Why am I so hopeless with women (rare photo evidence)? (long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

So, Pat came in today. As usual, wearing a navy suit, this time with a red blouse instead of a red scarf, always showing neck, never showing cleavage. I sez, “Pat, how the hell are you”? She says, “Jim, good to see you”, and turned to continue talking with my boss. Unfortunately, I had been assembling some equipment for an event in another room when she arrived, so she was already talking business when I came back to my desk 5 minutes later. Yes, I am the master if timing. :stuck_out_tongue:

But I persevere. A few minutes later, I say,
“I sent you some email about biking. Take a look”.
“I haven’t seen my email for 2 weeks. Here, let me give you another address”, and she writes out one and gives it to me.
I say, “Are you interested in getting out on a bike”?
“I haven’t been out yet this year”.
“Well, are you interested”?
“I’m not interested in ANYTHING in May”?
“May”?
“May is osteoporosis month. I’m over committed”.

I also knew, as of a few weeks ago, that she was only committed to staying at the hospital until the end of May, so I say,
“What’s the deal? Are you going to be here in June”?

She’s in an unusual situation. The hospital hired her to establish this clinic, and then the insurance company that is in partnership with the hospital declined to extend their coverage to treatment by this specialized “women’s midlife” clinic. So everybody who came there had to pay 100% out of pocket, or be funded out of a state indigent program. Pat’s not pissed at US, the people working around her, but at the HR reps and the executives who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) back up their assurances of full suport in building a practice.

So she says, “I’m working full-time plus now”(because of this other clinic she’s at the rest of the week). “I want to keep the classes going” (the night course she teaches about every quarter). “But I wanna be out of the clinic”. My boss is supporting her in this, wants to keep her as a teacher. As a clinician, Pat is not in my boss’s chain of command, only as an educator.

So I say, “We’ll miss you”.
“I gave you my other email address”.
“Are you going to maintain an address here”?
“I don’t know how to check it from home”.
“Oh, that’s easy. Do you want to put in a work order for it”?
“No”.
I laughed and said, “I knew you were going to say that”.
She laughed and said, “If I have two email addresses, I have to read twice as much email”. Then she got a phone call that sounded as it was going to be a while.

And that’s pretty much how it ended. I made the invitation, she deferred but didn’t reject. It’s understandable given the stresses she’s under.

I declare a success! Just like Bill Clinton in the '92 primaries!

82

Jim,

I love you (well, like a brother), and have been following your adventures with Pat with interest.

But I gotta say t his:

Man, if you asked me out like that, I wouldn’t have had a fricking CLUE that going out (like a date) was actually what you wanted to do.

Ask her to do something with you, maybe something not so time-committing, like a small dinner or drink scenario, or even lunch over the weekend. BUT - actually ask her out, in clear “asking out” words, don’t just suggest a possible afternoon of biking on some undfined afternoon.

83

and um,

I’ll learn to preview my posts. :o

It’s been a long week, I think my brain forgot how to spell.

84

Hey, I would have got to that if she hadn’t ruled out the whole friggin’ month of May. In June, I’ll be in a new home, she’ll be on a new schedule. It seemed a bad idea to press for a particular day right now.

85

yojimboguy: “I know that May is bad for you, but maybe we could still get together over lunch sometime… you still plan to eat occassionally, don’t you?”

86

That just plain seems too pushy to me.

87

I’m relatively new to your adventures, yojimbo, but I think you handled it just right. Being pushy in this instance doesn’t work. Good luck next month.

88

Yes! After all these years, I have FINALLY become a sex machine! And I barely had to expend any effort!

89

I worked another lecture with Pat this week, and AGAIN just couldn’t find it in myself to ask her out.

So I sent her the email below. I sent it to her OTHER email address, so she will be certain to see it earlt next week, long before she see’s me again. Note that I xxd out my email and phone # in THIS version, not her copy. :slight_smile:

I’ve sent it, I don’t know if it’s wrong or right, but it’s the best I’m able to do. (And yes, in another thread I said I was going offline for a few days, but my new computer desk is late in arriving, so I haven’t broken things down yet to move the comp.)

The text of my email:

>>>>
This is Jim from xxx :slight_smile: Taking a line from your osteo lecture… “Always ask for what you want. It increases your chances of getting it”.

So I’ve decided to follow your advice… what I want is to go out on a date with you. :slight_smile: (I swear this is the last smiley I will use in this email).

I’ve been intending to ask you in person for a few weeks now, but the moment never seemed right. We’re always so busy at the office. Besides, I have a phobia about rejection on a personal level (I’ve already had more than enough of it), and I tend to avoid it by not reaching out and making myself vulnerable to it. But enough about my inner angst… except to say that the act of asking you out is a good thing for me whether you accept or not.

So this email gives me, and you, a little more time to think about what to say. YOU need not say anything, if you don’t respond to this through email or in person (or some other clever way), I’ll simply take that as the equivalent of a NO, and make up some comforting reasons in my own head about why. I won’t bring this up at work either.

These are some reasons I’d like to go out with you, in order. You’re smart, unattached (as far as I know), beautiful, in my age zone, witty, and a biker.

Some reasons you might like to go ouy with me… I’m smart, have a certain wit which some find amusing, I am always civil, and I’m a biker (though pitifully out of shape).

I hope you say yes. It will make, not my day, but my YEAR, and the last year has already been a very good year for me! Maybe that’s why I’m willing to risk a little rejection now (sorry, inner angst creeping in). I have very high standards for women I would consider dating. Which makes me dateless for long stretches.

If you don’t choose to respond at work, you can reach me by responding to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx . My cell number is xxxxxxxxxxxxx.

>>>>>>

90

Sounds good Yojimboguy!

91

Yes, I’d love to go out with you…that was such a sweet email you sent…oh, wait, that’s for Pat.

Damn.
::sigh::
If she doesn’t say yes, she’s an idiot. Good luck…the email sounds just perfect!

92

I’ve known guys who could invite women out on a date as easily as asking for fries with their burger, the only difference being the woman is more likely to say no than the than the clerk at the counter.

For me, it’s always a struggle. By the time I get there, I’ve thought about it a LOT, and a casual invitation seems not only inadequate but almost dishonest.

But this sudden burst of sincerity is often a real shock to the women I’ve expressed it to. Sometimes I’m kinda the office clown, sometimes the cool professional, but almost never do I show real CARING – everything is at arm’s length.

I’m trying to find some new middle ground.

93

It’s good to see you’ve directly asked her out now. Maybe that line in the lecture was directed at you. As always, good luck.

94

Okay folks, tomorrow is Friday…the day Pat is at the office. If she hasn’t emailed him to answer yea or nay, she’ll have to tell him in person…so if we all start using those visualization techniques we learned at camp, we can make this happen!

say yes, say yes, say yes, say yes, say yes…

95

I’m going to be away from my computer 'til Sunday at the earliest, but rest assured I’ll be tuning in then. I’m pulling for ya, yojimboguy!

Hey, that sounded dirty!

96

It’s Thursday night and no reply.

Tomorrow she may say yes, no or nothing at all (which I suggested, stupidly in retrospect, as a “no” option in my email to her). I really have no idea which will happen. I simply have to focus on the fact that the ASKING was the most important part, regardless of the answer.

Thanks to all, especially kittenblue and Gundy, for being so supportive.

I’m still thinking about getting counseling. In some ways my social development was arrested at a very early age. I’ve known this for some time, but I’m finally trying to deal with it.

This has been a very heavy duty year for me, mostly for the good I’m sure. A lot of it’s mixed up with money, with my Dad and his death in January, and my own sense of self-worth.

My dad’s life, at least in his younger years, was pretty sharply defined by fear and anger. I think the fear part came from his own upbringing, in total poverty in rural Ireland. He was born and raised in County Limerick; if you read “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt (which I couldn’t finish, because it was SO my dad’s side of the family) you’d have some idea of his background. He CLUNG to whatever he had, and would risk none of it on the chance of something better. When I told him I was taking a new job, that paid 25% more, made me a supervisor , and was half a mile from my front door, his advice was NOT to take it. I already had a steady job and health insurance, and the new place might change its mind next week and I’d be out the door.

But I took the job, and he died 3 months later, almost to the day. And he left me a share of all that money he had clung to so desperately. And I’m using it in ways he certainly wouldn’t approve of. I got myself completely out of debt, including a big student loan – that is the ONLY thing I’ve done that he would have approved of. I’ve also ended up moving into a much nicer place (I’m almost completely moved now, but still posting from the old place), and leaving most of the material things of my of my old place at the curbside. I’m furnishing the new place with really decent quality new stuff.

Economically it’s probably somewhat foolish, since I’m going through a fair chunk of the money without “investing” in anything, but psychologically it’s enormously satisfying. In many ways I feel I am casting aside my old life in exchange for a new one. But the inner me doesn’t quite fit the outer me. The inner me is a fearful, chronically un- or underemployed technician, as my dad had been the same though a laborer. I need not be that person anymore – I understand that.

I’m coming to see this in terms of reaching out for something new, which necessitates loosening my grip on something I have. And that is contrary to most of my life experience, and very difficult to overcome.

Maybe you can see why I’m thinking about counseling. On the other hand SDMB is MUCH cheaper, and among all the comments I get are some surely as insightful as any professional could offer.

If you’re read this far, thanks for your patience. I do blather on, but it’s a kind of unburdening I don’t have much chance to do in the RW.

I will update tomorrow after encountering Pat.

97

Hey, that’s what we’re here for…good luck tomorrow

98

Nothing really to add. Just logging in to wish you good luck

99

Love that self-fulfilling prophecy, don’t you? And isn’t it great how you know that’s exactly what you’re doing, and yet you can’t break out of the cycle anyway?

I have always loved the advice: “Oh, just ask her out.” It sounds so simple until the time comes when one actually has to do it, doesn’t it?

100

Good luck, yojimboguy, we’re cheering for you. And even if it doesn’t work out, you dared to take a step and break out of the constraints you’d put on yourself.

I’m obviously hoping it works out though; we want stories about your dates. :smiley: