Well, that's not exactly true. I already knew her. She works in the cubicle next to mine. She's been there for about 4 months now. I know her, I've talked to her, I even lent her my copy of 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' 25th anniversary addition, just so she could understand some of the quotes us guys throw around. She returned it, and I'm grateful.
What I mean is, I'd never really met her before today. You see, she's an 'independant woman'. Now before you start conjecturing, I don't really know what that means either, because in the past when I've known women like this, I always avoid them, Just like I've been avoiding her for 4 months. Well, not entirely, I did lend her the DVD.
You see, I've always been the type of man who needs to be needed. I've recently become aware of that trait. This means that the people who I have saught out in the past, such as the one in my living room, had particular personality traits that fed that need. People like her do not have those traits, and that always confused and intimidated me, so I just would not make friends with them. I would avoid them.
Let me give you an example. She told me today that she had been living for the past 6 months with her ex-spouse to see if they could put their relationship back together. Something we had in common, and a good point of conversation. And then later, she told me that she had flown to Fla for thanksgiving by herself, and enjoyed the time with her family down there, and when she got back yesterday, the spouse who had been so passionate about wanting to get back together, the one who had 'changed so much', told her that he felt something just wasn't there between them, and they should just get through the holidays and go their separate ways. I asked her why she had gotten back together with him, once again, for the 3rd time in 16 years, and she said because she loved him. Obviously, that was the truth. You don't keep trying with someone you don't love. But the difference with her was that when she came to work today, no one really noticed, and no one would have even known if I hadn't asked her. She just took an extra smoke break.
Let me tell you, I was having a hard time figuring out how to relate to her. All my old standby's were gone. She didn't mope around, and tell everyone how her dreams had been shattered, and look for sympathy, so I couldn't console her, and give her words of wisdom, and coax her through her down time. She just said 'I tried my best'. She didn't need me to tell her those things.
Then she told me that she only met her father twice, and never had spoken to him. He left before she was born, and just wasn't interested. And she said she really didn't care. She learned to deal with it long ago, and she figured that if he wanted to see her, he would make the effort. She already knew everything I could tell her about that. She had the same problems that everyone had growing up, some better, some worse, and she took it all in stride and figured it out for herself. Not much to work with there. She still didn't need me.
So I tried my old standby to relate, humor. I know a fast way to a woman's heart is to make her laugh, and I have a wide range of styles. Smart, silly, ironic, sarchastic, plain old jokes, puns, and she laughed at some and not at most. You see, she didn't just laugh at the ones that I thought were funny, just to make me feel good about myself, she laughed at the ones SHE thought were funny, and that REALLY made me feel good. She even made me laugh, and that's not easy to do. She DEFINATELY didn't need me there!
But I was determined to see if I have really changed the parts of me that I didn't like. It became a challenge to me to try and relate to this woman. What that caused me to do was to listen very carefully to her. To what she was saying. And I found out it didn't take long either. I could hear what she was thinking. But it wasn't because of my experience with women, it was because she told me what she was thinking. I didn't have to read her. I didn't have to guess. She just told me. Openly and honestly, because she didn't need to make me like her.
And I found out that I can listen, I mean really listen, to someone else. Not just hear what I think they should say, but really hear what they ARE saying. And she didn't even need me to do that.
And then I started to remember. She had all along come by my desk and stopped to talk for a minute. Not anything but just idle chit chat. I was always polite and cheerful, well, mostly, but I always kind of ignored it, I was busy dammit! The thing I realized was that she came to me. She didn't just always wait for me to come to her. She didn't need me to do that either.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for a girlfriend here. I've got enough trouble in that area right in my own livingroom. But here's a woman that has been trying for 4 months to do nothing but be herself, and be my friend, and she doesn't even need me to do that. It turns out I'm the one who is needy, because I need to be needed.
I understood something today. If I am ever with a woman like that, it's not because she needs to be with me, it's because she WANTS to be with me.
I'm gonna get to know her better.
