Blocked

I’ve been trying to interact with women for a while now.  When I say interact, I mean, I’ve been trying to meet women that I come across in my everyday journeys.  Now of course this is few and far between because I live in a small town, and I only go to a few of the same places, mainly to buy stuff.  Plus, I’m an artist, which means I don’t have a job and not working in the United States basically means I don’t have a life.  Well, that’s how I view other people viewing me, especially women.  A man without a job, pretty much a dead end for most women.  Of course if I had retried at forty with a bank account full of money, people might think better of me, but unfortunately, that’s not my story.

Over the last few years, having pulled myself back from the brink of total exhaustion, I occasionally have a concept that I might meet a pretty lady and spend some quality time with her.  So far, this is a concept, rather than a reality, and a concept I keep promoting in my own mind.  With the little amount of energy I have had over the last few years, this idea is more of a fantasy, because I haven’t had the resources to share and give myself  to other humans.  I spend most of my time trying to keep myself afloat.  Maybe, that energy puts people off, as they can sense I’m possibly lacking, not the vibrant man I once was, although there are still remnants of youth in spirit at least.  However, when I leave the little town I live in, I have no problems meeting women, but I can’t use that as an excuse, maybe I’ve never really tried hard enough.   

Relationships with women have become a memory to me, a thing of the past.  Sometimes I forget the past, hoping that I might meet a free bird like myself, that doesn’t mind what the other person does essentially, as long as they are a stand up human being and share foundational truths about life.   

The other day, when I noticed a beautiful lady sitting reading a book in a cafe, I thought to myself, maybe this is one of those days where I get to make a new friend, a lady to be attracted to and engaged with, who knows.  I was sitting by myself when the table next to me asked if I would like to join them.  Knowing one of their party, I accepted.  After joining their conversation for a while, I got up to go to the bathroom.  The cafe only has one toilet, as it was occupied, I waited outside in the hallway.  Soon out came a lady, let’s call her Josie.  I had noticed Josie earlier,  reading a book on her own.  As she exited she did a 360 spin, so that she could hold the door for me.  It was a very balletic twirl, her long flowing hair and the denim skirt she was wearing spun, almost in slow motion as she span around in her clogs to hold the door for me.  She gave me a big smile and I thanked her as I went into the bathroom.

On leaving the bathroom I headed back towards the people I was sitting with, but I stopped to say hello to Josie.  I asked her if she was enjoying the book she was reading, as she looked rather engaged in it.  She said that it was one of her favorite authors, unfortunately I can’t remember who, and that the book was an autobiography of sorts.  The author was around ninety years old when he wrote the book and had led a very dynamic life.  I was standing while talking to her and she was having to hold her hand over her face to protect her eyes from the sun while also being able to see me.  I tried to find a position to stop the sun shinning in her face but I couldn’t find a spot, she said it was ok.  I asked her what she did with her time.  She told me that she lived in Santa Barbara and was studying Naturapthy, online, while spending time working with flowers and plants.  There was a calm way she spoke to me and I started to talk about how after the recent fire there were some new plants growing from the ashes, which like poison oak were causing problems for people who touch them.  I wanted to mention that I might go for a walk in the river bottom, if she’d like to join, but the words didn’t come out my mouth. I asked if she knew any of the people I was sitting with, she knew one guy, and I asked if she like to join us.  She said no.  I suggested she was happy reading her book, and she nodded her head in agreement.  After a pause, where I felt like maybe I had asked too many questions or wondered if she might say something to me, the conversation seemed to fizzle out.  I could have come up with more to say or asked if I could sit with her longer, but I felt she was happy being on her own.   We exchanged  names, complimented each other,  and I headed back to sit with the others.  While I sat at the table not too far away from Josie, we exchanged a few more glances and I observed her long wavy flowing hair down to her legs, the way she took off her clogs to sit cross legged on the chair, the intimacy and intensity with which she read her book, and the way she looked me in the eyes when she occasionally looked my way.  There is no doubt, I found Josie attractive.  After a while a friend of hers arrived and they sat together eating a burrito.  She looked over my way once before she left and as she was leaving I waved goodbye and told her to have a great day, she said goodbye.  

I have a history of being attracted to women who work with nature.  Once I was in Asheville for a few days having a coffee in a cafe when I saw a women working on her computer.  She had muddy boots, a sort of disheveled farm look and I wondered what she did.  I approached her and we got chatting.  Later, on two occasions, I would spend a week at her place, while I was in Law school in New Orleans.  She came and stayed with me for a few days and we had a really good time.  Our relationship was brief and I soon realized I couldn’t give her what she wanted, I was far to stretched at the time.  She was studying herbal medicine.  She would send me little tinctures and other treats with hand written letters.  We would speak on the phone about how to stay sane while I was in law school and practices I could engage.  I enjoyed knowing someone who was connecting with the earth.   It was those muddy boots, the way she sat so upright, and her focused attention to her work, that attracted me to her when I first saw her.  Much like the way Josie was sitting in the cafe in California. 

All in all, I thought my interaction with Josie was rather pleasant and I hoped, maybe, I would see her again.  She seemed to know a few people in the cafe, I’d probably get another chance.  In truth I would have rather sat and talked with her than the people I was with, but again she seemed quite happy reading and doing her thing, I didn’t want to intrude more than I already had.   Plus, I don’t know if she was interested in me as I was in her.  She didn’t make any real effort to engage with me other than the fact I was trying to engage with her.  But these days I have no idea what the protocol for flirting, dating, being friendly towards women, is, anymore.  The last time I had an intimate interaction with a lady I needed a friend to tell me, that the women in question, liked me.   I kind of had an idea that she did, but I couldn’t tell.  I’m not very good at games.  I’m pretty straightforward, so people kind of have to spell it out to me if they like me or not.  

A few weeks prior to meeting Josie, now this is going to sound creepy, I had started following some new people on Instagram.  I wonder if Instagram ever considered how creepy it sounds to say, you follow somebody.  These days I use Instagram less and less.  I can’t handle the amount of information people stream about their lives, business or whatever else they want to share, often blurring the lines between their personal and business lives.  

I had started following a couple of women who grow flowers and work with plants in the area.  Their pictures were always quite pretty and it was nice to get a feeling that some locals were growing plants and enjoying nature, even if I wasn’t.  After meeting Josie, later that night, I was looking at my Instagram feed and I noticed posts from two of the flower grower women I had started following recently.  I soon realized that they were the women I had just met at the cafe, one being Josie and the other, her friend who joined her for a burrito.  Now I know some of you may think I’m lying and that I somehow found her online, but that’s not true.  

Wow, I thought to myself, maybe this is meant to be, maybe I’m meant to meet Josie again.  It has happened before where I have met people in life and then talked to them later on Instagram.  I sent her a message, on Instagram, saying hello, explaining we met earlier and asked how her day had been, while also telling her that after I met her, I went and jumped in the river, which was truly amazing.  It was a hot day , I jumped in the cold river water, rare in these parts to have flowing water in the river. Later warming up in the sun.   

I checked my Instagram a few times over the next day or so and noticed I hadn’t gotten a response, although I had noticed that she had liked the ladies pictures she was dining with when I met her.  The next time I checked, I noticed that my message had disappeared and I could no longer find her on Instagram.  There’s only two explanations for this, first, she deleted her account, highly unlikely.   The second and more likely explanation, she blocked me. 

Fragile from a previous female interaction that ended very sourly, the blocked scenario, compounded a feeling of dumb foundedness, is that a word?  I asked myself a number of serious questions.  Am I a stalker, someone that would warrant being blocked?  Am I someone that completely mis-reads interactions with women?  I thought I was innocent enough.  In fact, I thought it was a rather nice coincidence that later that same day I would see a post from someone I just met, someone I possibly liked and someone that seemed to enjoy sharing their lives with me.  Isn’t Social media’s supposed to help you be social?  

After some deliberation I came to the conclusion that I don’t think I am a stalker.  I am not a creep, or a person that completely mis-reads situations, although as I previously stated, I do sometimes find it hard to know when someone likes me or not, when I may like them.  I do think that this issue is not necessarily my fault.  Modern society, is such that people share more about their personal lives on Social media than they do in person.  For example the other day I was standing in line with a friend and the person in front of me, we’ll call him Tom, looked at me and asked “Do you mind if I leave the line?”  I looked back with a smile “ You can do whatever you want, mate”.  He kind of did a double take and then walked off to get some bread.  When he came back I told him “I said that because you didn’t say you wanted me to save your spot in the line, you just said you wanted to leave the line”.  I was trying to joke around with the guy.  He just looked back and said, “Thank you”.  

We made a few pleasantries and he asked my name.  When he told me his name, I realized he was someone I had followed, here we go again, on Instagram, but had deleted him because I couldn’t keep up with his daily barrage of posts.  In fact I can’t keep with most people now.

I had noticed Tom looking at me earlier as I parked my van outside the store, and then as I entered the shop he was looking at me as if he wanted to say something but the conversation was going on in his head.  Tom is someone that lives part time in the town I live in, because his mum lives here, and part time in Washington State.  He works for a beverage company, while also making documentary films.  He is a talented individual, who has over 125,000 followers on Instagram.   How do I know all this?  Well, I used to follow him on Instagram.  I knew all of this before I met him, in the line of the cafe.  

I didn’t say anything to Tom about any of this as we spoke, because I kind of wanted to see if we would get along.  I also know from when I was following him, that he delivered flowers to another local lady who lives in a van.  At the time I was also following this lady on Instagram (again, I am not a stalker or am I, because I use Instagram?!), and she had made posts about how she had received flowers from someone on her birthday, how sweet, but didn’t know who?  Later on, Tom, posted to the van lady that it was in fact he who had left the flowers for her, ahh, how sweet of him.  She then made a post saying, thank you to Tom for the flowers. Are they flirting through Instagram here, are they friends, are they dating, what’s going on?  This was the story that caused me to stop following both of them.   

Now, I know these people are living really wonderful, glamours, fulfilled life and everything is just so great for them.  Maybe I sound cynical but, do I need to know all the good little deeds that go on in their lives.  It's like when somebody who has been single for a while starts dating someone and professes on social media how in love they both are, sharing loved up pictures of them kissing, meeting the family, lounging on the beach, taking naked pictures of each other and whatever couples do when they are into one another.   A sort of look at me, and how in love I am. It’s great, go for it, but do I really need to know all of this, really?  Especially when the lover in question is replaced later on by another lover and we go through the same cycle. It’s fine to have lots of lovers and be in love a lot, but the rollercoaster does get a bit much for me sometimes.

Social media has gotten to the point where people are posting five to six times a day across multiple platforms, mixing their private and business lives in the process.  Its getting a bit weird, don’t you think?  Just like Tom, who I knew quite a lot about before I ever met him in person.  Maybe that’s what he wants, he wants me to know what’s going in his life.  Maybe that’s what we all desire, it is isn’t it, to be liked, to be loved, but how sincere is all of it?  Do we have to share everything now about our lives, do we have to show what we are doing, in order to feel alive, in order to feel loved.  Isn’t sharing a two way street to give and to receive.  Or are we just following people and liking things.   Did Instagram really think about the terminology they are using, such as; following, blocked and the worst of all, like.  I’m so, like, confused by all, like, this social media, like, stuff.    

At the end of last year I rejoined Facebook, after deleting my account numerous time over the last five or six years.   I befriended a women on FB, that works at a cafe I frequent, and she accepted my friend request.  I thought that was a good sign.  Whenever I go to her cafe, we always smile at each other and occasionally have a happy chat, meaning we have conversation that is generally happy in nature.  I sent her a message on FB saying hello.  She responded, telling me she rarely uses FB.  I asked her what her favorite class at the gym we are both members at, and wondered if there was a better way to reach her.  Thinking that if she wanted to talk with me more or hang out, she might share her number.  Having accepted my friend request I thought she might, plus I’d never managed to ask her out when she was working, she always seemed focused and I wanted to respect her work environment.   She responded, “I never give out my number to customers”.   Wow, so what the hell was I doing here, I thought.  I responded “I see, good to know that you will never see me as a non customer”.  

It was another interaction which seemed to point towards the fact that maybe I’m not meant to be interacting with women.  Maybe I’ve got something wrong with me.  Maybe I’m meant to be doing whatever I do.  I asked my family and friends, am I ugly?  Am I a creep?  What do you guys think?  They told me, no, you’re a handsome friendly cool guy.  So why do I keep having these kinds of blocked female interactions lately.  Am I attracting a certain type of person?  A person that I think likes me mutually, as I do, yet when it comes to it, sees me as a customer or a creep.  I know there are a lot of fucked up men, who really do a lot of damage for the good few guys that might be out there, treating women like dirt.  I’ve known some of them and have slowly distanced myself from being around men I find derogatory, controlling, and possessive towards women.  Yet, I can’t put all the blame on men, women are human beings too, no doubt they have had a much rougher ride, history has shown that, but is all the fear warranted? Probably.  As a very dear friend would say, what’s meant to be will be, and if people don’t want to interact with you, you’ve likely been saved.  

I do my best to try and come at things with a clean slate and just before, I sat down to write this piece in my local library, I met a lady in the grocery store line, who happened to be sitting at the table with me, when I met Josie.  I had actually met, we’ll call her Karen, many months prior.   I was eating alone in a cafe, you probably notice all my interactions are in cafe’s!  Maybe it’s time I met people elsewhere, but that would mean I need to start socializing differently and for a long time this wasn’t possible for me, but….  Anyway, I had gone up to Karen in the cafe and asked if she wanted company, maybe we could eat together, as she was eating alone and so was I, so what the heck.  I felt like she was looking my way and giving me nice smiles.  When I asked if I could join her, she said, no, and so I left her alone.  A few months later I was sitting in the same cafe talking to a couple of friends, and she was sitting a few tables away.  I noticed her, but since her blanket refusal of any interaction with me, I didn’t pay her too much attention.  

On the day I met Josie, as we sat and chatted, Karen looked at me and asked “How’s the writing going?”  I looked back and stated, “How do you know I write, I have never spoken to you, apart from the time I asked to eat with you and you said no?”  She responded, “Well I overheard you talking to someone with other day about how you are a writer”.  I replied,  “So, you are quite happy to listen in to my conversations rather than actually speak to me in person” She kind of smiled and stared at me and the conversation went a little further, but it was nothing special, I actually found it hard to converse with her, and I certainly wasn’t impressed by her general attitude.  

Fast forward to the day I sat down to write this piece where I was standing in line next to Karen,I asked her, “What you up to?”   “I am working on my CV”, she responded.  “Oh cool, you have some new information to update it with?”  “No” she said, “Well, just make it up if you don’t” I quipped.  “Are you applying for a job?” I asked.  “No, someone asked for my CV”.  “So, you kind of are, applying for a job?” “ No.  Mrs. Escher asked for my CV”. “Oh, who’s she” I inquired.  “M.C Eschers wife” as she walked off to pay for her groceries at another checker.