Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Sharing Your Heart is Part Timing... Part Art!

The greatest asset to me in my personal and professional life has been self-awareness.  It has also been my greatest weakness.  Sometimes I have it and other times I don’t.  Self-Awareness is defined as the ability to see recognize and control your emotions in highly stressful situations.  Many times we let the emotion push away logic.   Anyone who has ever been in a relationship or a heated argument understands this concept.  It is the fight or flight response.  Sometimes we fight back when it’s not in our best interest long term.  One of my favorite authors, Dale Carnegie once wrote, “You can catch more flies with a drop of honey than you can with a gallon of gall.”

I want to apply this theory of self awareness to dating.  We will not be talking about losing control in an argument but rather losing control in a dating situation.   Have you ever dated anyone who made you lose your cool factor?  I once had a crush on a girl in high school who took away my “filter” for shareing feelings that should be shared until a socially acceptable time.  It seemed like I just vomited out my feelings with no regard for how it would affect my chances with her or not.  And here is the worst part…. I knew it was happening as it spewed forth!

Okay so here is the story.  I had a crush on a girl named Jessica(Note: the names in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.  Ha ha I have always wanted to say that!)She was a cute little thing and all of my friends had a crush on her at one point or another.  We called her the ‘untouchable’ because she really didn’t seem like she was interested in dating anyone.  Jessica and I became good friends my Junior year and we shared an English class.  For our end of the year project we had to spend 25 hours doing something English related.  We had just finished a section on poetry and since I was into rap and hip-hop at the time I decided that I would write some poetry or do some rhymin’. 

So I wrote a bunch of cheesy poetry about things like Oreo’s, insects, and sports.  But some of my stuff was deeper.  For my final project I shared some of my lyrical miracles with the class.  Afterward, Jessica told me that she thought I was talented and asked me for a copy of my poems.  Like any enterprising young man interested in wooing a girl I gave her a copy. 

A few weeks went by and it was now in the early summer.  One night while running around the school track, I had this crazy idea that I should tell Jessica just how I felt about her.  My emotion kicked in and told my brain that it was worth it.  That logic didn’t apply in this situation. 

So I drove home and scrawled out the worst love poem you have ever read.  I mean it was terrible!  It compared her to a thief; a thief who had stolen my sleep, my thoughts, and my heart!  For some reason I thought that this would be a good thing to share with her.  We had never even been on a date.  Women always love it when people spring their feelings on them with no warning right? 

Anyway she had told me what time she would be coming home from a church campout so I knew that I could leave it on her porch.  So I grabbed some flowers out of my neighbor’s yard, jumped in my stick-shift minivan.  Destination….. drop zone.  I pulled into the cul-de-sac with my lights off and slunk up to the doorstep, dropped the poem and the flowers and tore off towards the car. 

Now it is important to note that I did not sign the poem…. But I might have written it in the same font and style as the other poems that she had.  It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what was up.  Anyway I got about halfway home and my emotion finally subsided to a point that my logic kicked in and I realized what I had done.  I threw the van into low gear, pulled a u-turn and screeched the tires as I headed back towards her house.  I had to go back for it!  I realized for the first time that maybe sharing my feelings was a little premature!   She was a good friend and not interested in dating anyone, let alone me.

I sprinted to the front door only to find the flowers and poem missing.  I was too late.  I drove home ever so nervous.  I thought I would pretend that it never happened.  Pretending doesn’t make it so.  A week or so went by and we hadn’t talked.  Finally we made contact and I could tell that she knew… it was awkward so I fessed up.  I told her I was sorry and that I don’t know what got into me and asked if we could put it behind us and pretend that it never happened.  I also asked her to destroy the evidence. 

She told me we could put it behind us and that she had already thrown the note away. (Ouch!!!  That hurt but I was glad the evidence had been disposed of so it took off some of the sting).  Anyway, a year later, I went over to my friend Steve’s house and he mentioned that he had just come from Jessica’s house…. He had a sly grin on his face and started laughing as he blurted out, “I read your poem!”  She had kept it!  Although I don’t blame her on bit!  That is high powered blackmail material! It was too good not to share!  

Anyone else have some good stories to share?  I am thinking this would be a good idea for a book or a compilation of stories!  I would love to hear your stuff!  

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