Wow - I almost forgot that I had a blog for a second! Actually, that's a lie. I get reminded at least once a week that I have taken what appears to be a blogging sabbatical and that I'm not keeping true to my "one entry a week" agreement. My apologizes. I've been busy happy (and popular and awesome and, duh, humble) and I've been neglecting you, gentle reader.
(Here's a quick recap of my life: everything is pretty great. Work is good, family is good, friends are good, the bf is good, my social networking is good. Life is, well, good. Everything is aligning. I've, literally, got nothing much to complain about. I like it that way.)
In thinking about what I wanted to cover in today's entry, I remembered a friend of mine - we'll call him Dating Dan - who just went on a date this weekend. The date was, by all circumstantial evidence, set up to be perfectly romantic. The problem? He just wasn't into his date. Like, at all.
While I'll leave the details of the date for another entry (suspenseful and totally annoying, I know), the fact was that Dan called me and told me that he was worried about his date before it actually happened. There was an impending sense of doom surrounding the date, not just the typical butterflies. Dan had been talking to this person for a few weeks before they actually met and got to know his date fairly well. He related to me that he was just not sure about how it would work out.
Dan told me his what concerns were and I pushed them off to the side, encouraging him to just go out with this person who was obviously interested in him and see what happens. Why did I do this? It wasn't just because I wanted one of my friends to go on a date, but it was because I didn't want to be judgmental.
You see, I'm so bad about making snap decisions about people that I'm making a conscious effort to do just the opposite. I mean, thinking about the first date with Mr. Wild Card, I would have never thought I would end up dating him in the long run. (I think I even tweeted about the fact that he may or may not have drank a little too much? Sorry about that one, Mr. WC!) I really thought I would just have one or two dates with him and nothing much would amount from it. I was definitely wrong. I didn't want the same thing to happen to Dan! I didn't want him to lose out on a potentially great person because of a few awkward phone conversations.
Even though I told him to go out and enjoy himself, inside I was screaming - 'Don't waste your time! You already kind of hate this person! Don't waste their time! They sound like such an annoying person! Seriously, they are going to bother me. I don't want to have to hang out with an annoying person! And if you date them, I'll have to! Think about me!'
But I didn't say that, because I wanted to give Dan an opportunity at finding romance with someone he might have overlooked.
I was wrong.
The moral here: always go with your instincts. Dan gave his date a fighting chance, but he just wasn't feeling it. He knew that he prior to the date, but went anyway, on my advice.
I guess I should go back to judging people - after all, it just feels right.
~J
