I went out to dinner on Sunday evening with a “gentleman.” This gentleman had asked me to get together, informed me that he was developing a crush on me. I expressed to him that I am not interested in a romantic focus right now. I need ME time and the cultivation of friendships. He “understood” and went along with my expression of needing space, etc…then, the dinner arrives (don’t ask how the dinner even happened ~ that’s for another story, at another time).
I arrive at our destination first, and get a corner bar spot, and as soon as he approaches me, he says, “Let’s get a table,” and maneuvers his way, quickly, to the hostess whose job it is to greet and seat the guests. SHE comes over to me and says, “he wants a table.” OK.
So I follow her and take a seat at THE TABLE. We look over the menu and pick some dishes. Then the dance begins. I didn’t know I would be dancing and stretching so far, from “home.” He says, with a smile, on his swollenish cheeks, “you look like a Goddess with all your sparkles on your eyes.” I couldn’t mistake the tone of, ‘I-am-not-fond-of-Beautiful- Women-With-Power-so-I-have-to-make-them-feel-less-than.’ We talked about the journey of life, literally, like where we lived and the journeys that ensued…when I mentioned that I lived in Hawaii for a few hours, he eagerly interrupts with, “oh, did you hang out with the hippies and go to Goddess circles?” Catch a breath, Gabriella, I tell myself. What?! So I respond, “No, I didn’t join any groups that separated. I didn’t want to be part of Goddess groups for they excluded the men.” Silence. Maybe he didn’t know how to respond. Did he think I was gonna blush, stare at the ground, quickly look down instead of looking him straight in the eye, and remain quiet? Hmmm, but a sparkly, Hippie Goddess Woman wouldn’t do that!
He then talked about his stuff, how he found himself moving to Asheville, and how he moved in with a woman, but how he quickly found out, that they were incompatible and had different ideas about life, and their flow didn’t match. This part of the conversation seemed normal…until he was asking me about my life coaching and did I get certified for it, is it really legit…as we make our way to his work, doing software designer. He mentions something about an app… To try to better understand what he does, I inquisitively ask, “so if I wanted to create an app, you could help me with that?” Quickly, and with that tone I’m getting rather familiar with, he utters, “no, I don’t do pro-bono work and you couldn’t afford me.” Again. Catch a breath, Gabriella, I tell myself. Is he serious?
The words “flow” on… and somehow we move to spiritual matters, particularly guides, and if we choose to incarnate or are we pushed to. He says, “I believe guides do push us.” I agreed, and then added, “I believe we always have a choice, and that our guides do push us, but they don’t force us. We still have to choose.” He then resorted to his Buddhist teaching and teachers (btw, he added me to a dharma group on FB without asking me and as a sidenote, “I added you to my dharma group, if you’re up for it.”), and how it is said that it isn’t pleasant, the whole experience of coming back and being pushed into it…shall we say, such things came up, like karma, if frogs have a choice like us…and then he continues, because by this point, he’s passionate. Note to self~he doesn’t agree that we have a choice.
“What about the person who is born into a place like Afghanistan, in poverty, and becomes spiteful and harms people? What does he gain from that experience? I feel that most of us, unless we are spiritually enlightened, are just lost wandering around, pointless, and we wouldn’t choose that.” My response, “Maybe he wanted to learn something within the experience of poverty, perhaps about lack. Maybe somewhere along the journey, he got tainted by the human experience, and created evil acts.” I brought in JOURNEY OF SOULS for a reference, and he wanted to know if he could trust the author, like what’s his background? Ok, onto the next thing…
What kind of things we enjoy and would like to explore in the area…he mentions a used bookstore that you can have wine and peruse the books. As I find out it’s near a place I am working at, I bring it up to him, “oh I work at Wake Foot Sanctuary.” To which he replies, “I know the place.”
“Oh, have you been there before?”
Sighs, “no, that’s not a macho thing to do.”
AGAIN. Catch a breath, Gabriella. You have got to be kidding me! Do I want to put my fuckbucks into a response right now? (Watch this “The Magic of Not Giving a Fuck” video for more clarity) https://youtu.be/GwRzjFQa_Og
A little bit more, the words flow on..
He grabs the check and insists on paying, expressing, “I like to be the patriarch and pay.” When I offered to pay for the tip, he says, “if you feel you MUST.” How I wish I did pay for the whole thing, standing up and shouting, “The New Agey Goddess Spiritual Girl has got this!”
The HUG goodbye was the only time during the evening I felt his heart.
We part.
The next evening I receive this in Messenger. “So how was that all for you?”
Seriously, AGAIN?! Catch a breath, Gabriella. It can’t get any worse.
It took me a day to respond…that fuck bucks thing again…do I really want to say something and what the heck do I come back with?
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?”
“Exactly”
It can’t get any worse, I tell myself.
“Are you overwhelmed with lust? Did you want to make out with me?”
What?! I was wrong… it just got worse.
According to him, it was like a first date, and “it’s totally normal to check in in that way, sorry you think that’s strange.”
STRANGE?! I think it’s inappropriate. I think it’s disrespectful. I think it’s selfish. I think it’s immature. I think it’s rude. I think it’s egocentric. I think it’s out of RANGE…I think it’s eerily similar to our sweet, kind-hearted, warm President (ah, but that’s another post)…
It’s time for the delete button.
There ain’t any more words to …
FLOW ON.
