anything, just because I cannot categorically rule out the possibility of anything happening between us?! (Shaking my head!)
Anyway, let’s go there! So this is what happened.
On this blog I usually overshare quite liberally. However, I am going to try my hardest to not divulge all details. This is so that if anyone reads this and recognises himself, he would not feel uncomfortable that I am telling the world about his life. I also want people to know that if they were ever the subject of one of these “Awkward” posts, that I would not spell out the details of those interactions either! And then there is also the possibility that one of these situations might eventually materialise (or “maritalise”) into something more material – or marital! Personally I would not want to have spilled out all the details about my relationship for the world to hear. Obviously those things should remain private!
So anyway, with that understanding in place, the question is how to negotiate the balance between revealing enough for the guy to recognise himself, and revealing too much….here is the crux of this particular awkwardness!
You know when you meet someone, and you only meet them a few times? And yet in that time you decide that they are the kind of person you’d like to get to know? Not necessarily romantically, and yet much awkwardness lies in the fact that that possibility cannot exactly be ruled out! The question is how far you should go to try to salvage that potential interaction, even after further awkwardness has been introduced big time! And then there is the fact that I don’t actually know this guy! I don’t know whether ultimately our personalities will be compatible for friendship at all! If I already knew that, then that would minimise a lot of the uncertainty in that I would at least know that it would be worthwhile to make an effort. As things currently stand, I’m asking myself whether it would actually be worth it to try to find out.
This is where this particular situation gets really awkward! I acted like an absolute idiot in practically every conceivable way. I was completely overfriendly, I said a ton of stupid things, I was completely self-centred. (How can you be overfriendly AND self-centred?! Oh believe me, if I had not lived it myself I would equally find it hard to imagine!) Every time I remember that day I feel a fresh wave of mortification just wash over me. And then afterwards I was so ashamed at my behaviour, and embarrassed at the fact that I was capable of acting that way, that I essentially just ran away. Until that very moment when it was simply too late! At the time, staying away seemed like a prudent decision to make. I was of course so conscious that this was a guy, and so worried about the possibility that I could act that way again. However, under the circumstances with this particular guy, I suspect that my decision to stay away just cemented an opinion about me as being completely inconsiderate and self-centred.
I’m not used to acting like an idiot. I’m not used to asking people to accept me despite my acting like an idiot. I simply did not know how to deal with it. In retrospect I could simply have apologised…Actually, there is more to it than this….
So now the question is how far I should go to try to repair this particular interaction? And how do I do that in a way that makes it clear that I am not chasing him romantically?! The fact of writing this blog pouring out my feelings of romantic loneliness does not exactly help! In a way it seems easiest to walk away, bearing in mind that we don’t know one another at all, and there has not been the slightest opportunity for trust to build up….
I’m telling myself “Tosin, this is one guy!” There are plenty of other guys in the world for me to get to know, to possibly build friendships with, although not so many with his particular permutation of qualities. To be honest, it would have been extremely unfeasible that we would actually have been able to get to know one another, even if I had not acted badly and then compounded the issue by running away. Ultimately I would have no problems walking away. That is never the actual issue. The issue is that I would want to walk away with a clear conscience, and also so that he knows not to take my bad behaviour personally. You know that old cliché: “It’s not you, it’s me”? Never has that been more true in history! I’d also want to tell him, if I could, that that bad behaviour is not representative either of who I usually am, or of who I want to be. The most important thing for me is to feel that I have said what I wanted to say.
You know what? I like to talk tough on this blog. However the sincere truth is that it would be extremely embarrassing for him to see this and to realise that I am talking about him. I get embarrassed at everything! And yet I would still like that to happen. While I’m embarrassing myself, I wish I could pretend that I haven’t been thinking about this endlessly, but I have! Firstly after acting stupidly in the first place, and then to the point of finally plucking up the courage to try to make contact, right up until now! So yeah, my biggest pre-occupation in this is to try to cobble together some kind of apology/explanation. But even in trying to explain/apologise, I have also got to respect his own boundaries. I am so shaking my head at all of this!
So yeah, if you are reading this, once again I am so sorry! If the possibility of friendship has been lost between us then I want to wish you the very best in life. I also want to thank you so much for your own gifts and generosity. I recognise the huge sacrifice that that would have entailed, and I am sorry if it appeared that your consideration was not reciprocated.
God bless you so much 😉
Leave a Reply