Rodney Strange's Blog - Posts Tagged "relationships"
Stuck On Ourselves
I stepped into the office of an accountant friend of mine just a few minutes past five yesterday. I had called him earlier seeking some free tax advice and he'd suggested I catch him around closing time. As the door closed behind me, his receptionist glanced up from her computer, giving me the 'oh, it's you' look,' then returned her attention to her work.
"He's with a client. Just take a seat over there."
She pointed a finger toward a chair located the furthest distance from her desk. I grinned and took a seat in a chair in front of her desk. I watched her purposely ignore me as my mind drifted back a couple of years ago when this woman had been at the top of my 'most datable' list.
I had asked her to lunch just a few weeks after she had taken a job with my friend's business. She had politely declined, explaining how she really needed to stay home and clean house. The rejection had reminded me of a verse in a song...'I'd rather wash my car in the rain.'
Nevertheless, I had patiently waited for another opportunity to ask this attractive fifty year old woman out, and six months later simply popped off a 'Wanna go to the movies tonight?' Without so much as a viable excuse this time, she had replied with a harsh, heartless, 'No.' And so, I now sat just across from her watching her work, obviously irritated by my constant gaze. Personally, I found it amusing. It was just a few weeks ago that she had discovered that I was not just a destitute local boy whose failing pecan orchard had one foot in the grave due to a three year long drought, whose last few goats out of a herd of prime, registered Boer goats had ran off in search of greener pastures and an elusive drink of water. Someone had let it slip in the course of conversation. He's an author, they had told her. He's written books. He has a popular blog...millions of readers...he ranks in the top five percent of all Twitter accounts worldwide. He is...The Rusty Goat. Somehow that had changed things in her little mind.
I ran into her at the grocery store a week or so ago and she eagerly questioned me about my writing with, "I hear you have written a book!" I replied that I was in the middle of writing my third, now aware that I had suddenly become 'datable' to this woman who had spurned me. We chatted briefly before she casually reminded me, with a twinkle in her eye, that I'd never 'cashed in' that rain check she'd supposedly extended on the lunch date from two years ago. I smiled and replied, "Yeah, I'm still waiting for the rain. Doesn't look like it'll ever come, does it!" With that, I drifted off toward the frozen food aisle, leaving her to mull my statement over in her little mind. It was during he following day that my friend, her boss, informed me that she had been questioning him about me. I acknowledged that I had seen a change in her attitude toward me.
"You know what she is really waiting on is a younger man. Someone in his mid-thirties to come along. She is just that stuck on herself," my friend said.
I replied, "When I was in my mid-thirties I had a smokin' hot twenty four year old hot on my tail. I'd have never given a woman her age a second glance. It must be sad to be so stuck on yourself that you'd rather sit home all alone for the rest of your life."
And so, yesterday as I watched her swivel her office chair around, her back to me as she fumbled with a jammed printer, I wondered if my remark hadn't somehow found its way back to her. Moments later, behind a closed office door, my friend laughingly confessed that he had perhaps let that slip out. I made a mental note to be cautious what I said to him in the future, then added his secretary to my 'When Hell Freezes Over' list.
It's my personal opinion that the folks who society deems 'attractive' really miss out on so much of life. This is contrary to statistics which tell us that attractive high school students score the highest grades. Attractive people are more apt to be accepted into the best colleges as a result. Attractive people climb the corporate ladder faster than the rest of us. Attractive people accumulate more wealth during their lifetime. Society obviously rewards people who are stuck on themselves. We all seem to put these people on a better playing field, a higher pedestal. They don't have to do anything to get there except...stand there and look pretty.
Some may caution me that attractiveness does not necessarily go hand in hand with conceit. Ah, but you forget I prowl the dating sites, as any single man has a right to do. Years of experience tells me that beauty and conceit do indeed tend to travel together. An attractive woman does not put me off. I'm not blind and I'm just as normal as any man. It is an attitude, a feeling of self superiority that sometimes accompanies 'the beautiful ones' that really turns me off. I often question whether we as a society actually placed them on their pedestal or if they crawled up there on their own and the rest of us just accepted the fact that we should be as stuck on them as they are themselves.
I confess that from time to time I have caught myself thinking about someone passing by...'Why did God make someone so ugly?' My grandaddy's saying always comes to mind, 'She's so ugly she has to slip up on a dipper to get a drink of water.' You know you've caught yourself thinking that too! I always feel remorseful when such thoughts pass through my mind and I ask for forgiveness for my mortal shortcomings. I have to remind myself that God doesn't judge us by our looks, in fact He only recognizes us from within. It is our hearts and souls that shine for our Creator. In the first book of Samuel (16:7) it states: "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.' Regardless of what society deems 'acceptably attractive,' the truth is...God doesn't make junk. We're all beautiful to Him. We should make it a priority to find the beautiful-ness of everyone around us. If we have our hearts right with God and live and love as He wishes us to, we become 'attractive people.' When we reach that point it's okay to be 'stuck on ourselves.'
"He's with a client. Just take a seat over there."
She pointed a finger toward a chair located the furthest distance from her desk. I grinned and took a seat in a chair in front of her desk. I watched her purposely ignore me as my mind drifted back a couple of years ago when this woman had been at the top of my 'most datable' list.
I had asked her to lunch just a few weeks after she had taken a job with my friend's business. She had politely declined, explaining how she really needed to stay home and clean house. The rejection had reminded me of a verse in a song...'I'd rather wash my car in the rain.'
Nevertheless, I had patiently waited for another opportunity to ask this attractive fifty year old woman out, and six months later simply popped off a 'Wanna go to the movies tonight?' Without so much as a viable excuse this time, she had replied with a harsh, heartless, 'No.' And so, I now sat just across from her watching her work, obviously irritated by my constant gaze. Personally, I found it amusing. It was just a few weeks ago that she had discovered that I was not just a destitute local boy whose failing pecan orchard had one foot in the grave due to a three year long drought, whose last few goats out of a herd of prime, registered Boer goats had ran off in search of greener pastures and an elusive drink of water. Someone had let it slip in the course of conversation. He's an author, they had told her. He's written books. He has a popular blog...millions of readers...he ranks in the top five percent of all Twitter accounts worldwide. He is...The Rusty Goat. Somehow that had changed things in her little mind.
I ran into her at the grocery store a week or so ago and she eagerly questioned me about my writing with, "I hear you have written a book!" I replied that I was in the middle of writing my third, now aware that I had suddenly become 'datable' to this woman who had spurned me. We chatted briefly before she casually reminded me, with a twinkle in her eye, that I'd never 'cashed in' that rain check she'd supposedly extended on the lunch date from two years ago. I smiled and replied, "Yeah, I'm still waiting for the rain. Doesn't look like it'll ever come, does it!" With that, I drifted off toward the frozen food aisle, leaving her to mull my statement over in her little mind. It was during he following day that my friend, her boss, informed me that she had been questioning him about me. I acknowledged that I had seen a change in her attitude toward me.
"You know what she is really waiting on is a younger man. Someone in his mid-thirties to come along. She is just that stuck on herself," my friend said.
I replied, "When I was in my mid-thirties I had a smokin' hot twenty four year old hot on my tail. I'd have never given a woman her age a second glance. It must be sad to be so stuck on yourself that you'd rather sit home all alone for the rest of your life."
And so, yesterday as I watched her swivel her office chair around, her back to me as she fumbled with a jammed printer, I wondered if my remark hadn't somehow found its way back to her. Moments later, behind a closed office door, my friend laughingly confessed that he had perhaps let that slip out. I made a mental note to be cautious what I said to him in the future, then added his secretary to my 'When Hell Freezes Over' list.
It's my personal opinion that the folks who society deems 'attractive' really miss out on so much of life. This is contrary to statistics which tell us that attractive high school students score the highest grades. Attractive people are more apt to be accepted into the best colleges as a result. Attractive people climb the corporate ladder faster than the rest of us. Attractive people accumulate more wealth during their lifetime. Society obviously rewards people who are stuck on themselves. We all seem to put these people on a better playing field, a higher pedestal. They don't have to do anything to get there except...stand there and look pretty.
Some may caution me that attractiveness does not necessarily go hand in hand with conceit. Ah, but you forget I prowl the dating sites, as any single man has a right to do. Years of experience tells me that beauty and conceit do indeed tend to travel together. An attractive woman does not put me off. I'm not blind and I'm just as normal as any man. It is an attitude, a feeling of self superiority that sometimes accompanies 'the beautiful ones' that really turns me off. I often question whether we as a society actually placed them on their pedestal or if they crawled up there on their own and the rest of us just accepted the fact that we should be as stuck on them as they are themselves.
I confess that from time to time I have caught myself thinking about someone passing by...'Why did God make someone so ugly?' My grandaddy's saying always comes to mind, 'She's so ugly she has to slip up on a dipper to get a drink of water.' You know you've caught yourself thinking that too! I always feel remorseful when such thoughts pass through my mind and I ask for forgiveness for my mortal shortcomings. I have to remind myself that God doesn't judge us by our looks, in fact He only recognizes us from within. It is our hearts and souls that shine for our Creator. In the first book of Samuel (16:7) it states: "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.' Regardless of what society deems 'acceptably attractive,' the truth is...God doesn't make junk. We're all beautiful to Him. We should make it a priority to find the beautiful-ness of everyone around us. If we have our hearts right with God and live and love as He wishes us to, we become 'attractive people.' When we reach that point it's okay to be 'stuck on ourselves.'
