In 2009, when I first committed to abstinence from drugs and alcohol, I was like Rip Van Winkle waking up from a fifteen year slumber. One aspect of this era that played out like that, and an aspect I had to face up to immediately, had to do with the notion that it was still about twenty-two year old girls for me. I was forty-four at the time. I patronized Thunderbird Coffee, which had a location just down the street from my house.
Thunderbird Coffee employed a lot of attractive young women as baristas. I started asking them out. They all turned me down. That part was okay with me. The being turned down part I could accept. I could just move on from that. What I didn't like was this need these young women all seemed to feel to retaliate for my overtures towards them. Uniformly, after I'd ask some barista out and she'd turn me down, that wasn't the last of it by a long shot.
They would, almost to an individual barista, each one,' they would commence to playing some cruel rejection games to teach me a lesson about approaching them for social reasons. It got so bad that by 2013 I stopped patronizing that coffee shop and just made my own lattes at home. I started patronizing that location again after about two years, but I vowed to not approach any baristas for social reasons.
I mean, I get the why of the retaliation, sort of. The age gap. The fact that it was their job to be friendly to customers, and how my interpretation of their friendliness was an almost willful attempt at fooling myself about whether or not they had any interest in me. But did the punishment really fit the crime? Retaliation, really?
When I got Schmaylor Schmift off of my back in 2023, doing so seemed to promise an improvement in my relationship with the women around me. I approached another barista at another coffee shop last year. Yeah, she didn't go out with me either, but she had no trouble with giving me contact information and being nice to me. So there's one. That waitress at that diner gave me contact info when I asked for it. She gave me her email last August. I just sent her a THIRD email, that's a THIRD email SINCE last August, telling her about a show that featured a band she wanted to go out and see. Yeah, she was pretty rude when I invited her to that comic book show in April, but that's about all I have to complain about. SHE did not actually triy to retaliate, either. So there's two.
So, if I approach some woman in my world for social reasons in the coming days, weeks, or months, whether or not she retaliates for approaching her for social reasons, should she turn me down, is ALMOST as important to me as whether or not she accepts me or rejects me in the first place. If I should approach a third woman in the coming days, weeks, or months, and SHE does NOT try to punish me for approaching her for social reasons, then things may have actually improved for me. That's fair.
Thunderbird Coffee employed a lot of attractive young women as baristas. I started asking them out. They all turned me down. That part was okay with me. The being turned down part I could accept. I could just move on from that. What I didn't like was this need these young women all seemed to feel to retaliate for my overtures towards them. Uniformly, after I'd ask some barista out and she'd turn me down, that wasn't the last of it by a long shot.
They would, almost to an individual barista, each one,' they would commence to playing some cruel rejection games to teach me a lesson about approaching them for social reasons. It got so bad that by 2013 I stopped patronizing that coffee shop and just made my own lattes at home. I started patronizing that location again after about two years, but I vowed to not approach any baristas for social reasons.
I mean, I get the why of the retaliation, sort of. The age gap. The fact that it was their job to be friendly to customers, and how my interpretation of their friendliness was an almost willful attempt at fooling myself about whether or not they had any interest in me. But did the punishment really fit the crime? Retaliation, really?
When I got Schmaylor Schmift off of my back in 2023, doing so seemed to promise an improvement in my relationship with the women around me. I approached another barista at another coffee shop last year. Yeah, she didn't go out with me either, but she had no trouble with giving me contact information and being nice to me. So there's one. That waitress at that diner gave me contact info when I asked for it. She gave me her email last August. I just sent her a THIRD email, that's a THIRD email SINCE last August, telling her about a show that featured a band she wanted to go out and see. Yeah, she was pretty rude when I invited her to that comic book show in April, but that's about all I have to complain about. SHE did not actually triy to retaliate, either. So there's two.
So, if I approach some woman in my world for social reasons in the coming days, weeks, or months, whether or not she retaliates for approaching her for social reasons, should she turn me down, is ALMOST as important to me as whether or not she accepts me or rejects me in the first place. If I should approach a third woman in the coming days, weeks, or months, and SHE does NOT try to punish me for approaching her for social reasons, then things may have actually improved for me. That's fair.
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