Confidence Whisperer

A good and bad thing happened to me the other day.

I was shopping and as I was checking out, I looked over and made eye contact with a guy walking past. He smiled and said hello, I smiled and said hello. Nothing extraordinary. Just two people being friendly.  

I walk out to my car, throw my bags in and begin to make my way out of the parking lot. I see a truck approach from the other side and then slow down. I assumed they were turning into a parking spot until I notice the driver is motioning for me to roll down my window. That's when I realize it's the guy from the store. I immediately thought he was going to tell me I had a headlight out or something.

So I roll down my window and he says "Hey! Can I give you a compliment?" 

Um. Just for point of reference, YES, you can always give a girl a compliment.  Like, who doesn't like those?

But it was so off point from what I thought he was going to say that I was startled and the best that I could come up with was a confused sounding "Sure."

"You're really pretty, you dress great and you seem successful. Are you married?" 

By the time I could process what he said, I realized he was waiting on me for an answer. When I confirmed I was, he shook his head and said "Man." Then he paused for a second and finished with "Tell your husband he should treat you better." Then he was off. 

SCORE!

Who in a billion years would have imagined something like that happening to me? It felt great! I was on cloud nine. It totally made my day. 

Then I called my husband to gloat – because what’s the point of being hit on if you can’t brag about it, right? As I’m telling him it becomes painfully obvious that I’m much too excited, much too flattered. Much too desperate.

Do normal nearly-40 year old woman feel their egos soar when some random stranger gives them some vague and superficial compliment?

And it changed.

I’ve recognized that I’ve been feeling undesirable lately but didn’t realize to what extent. I’ve gotten out of my gym flow, have gained some (more) weight, and generally feel unattractive. And hubby’s been working a lot lately and has been really preoccupied and not into me. At all. So I feel a little ignored.

That’s a lie. I feel a lot ignored.

I know he’s busy and he’s tired and I appreciate that he works so hard for his family. I really do. But it’s hard when all I’ve been asking for is a date. Nothing extravagant, just a little bit of his time and attention. And when he tells me that he’ll be working for our anniversary…it’s hard not to take that personally. I’m here and I’m yours – does that not excite you at all?

Logically, I know that isn’t it. Logically, I know that he’s under a lot of stress and pressure and he’s doing whatever he can to make deadlines and keep us moving forward. It’s all for us, I understand that. But that doesn’t make feeling disregarded any easier.

I didn’t realize what that combination had done to my self-esteem. It’s kinda a shocking thing to realize you don’t feel good about yourself.

So what started out as a good thing quickly turned into something bad when it became apparent I’m in a slump.

But kudos to that guy for having the guts to do something like that. If I was single, I totally would have given him my number for his confidence alone.  There’s nothing more attractive than a man that goes after what he wants.

Of course, after thinking about it I’m not convinced it wasn’t just some guy doing charity work. For all I know, he could seek out frumpy old hags and give them that line just to make them feel better. And who could blame him?

After all, it totally worked on me.