Pretty please? With sugar on top?

Last night I was chatting with someone and he was going on and on about how some gym membership wasn't what he wanted and he kept negotiating with the people and I thought "you don't negotiate with a gym?  Why are you being such a trouble maker?"  But after reading this today -- what struck me more was the fact that he was someone unafraid to ask for what he wanted and he was unafraid of the answer -- good or bad because not only was he not that invested in it but he knew it wasn't about him.  This is one of those HUGE light bulb moments for me.  I am not good at asking for what I want.  I am not good at doing it in the world, I am REALLY not good at doing it in relationships, I am just not good at it and that has been the cause of a lot of the settling I have done.  Like what I would really like is tea but I am offered water so I just take water and put up with it.  Not that water is bad and if the offer was poison, I would certainly speak up but when the option presented isn't bad *enough* - I just suck it up and take it. 

During this conversation, I mentioned to this guy that I was the kind of person who couldn't ask for help at Home Depot and his response was "well, they're a bunch of idiots there anyway".  First of all, they aren't.  The times I have ponied up the courage and asked for something, I have gotten great help.  (I have huge issues with the perception by the white collar folks of the world that if you work a more blue collar like job - your work isn't as valuable and you are an idiot -- but that's a post for another day).  What became clear to me though was that I was not being heard.  I have told this person multiple times of my self-confidence issues and he's like "nah, you're a diva" (yet another pet peeve term of mine!) - this person has never met me -- he's just someone I chat with.  Trust me, I find really odd people online -- rather, they find me.  Someday if you want a weird one, ask me about the adult baby.  But I digress...

I am someone who views rejection of any type as a rejection of me.  Of my soul, of my being, of my body, of my life.  And really?  Very few of the "no"s that one hears in the world are a rejection of who you are at all -- rather, the person you asked had to say no for any number of reasons which probably were all about them and not you.  While I can't imagine I will ever be someone in the world who makes trouble just to make trouble - I really do need to be more aware of the times that I don't ask for what I want for fear of rejection.  No does not equal rejection.

Comments

[Ellen]

I have been talking about something similar a lot lately. spawned by my five year olds interactions with her classmates. She has yet to learn to take rejection personally. It just rolls off her back. I wonder at what age do we become self conscious enough to begin to do so?

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God Amanda, we share a brain.