Meandering Mind - Eva Dillner [54]
While we eat we can hear them talking, but can't quite make out the language. They're obviously checking us out but my friend is so making clear she wants none of their attention. After the meal I go inside to the restroom. When I come back out I discover my friend is chatting up a storm with the guy I expressed interest in. What in the world is going on here?
First she says I want nothing to do with them, and then she starts up a conversation. I'm confused. Before leaving, we chat with them some, they want us to come with them down the coast. My friend is adamant she is not interested.
Well in hindsight I can see several explanations. My friend is jealous and she wants to keep me for herself. She may be scared to get involved with the boys. Or she wants him for herself. Either way, her fears stop me from pursuing what I really want. Somehow I have made her needs greater than mine, I let her needs rule. If I had been true to myself, I would have stayed in my seat, struck up a conversation and maybe gone off with the boys. If my girlfriend didn't want to we should have split up and gone our separate ways.
Was her motivation to control me or to do what was best for her or me? It's hard to say in hindsight, but there were other times with her that she acted jealous if other people got too much of my attention. So when a man walked in that really caught my attention, it scared her.
Another time, another girlfriend. We both worked at the same place. She was telling me she'd been talking to this guy, nice looking fellow, neither one of us knew him very well, but he worked at the same place too. When he found out she knew me, he'd exclaimed, “she's a fox.” Nice to know he might be interested in me. I thought nothing more of it until my girlfriend called me a few weeks later. “Guess who I went home with and spent the night with?” she says. “I have no idea,” I reply, “who?” Yeah, you guessed it, the guy who thought I was a fox. She just had to have him because he was interested in me, not because she really liked him. To this day I can't fathom what goes on in someone's mind who seduces someone just to show off. I guess I operate differently. With friends like that who needs enemies? Needless to say she is no longer a friend of mine.
I know it happens that a mate falls in love with a best friend. If it's out of love I can accept it. Yes it's going to hurt in the short run, but if it's true love you can't deny it. But there is a big difference when you talk about seduction, going for someone because you have to have him or her, then it's about manipulation and control and has absolutely nothing to do with love.
Earlier I described how another friend had been ragging on me for so easily going to bed with guys. When I think about it, most of them were men I knew through work or friends, in other words it wasn't like I was picking up total strangers. My friend who said this, used to pick up men, total strangers, when she would be away on vacation. I find that much harder to understand, how do you just go off with a total stranger, then find my behavior odd. As sexually active as I've been there have always been more dimensions to it. The few times I've picked up perfect strangers have taught me that I've never found anything in a bar worth keeping.
Dealing with imposed beliefs
As I sat this morning with my cup of tea I pondered the numerous times friends have ragged on me about how I should be. Or rather, they tell me I'm wrong, that I need to change or that I need to be realistic. Well Eva, turn it around, I heard my Higher Self prod. Turn it around? I thought, what does that mean?
First of all, turn it around. Instead of swallowing their assumption that you are wrong, assume that what you are doing is actually right - for you. This is the important distinction. It is