As of this writing, I'm sticking with my choice to refrain from approaching that very attractive, young barista for social reasons. I make this decision despite the fact that I like her very much. Here's the thing: A big reason I like her to the extent I like her has everything to do with the fact that I frequently make choices about women I desire that involve no substantial engagement with them. Decisions such as retraining from asking them on dates or asking them for contact information. I discovered, in the era of Sara, that my attentions to women were mine to WITHHOLD as well as mine to give. Exercising that right, over these past twelve years especially, has greatly improved my relationship with women. At least as to how I view them and whether or not I like them in general.
Think about it. I set up a boundary that involves retraining from asking baristas who flirt with me on dates. I enforce that boundary over these past several years, and that improves how I interact with female baristas in general. Take that altogether, and doesn't it seem likely that I could meet up with a barista that I really, really like, and so in meeting this person, her attentions to me would challenge that boundary like never before? I'm not saying such a development would necessarily be inevitable, but given that this girl finds me in a better mood than I've typically been in over the course of many, many years (decades really), that I take better care of myself now than I did for many, many years, and that I'm receptive to liking someone such as her more unreservedly than before (maybe, I might have liked her a LOT even in my more grumpy days); put all those elements together, and it seems likely to me, at least, that I would meet someone who could really challenge such a boundary as swearing off asking the baristas out on dates.
But you know what? As Darrell K. Royal once said, "We dance with them who brung us." What brought me to this place was my willingness to set up the no-asking-flirtatious-baristas-on-dates boundary. With this one, it's definitely not as if I'm enforcing this boundary because I don't like her. I DO like her. I do. I like her so much, I ask nothing of her as far as taking actions of her own accord to bring about an encounter between us that doesn't involve me going into her place of employment and seeing her there. If she's not into doing something like that, I don't see it as appropriate for me to demand that she do something like that to make it happen between us. It's not any more appropriate for me to make such demands of her than it would be for her to make demands that I take the initiative on the two of us getting together somewhere outside of her place of employment.
Think about it. I set up a boundary that involves retraining from asking baristas who flirt with me on dates. I enforce that boundary over these past several years, and that improves how I interact with female baristas in general. Take that altogether, and doesn't it seem likely that I could meet up with a barista that I really, really like, and so in meeting this person, her attentions to me would challenge that boundary like never before? I'm not saying such a development would necessarily be inevitable, but given that this girl finds me in a better mood than I've typically been in over the course of many, many years (decades really), that I take better care of myself now than I did for many, many years, and that I'm receptive to liking someone such as her more unreservedly than before (maybe, I might have liked her a LOT even in my more grumpy days); put all those elements together, and it seems likely to me, at least, that I would meet someone who could really challenge such a boundary as swearing off asking the baristas out on dates.
But you know what? As Darrell K. Royal once said, "We dance with them who brung us." What brought me to this place was my willingness to set up the no-asking-flirtatious-baristas-on-dates boundary. With this one, it's definitely not as if I'm enforcing this boundary because I don't like her. I DO like her. I do. I like her so much, I ask nothing of her as far as taking actions of her own accord to bring about an encounter between us that doesn't involve me going into her place of employment and seeing her there. If she's not into doing something like that, I don't see it as appropriate for me to demand that she do something like that to make it happen between us. It's not any more appropriate for me to make such demands of her than it would be for her to make demands that I take the initiative on the two of us getting together somewhere outside of her place of employment.
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