Day 17 - I don't like being hit on.

I don't like being hit on. I simply don't like it. I find it unimpressive, ingenuine, and arrogant. I realized this about myself a few years back. I noticed that I ended up with men who asked me questions. Who told me about themselves. Who shared my interests. Who made me laugh. Who teased me and let me tease them back, and we laughed together. But never men who came onto me with slick moves and smooth lines. I gave them sarcasm and filed them away in the "not a chance" category. I'm a bit more forgiving these days, but, still, I find my tolerance for such behavior akin to my liking for sour milk.

I don't like being hit on. It makes me feel - for lack of a less politically-charged adjective - objectified. As in, like an object in a store, to be looked at, maybe tried on. Ugh. I suppose we live in a culture that persists on first impressions. But if you judge a book by its cover and never take the time to read the whole story, you might miss out on the adventure of a lifetime. I have always been one who loves connecting, discussing what's inside my head - what's inside your head. And so I felt, and still feel, that if someone isn't interested in anything but the cover, they're not someone I want even skimming my pages. But I digress. There are so many people in the world, we cannot possibly get to know every single one of them. Or can we?

I love to know people. People love to be known. I love it when people tell me about themselves, tell me their stories, share with me their secrets. It's intimate and vulnerable and so the opposite of what I feel the average, everyday social interaction is. Everyone has a story. Everyone has a secret world. I've said it many times before, and I say it because it's true. But again, if you judge a book by its cover, you miss the opportunity to read that story. And that story could change your life.

Life is so full of people who browse quickly. People who walk past hundreds of books everyday. "I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen." And so, I don't like being hit on. It makes me feel invisible. Like my story doesn't matter. Like there's nothing past the cover that is a part of me I cannot change. And so, I ask questions. Questions that often make people uncomfortable. Sometimes probing questions. Sometimes personal questions. And sometimes people give me snippits of their stories. Pieces of themselves. And I have come to find, there is beauty in every story - and every person whose story I've read has become a hero in my eyes.

#behavior #connection #extraversion #friendship #growth #introversion #lifelessons #life #love #meditations #revelation #truth