I was walking out of my apartment building the other day, heading out to pick up the RedHead and I was feeling pretty groovy - my hair was behaving, my car was finally driving like it should, I had lost a few “lb’s” so my ass wasn’t looking so b’donkydonk... life was good. I got to the last few steps and I saw this woman coming up the steps. Being neighborly I thought I’d smile and say hello. But instead of her smiling back or even acknowledging me, she gave me a dirty look, turned her head away from me and briskly walked passed me. I stood there wondering.....thinking..... what’d I do? Do I smell? Because why.....why....why doesn’t she like me?
Oh C’mon....you’ve felt this way before. You’ve been nice to strangers or a bank teller or cashier or even another mom at your kid’s school and they’ve shunned you, ignored you, not said hello back, treated you ‘less than’ when you treated them ‘equal to’.... and it sucks. It’s crap. It’s shit. Right? I mean, it’s just not nice when you put yourself out there and people shit on you.
Everybody (including you - admit it) wants to be liked. It doesn’t matter who you are or who they are, you want them to like you. Even if you don’t like them, you want them to at least like you. And why shouldn’t they? You’re fabulous, right? And there are those days when other people’s bad manners or bad moods strike you in the gullet like a sword the size of a Buick and you can’t shake that feeling of complete shitness.
The owner of the music school where my kid takes music lessons has never acknowledged me. She’s never looked at me, said hello or goodbye, she’ll talk to the guy next to me, the guy behind me, the kid in the chair behind the guy behind me, but she’s never said two fucking words to me. Mr.P says I should shit in my hand and throw it in her face. But my question to you is what the hell did I do? Why doesn’t she like me so much? If someone obviously doesn’t like you, and you haven’t been an asshole to them, don’t you wonder what’s going on? When that happens to me, I always wonder what’s wrong with me. My friends say it’s them and maybe that’s true......maybe.
I’m not mature. I’m not smart in the ways of dealing with people. I don’t know how to handle inter-personal relationships. If someone is an asshole to me, we either get into a super big screaming match (remember: Italian/Irish) or I just write them off and brood about it for months (remember: Italian/Irish). My friend says I’m too sensitive and that’s totally true. I cry at red lights. I still can’t watch Lassie because I am so worried about that damn dog - “He’s gonna die! He’ll get lost!”. I was at my friends house the other night and I cried about my car. And I take everything personally, I admit it. If someone cuts me off I say “He did that because he hates me!” when we all know the ugly truth is that he’d cut his own mother off. I’m sort of narcissistic in an ass backwards kind of way.
I guess my whole thing is people just aren’t nice anymore. It takes so much more energy to be an asshole so why are we such assholes? Why don’t people use manners or teach their kids manners? Why don’t people say hi? Why is it ok to be on the phone all the time - like at the cashier at the market or while trying to park in a crowded parking lot? Why can’t people hold the door open? Why can’t people say “thanks” when you hold the door open?.....the list is endless.....and how sad is that.
And the kookoo part is that it’s so rare when someone actually does show a bit of kindness, like saying “Thank you” or “Hello”, it’s like Moses parting the Red Sea or hell freezing over because it makes your day.....at least it makes mine....because then I regain a little faith in humanity and then I know.....they like me! They really like me!
