:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::

:: Sunday, November 04, 2007 ::

:: Server Stories: Thinking too Much ::

One of the busboys I work with became a father to a little girl and I couldn't be simultaneously happier, yet completely terrified for him. He's a good guy, a hard worker, has a good head on his shoulders, and is all of 22 years old. His wife is 21, and they've already been married for almost two years. Like any good friend, I've been giving him shit about this ("did they ever find out who the real daddy is?")

I've gotten to know him pretty well over the last few months, partly because he's the only busboy we have that speaks English well and actually busses tables. But every time I talk to him, I notice his remarkable maturity (for his age anyway; he's miffed that his wife won't let him buy a motorcycle), and judging from the doting way he talks about his wife and his family, he's going to be alright.

Still, he's 22. I'm eleven years older than he is and I'm not even ready to get married, much less have kids (I never want kids but that's beside the point.), but then he's light years ahead of where I was in terms of maturity, his stage in life, etc, etc compared to when I was 22. I told him this when he asked if I’m looking to start a family soon but his simple reply was "yeah but it's not like that in my country."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, man. In America everyone waits to get married and have a family because they wanna make money or whatever. I love my wife and she loves me, man. That's all that matters."

"I guess." My inner cynic thinks it's a bit simplistic and idealistic, but it's working for him and I'm not going to rain on his parade.

"And I'm not rich or anything yet but my other job pays enough to take care of my family. I just work here to save a little extra. But I don't worry about money, man. Just 'cuz I don't buy my little girl Gucci shit don't mean I'm not going to take care of her."

He's right. Granted, he's luckier than most of us in terms of finding his ideal woman, but still. We do wait longer for many reasons; financial stability, sow your wild oats, see the world, gain material wealth, whatever. But in his native country (Honduras), life is apparently, simpler. It could be cultural differences. Or maybe it's the comparable lack to earning potential that forces love of family as the core factor. I'm speaking from ignorance; I've never been there.

And like so many things these days, it makes me question mysself, being as it I tend to think too much. It usually turns back into brutally introspective self-analysis and dwelling on - perhaps self-perceived - deficiencies.

Sure, I was immature at age 22 old but what about now? Don't I eventually want to meet a nice girl? What's keeping me? Why am I waiting? Why am I even comparing myself to a 22 year old?

Am I not ready? Possibly.

Why not? It's a lame excuse to cover myself.

And why would do that? I don't wanna talk about it.

Have I not met the right person? Obviously not. But it goes a lot deeper that.

What do you mean? If this magical "right person" dropped into my lap, would I even know what to do?

So are you even trying? Umm...

Do you have any valid reasons or are you just too chicken shit to even ask a girl out? Uhh... can I get back to you?

I've met a few women and gotten a number here and there but nothing ever came of it. But really, what was the big fucking deal with getting a number anyway? It's nothing. Absolutely nothing if you can't develop anything from it. And I can't believe that my psyche is so out of whack right now that I would consider something relatively insignificant as getting a number a major hurdle. So what's the real issue?

I've always heard and read that women are experts and sensing a man's confidence and even though I have a pretty good "poker face" (or I thought I did, anyway) maybe I'm more transparent than I realized. Poker face is one thing but I'm not good at faking confidence and I've lived my whole life with a part of me that tells me, "you can't do this. You're not good enough. You think you're fooling anyone?" It was there during college, it was there when I tried to learn guitar, it was there before I moved to Miami, and it's there every time I try to summon the testicular fortitude to talk to some woman I just met. Whether she's sitting at my bar or she's standing next to me at the produce section, it’s there.

"Why are you talking to her? She's out of your league. Don't waste your time flirting with her, have you forgotten you're just a waiter?"

I'm usually able to overcome these thoughts. I'm a decent guitar player, I did well in college and art school, and I'm doing well in Miami otherwise.

So why do I feel this way? Hours of reading books, plenty of time think, and some brutal self-analysis later I think I have a pretty good idea. (Details of which I won't get into now. Maybe in a later post.) How the hell do I fix this though? Work through it myself like I usually try to do? See a therapist? Get advice from friends? And in terms of dating, do I forget trying to meet women with this crap going on in my head or can I work through it, fake it even? Is putting myself out there regardless part of working through it? And really, how do I project myself as a fine catch to some woman when I have trouble believing that myself?

No one I know would ever guess that I have these issues. And really, I'm fine otherwise. It just pisses me off that I'm letting it affect me to this degree and that at age 33, that I know less about dating and relationships than guys 10 years younger than me.

I don't how this went from a post about my buddy become a dad to a sudden outpouring of my neurosis. I thought about deleting this content and starting over but nah. Maybe I need to stop internalizing everything. Maybe I need to stop worrying about seeming weak and open up about some of this to friends. Maybe I need to stop questioning myself. Maybe I just need to get laid.

Whatever. Sometimes, I think too much.

Labels: dating, in a rut, introspective, NaBloPoMo, server stories

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 1:30 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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