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accommodating

i finally discovered a non-endearing flaw the person i like has, which is that when he's a passenger in someone else's car he gives distracting and contradictory directions. i almost hit a biker the other day because of this. well, not almost, but almost almost. i'm glad he's finished moving so i won't have to drive him to places i've never been anymore, but i'm also anxious because we've talked about going on a day trip to charleston at some point. he doesn't have a car, so we'd have to use mine. that's fine, but i'll have to either make him drive or order him to not tell me what to do while we're in the car. i'm actually a really good driver, because i'm cautious and i avoid doing things i know i'm awful at (like parallel parking), so i don't need any help.

i wonder if this is a boy thing.

also, remember the party i talked about last week and how i said the host was nice? i saw her twice friday, once at a coffee shop and again later at a bar. i've never interacted with someone so self-consciously quirky before. she told us, at length, about how her dream was to move to france and learn how to make cheese and marry her boyfriend in a meadow surrounded by goats. she also told me that she had to stop reading about ferguson because it made her feel so guilty and sad. i didn't respond to this because i don't have any kind responses for white people who want me to make them feel better about racism. anyway, that's the kind of person she is.

she's also weirdly invested in getting me to like her. obviously, i can empathize with her, but the way she acts makes me so uncomfortable. she told me a few times that she was sorry for various aspects of her personality and hoped i wasn't annoyed or put off by them. when we were standing and talking she stood too close to me, and when i stepped back, she stepped closer again. when she hugged me goodbye, she held on a bit too long. i guess i'm confused because i'm not the kind of person anyone needs to work to impress. all you have to do is show up and try not to be a bad person and i'll probably like you. when someone i like behaves as though i don't like them, it makes me feel like i'm being unfriendly without meaning to. i think the next time i see this person i'm going to say something very kind to her about this.

but, you know, i might have this problem too. on friday, when the person i like and i were at the coffee shop, he told me we should leave soon because he had to run another errand. i said, "ugh, do we have to?" because i wanted to order a lemonade and sit down and drink it. he looked at me and i smiled immediately because i didn't want him to think i was being selfish or rude. he said, "i can't tell if you were joking or not, but we can stay here if you want." i said no and we went to run his errand. i kind of hate that impulse i had to suppress my feelings so other people will find me likable. the best part about the summer of honesty was how often i said no to stuff solely because i didn't want to do it. i should go back to that. a person who likes me less because i want to take 20 minutes to have a lemonade isn't a person i want to be around anyway, right? right.


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