The People You Meet in Life...

The other night I spent four hours in a telephone conversation with a woman.  This, in and of itself, is not record-breaking, but is noteworthy.  What is really astonishing is the fact that there was never a missed beat nor wasted moment in the entire conversation.  It was an exchange of ideas, thoughts, impressions, opinions, likes, dislikes and deal-breakers.  That last one, the deal breakers, was never reached.  There were seemingly no deal breakers.  Now that is really noteworthy.

This woman was/is bright, intelligent, articulate, open, honest and absolutely unashamed of who she is.  This made it easy for her to talk about herself.  She likes herself and, because she does, she has no trouble being positive about herself.  She also seems to believe, correctly in my opinion, that since she likes herself and accepts herself that there is nothing to be either ashamed of nor embarrassed about.  If someone does not like her, that is just fine with her.  There are too many other people in the world to worry about just one.  It is not that she does not care about what people think of her, she clearly cares deeply.  She is the kind of person that really enjoys pleasing others and gets off on it, but she also wants to be liked and loved for who she really is, for what she really believes and what she really likes and dislikes.

My father taught me that there are four kinds of people in the world each and every one of us will meet.  There are those that will like us for the right reasons.  There are those that will dislike us for the right reasons.  There are those that like us for the wrong reasosns.  Finally, there are those that will dislike us for the wrong reasons.  He told me that those that like you for the right reasons are those that can become your very best friends for life, and have found this to be true.  Those that dislike us for the right reasons are people we are just not meant to like or with whom we will be friends.  It is okay, we cannot be liked by everyone, and there are people taht are just not meant to get along.  Don't waste your time on them, it was just not meant to be.  The people that like you for the wrong reasons are the ones you really need to watch out for.  These are the people who really don't like you for anything other than what you have, what you can do for them or what they can get from you.  Beware, they are the users of the world, and they give little or nothing in return.  The people that dislike you for the wrong reason are the people worth spending a little time working on.  You might turn turn them into good friends, then again, you might not, but they are worth an effort.

I am not one to make snap judgments, but I am also a hopeful romantic, as oppsed to a sentamentalist, and I have hopes that this women and I will become friends and maybe more.  We have very similar ideas, thoughts and feelings.  One interestiung thing is that we agreed early on in this conversation to allow the subjects of conversation to the politically incorrect topics in polite company; politics, sex, money and religion.  If you can come to an agreement on these topics, other stuff is pretty negotiable.  I also find it is so much easier to discuss these topics and be completely honest before you become invested in a relationship.  Think about it, you don't know someone, you have no relationship of any kind and you have nothing to gain or lose really.  You discuss a sensitive topic and you say something the other person does not like, what happens?  You don't lose a friend or a lover, so you can be completely honest, hold nothing back and not have to worry about incredible consequences.  On the other hand, if you go out for a while, get emotionally involved, have a connection and then you find out that the man or woman is a religious fanatic, has declared personal bankruptcy three times and is a member of the Tea Party, while you are a card-carrying member of the ACLU, these can present a problem.  You lose the connection you have and there is frustration and disappointment and maybe even hard feelings.

I will admit that there are other very important factors that are not part of my four socially forbidden topics.  These include criminal convictions, substance abuse problems, ex-wives and girlfriends, etc, but these topics can often become easier to discuss once you have shared the forbidden topics.  It is a way to break the pattern of hide and seek in developing relationships.  Hey, if they have seen you naked, figuratively speaking, the rest comes a lot easier.

It may not work for everyone, but it works for me.  You might want to try it....