Lunch yesterday was disturbing. I’m putting off going to lunch today for that reason. (It wasn’t the Café Bethany food, for once.)
I was sitting with some acquaintances. I don’t have a lot of friends on this campus; that’s a deliberate choice on my part because I’m very particular about who I consider friends. It may surprise a lot of these acquaintances to know that I don’t think of them as friends, but that’s because they have a very superficial idea of what “friend” means. But I don’t mean to get into a mini-Rant.
Anyway. I was trying to eat my lunch—I’m attempting to feed a cold here—when someone I will refer to as Y sat beside me and began flirting with me. She’s done this before, which is a lot more tolerable when it comes from the other side of the table. It’s considerably more annoying when Y is sitting right next to me, because her practice is to do what I call “smack ’em if you like ’em.” I’ve ranted many times about how sad I find a lot of the junior high variety of flirting that I see on this campus. If there’s anything you want to do to make me completely uninterested in you, do what Y did.
She started a little friendly teasing, and then she decided to respond to one of my comments with a smack. I was not expecting to get hit when I’m in the middle of a chicken sandwich. I wound up with Heinz 57 sauce on my shirt.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, when she clearly was more amused than sorry.
“Just don’t do that again,” I said, figuring I could let this slide.
Except, later in the conversation, something I said caused me to get hit again. Fortunately, not while I was eating anything.
Now, she didn’t realize that while she was hitting me, she was pressing one of my more significant buttons. I do NOT appreciate getting hit. I don’t care if you’re teasing, joking, or whatever. I got hit throughout my childhood, and I watched my dad beat my mom unconscious once or twice, so this is not something I consider “fun” or “flirty.” In fact, it provokes me to hit back. Hard. And maybe break a nose. But I swore to myself I would never do that to anyone (any more, I have to admit), so instead of breaking her nose I simply took my unfinished meal, left the table, left the café, and prayed a lot until I was in a better mood.
I didn’t see Y again at dinner. Which is probably best. She has no chance with me, and is quite lucky that I’m not the same person I was 10 years ago. The disturbing part is that this person nearly came out of me.
My temper, which I had assumed was mostly gone, isn’t. There was always that little bit that was just waiting to come back up and surprise me. Guess it’s not dead yet. Great, more introspection.