Confrontation!

Since we do things backwards down here in the bumblefog, it just figures that my first blog post will be about something other than purely pickup stuff.

Ever gotten a better grip on your life, passed some milestones and got pretty confident and then run into that person that got the best of you so many years ago, or was just there at the time and wants to define you forever more, with a grin, by that moment of your weakness so long ago? Suddenly it's like your right back there, picking up where you left off.

Fact is, if that person were to meet you fresh right now you'd probably floor 'em (in whatever context that may apply) but still it feels like you have to go back to that moment.

I'm really just giving a specific example of confrontation in general. The one that plagued me for the longest time.

I've discovered that when we face conflict we tend to fight every fight we've ever fought and every fight we anticipate fighting in the future with this one "fight" happening right now. So it immediately gets a ghost army of past experiences to join it as well as our very active imagination. This is usually when we choke up and start wailing injustice in some shaky, quivery voice instead of just addressing the specifics of what's happening.

And it doesn't have to even be a fight, not even in the lightest sense. It could be that b*tch of a cashier that you just wanted to get away from, only to get out to your car and discover that she short changed you, so now you have to go back inside and deal with her again. Or that needy, clingy boss that will quit making your life hell if you accept the role of spineless wimp to make them feel better about their own hell, whatever it may be.

I read an interesting article on William Wallace - the man portrayed by Mel Gibson in Bravehart, of course - and one of his observations was that in a given lifetime a person "wins" many more times than they try. It took a second for that to sink in, but he was right. Winning (and losing) is so dependent on external factors and circumstances, and is largely subject to perspective. Trying, however, is completely up to us. And only we know if we really tried.

Along with an incredible tidbit of insight from a well-known PUA guru that suggested replacing the word 'injustice' with 'unusual' I've really reduced my accumulative heartburn by remembering that just making the attempt to confront those nasty unusuals is the real win.

Win some, lose some. Try 'em all.