The main reason I refer so frequently back to my time with Sara in the Spring of 1988 has to do with how I came across to others in our art history class. Although Sara started in on me in an adversarial manner, the new approach I tried, to "turn my back on love," allowed me to come across much more sympathetically to the observers of the unfolding situation that in any previous adversarial situation I'd ever found myself in. When Sara busted her move where she loudly exclaimed, "What a weirdo! God, what a weirdo!," as a male classmate told a story of a guy's obsessive pursuit of a girl, and how at the end of the class I wheeled around, stared at her, and blurted out a question about the papers we had turned in, and how Sara then dashed out of the classroom in an apparently alarmed state, and how, in the day or two that followed, I felt as if I'd done something wrong at first, then thought, "Oh, come on!," and how she acted mad at the beginning of the next class in an effort to play on my supposed feelings of guilt and self-blame, and how I let her and everyone else in the class know I didn't buy it, and then....At the end of the class, the teacher in the auditorium-seating classroom instructed the students to come up and get their papers as she read each student's name out, she read Sara's name out before mine, Sara walked to the front, got her paper, walked out, I waited for the teacher to call my name, she called my name, I got my paper, proceeded to walk out and then...As I walked out, I noticed that at least four young women stood in front of me as I exited the class as they waited for the teacher to call their names.
I took this gesture as an effort by these other young women to nonverbally tell me that they supported me in this conflict with Sara. Moreover, that in addition to their sympathy for my plight, that any one of them stood willing to offer themselves as someone to approach for social reasons over Sara. Mind you, I think word may have gone round about my crude sexual proposition to Wanda from the previous year, so to gain such a sympathetic ear with so many young women meant a lot to me. Well, the next class, Sara nonverbally let me know she was sorry, and I gave her another chance.
I get along as well as I do with those young, female baristas at that one coffee shop I patronize in large part because, I think, I don't try to approach them for dates, or contact info, or try to connect with them through social media. I don't want to approach that young woman at that business I patronize, that young woman whom I go on and on about on this blog; I don't want to initiate an approach towards her for a date or for contact info. I don't want to give her my comics or my CD's without her first asking me for such things. I don't want to invite her to the Posse East open mike to hear me perform that song I wrote about her in any kind of out of the blue way. Such inaction on my part may result in me forsaking the love of my life, for all I know. But, consider these two points: 1) She may NOT in fact be the love of my life, and 2) Who's to say that by refusing to put myself out there and absolutely refusing to initiate the whole going-on-a-date process all by my lonesome, and instead insisting that she has to broach that subject in some clever way, that such an approach might actually stand a better chance of WORKING much, much better than me marching into her place of employment one day and asking her out in front of God and everyone.
Judging by the times I've tried to just ask these employees of businesses I patronize out, versus the times I've refused to do any of that "for" anyone, I've come across much more sympathetically with the latter approach. Furthermore, I seem to break through very significant barriers with the latter approach that I didn't even realize existed whenever I would try the former approach exclusively, and that includes many instances with Miss Missy Miss her own bad self.
I took this gesture as an effort by these other young women to nonverbally tell me that they supported me in this conflict with Sara. Moreover, that in addition to their sympathy for my plight, that any one of them stood willing to offer themselves as someone to approach for social reasons over Sara. Mind you, I think word may have gone round about my crude sexual proposition to Wanda from the previous year, so to gain such a sympathetic ear with so many young women meant a lot to me. Well, the next class, Sara nonverbally let me know she was sorry, and I gave her another chance.
I get along as well as I do with those young, female baristas at that one coffee shop I patronize in large part because, I think, I don't try to approach them for dates, or contact info, or try to connect with them through social media. I don't want to approach that young woman at that business I patronize, that young woman whom I go on and on about on this blog; I don't want to initiate an approach towards her for a date or for contact info. I don't want to give her my comics or my CD's without her first asking me for such things. I don't want to invite her to the Posse East open mike to hear me perform that song I wrote about her in any kind of out of the blue way. Such inaction on my part may result in me forsaking the love of my life, for all I know. But, consider these two points: 1) She may NOT in fact be the love of my life, and 2) Who's to say that by refusing to put myself out there and absolutely refusing to initiate the whole going-on-a-date process all by my lonesome, and instead insisting that she has to broach that subject in some clever way, that such an approach might actually stand a better chance of WORKING much, much better than me marching into her place of employment one day and asking her out in front of God and everyone.
Judging by the times I've tried to just ask these employees of businesses I patronize out, versus the times I've refused to do any of that "for" anyone, I've come across much more sympathetically with the latter approach. Furthermore, I seem to break through very significant barriers with the latter approach that I didn't even realize existed whenever I would try the former approach exclusively, and that includes many instances with Miss Missy Miss her own bad self.
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