Your Lessons Aren’t Useful

There is a guy at the gym who I occasionally exchange a few pleasantries with and or have the odd conversation.

He tells me he is divorced and that he knows an awful lot about women. Most of the time I don’t say much because he likes to hear himself talk more than he likes to listen to others.

During his last monologue he told that if a woman calls you ‘bro’ or ‘dude’ you have been friend zoned and you will never see them naked.

I said ‘ok’ but it didn’t have the kind of affirmation he wanted behind it and he asked me if I disagreed.

“I do. Women aren’t monolithic in their approach and I don’t think age appropriate women get caught up like this.”

He told me he was only trying to help, “Trust me dude, if you listen to me you’ll find women much easier to deal with.”

“You don’t know me at all and if you did you would know your lessons aren’t useful.”

He got a little hostile and asked me to explain how I would do better.

“Trust me dude, there are women who avoid spending time alone with me because they would have to fight getting naked immediately.”

That made him laugh and call me ridiculous.

“Well now you understand how you sound. And yeah, your mind is far more important than anything else.”

Things To Say

The younger Mr. Wilner and I had a conversation about how to have difficult conversations with people and the approaches one could take.

He is pretty blunt at times so I talked about ways to soften it a bit and then pointed out I am just as blunt if not more so at times.

“I don’t think of myself as being old but I am old enough not to have interest in playing games. I tend to spell it out as often as I can. People usually know where they stand with me and if they don’t they are either willfully blind or I have made a point to keep things quiet.

I am like a freight train and I bring a certain intensity. That makes some people uncomfortable. Self awareness of who we are is important. Keep that in mind.”

****

Stuck somewhere between Jungleland and Hurt I think about what is important and what isn’t.

What are the things I want and what are the things I need.

I once asked someone to consider what would happen if I died. What would they do and how would they do it.

They said it was hyperbole and I said no, there is no drama attached to it. There is no hysteria. If life doesn’t change at all that is one answer and if life gets turned inside out is another.

I said they could substitute any number of people and the exercise would still work. The goal isn’t to make anyone sad or upset but to help define and delineate what is important.

That is part of why I work on identifying wants and needs because once you do that you enable yourself to cut out some of the chaff and focus on the key things that make life better for you.

No one says you can’t try to get both but sometimes you simply need to focus so why not boil it down. Figure out what your heart needs and your head will likely follow.

You can reverse that too, but it doesn’t work as well which is why people try live in that middle space between the two.

Makes sense to me because sometimes moderation is the space and place in which contentment is most easily found on a larger scale.

There are always compromises but hopefully nothing that leaves a permanent ache.

That is part of why I write it down so that I am clear in what I am asking of myself and others.