Okay I went to check out a local dive in Chattanooga, Tennessee known as the Tremont Tavern. I had never been there, but it was a cool joint to hang out while visiting some old friends, Jason Coffey and Joseph Goetz. Growing up in Chattanooga, when I go out to grab a few brews with Jason Coffey, we typically always run into someone we know even if not originally meeting in the group at the designated location of the night. Chattanooga is one of those places that generally plays the part of a large city with a very low key town feel. Everybody knows everybody.
We were sitting at a table pushed against the wall where typically a party of four would conglomerate coming together, but there were five total guys. So we pulled up an extra chair. I happened to be sitting at the fifth chair at the end of the table, and there was a high top table right next to our table where two or three could comfortably sit.
Two girls arrived to sit right next to us at the high top table, and one of the girls just looked familiar to me. It was not one of those cheesy moments where a guy says, “Hey, you look familiar….do I know you?” in the form of a pickup line. The girl was a smoker anyway, and I typically do not take interest in smokers considering I do not enjoy smelling like a bonfire in addition to smoke-stained breath that tastes like a bad batch of untasty barbeque flavor. So being as shy as my personality lends itself, I introduced myself and asked if this girl may have known myself, Jason, or Joseph. I explained briefly life connections all of us had with high schools, universities, churches, and other miscellaneous organizations in east Tennessee. You might at this point guess what her reaction was. She thought I was hitting on her to ask for her phone number.
I did not want to bluntly hurt her feelings saying, “I do not date smokers or girls who simply flatter themselves before a guy can even flatter them with buying a drink or a mild kind compliment.” Before the conversation even started, this girl thought I was hitting on her. That immediately clued me into where the direction of the conversation was going, her favorite subject encompassing a ME-complex. Her name was Tinsley, and while she was somewhat attractive, she was no Megan Fox. What was even worse was another guy joined in on the conversation while I was talking to her. He said the following: “Do you know how much a polar bear weighs? I don’t either. I just wanted to break the ice so I could introduce myself.” She started giving me flack about hitting on girls in bars without even mentioning or noticing the new acquaintance beside me. In other words, she did not give him a hard time of any sorts.
I think my reaction threw her off a little bit. I simple sat down and did not say a word. I am not a person who indulges in one’s own individual prideful thoughts of self. She expected me to continue the conversation perhaps with something like, “That is not what I meant and blah, blah, blah, …” instead of sitting down and not even trying.
I am a nice guy, but I am not a nice guy who apologizes for no reason and who indulges in the cares of other people where nice behaviors become a run-over spectacle. What was apparently noticeable is Tinsley was obviously uncomfortable with my sit-down reaction. She said, “It was a pleasure to meet you.” I honestly did not feel the same because I was only making polite conversation. I was not hitting on the girl. I have more class than the polar bear line, and I treat girls respectfully as I myself would want to be treated. If you assume anything, your assumption can sometimes come back to bite you in the butt so to speak.
Perhaps the moral of this story is that if someone obviously thinks only him or herself from the very beginning of any conversation, that is a conversation that you do not even need to be indulging in, and what I have found is that this type of internal focus is not developed from a true confidence of self-esteem but rather an uncertain view of self. An inflated appearance of esteem infers an inflated sense of insecurity. Sometimes people are just politely making conversation. Southerners tend to do that. When someone speaks generally nice to you, speak generally nice back to the person and do not automatically assume the person is speaking to you with ulterior motives even if the environment you inhabit lends to such judgments. And in my case, if you are a smoker, a nonsmoker is probably not interested in the attractive appeal of a moment’s suggested intentions. If Tinsley had taken a moment to not think about herself, she might have noticed that, and the guy with the clever polar bear comment would have become a bystander in the conversation, not the nice guy who really wanted nothing out of the situation to start off with.
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