Ok last night Mona and I went to dinner. It was the same place we went to on one of our first dates. It went great…
UNTIL…
she showed me a picture someone left on Facebook thanking her for helping her as part of Mona’s job witha comment using a term that’s a word that’s kind of a pet peeve of mine in that context… and I made an unthinking comment, something about a generality picking apart one word in the FB post, and I basically and unintentionally made it seem like I didn’t respect what Mona did for a living.
And the weirder thing is I didn’t even realize how it would offend her until she spelled it out for me.
And things got very quiet. And teary. In a restaurant. Right after we ordered coffee/tea and dessert.
Ugh. I’m an idiot.
We drank our beverages, looked at the dessert, didn’t touch it. We went back to the car and hashed it out. She explained how vital her career is to her core of who she is, it’s not just a job but her life’s purpose, and how what I said rattled her and made her feel like I don’t respect her. I did not defend how my comment was correct in a way, I just repeatedly owned up to saying something stupid, trying to be unthinkingly funny, and also that I respect her immensely, am really floored by what she does how she helps people and being grateful for her in my life (I even mentioned that I mention that I’m thankful for her in my morning prayers. That part just came out. Wasn’t planning on mentioning that. ) I’ll save the word-for-word details.
I wound up crying too. I’m ashamed at how insensitive I can be while in the process of trying to be funny or smug.
And I’m amazed at how quickly the rest of the date went back to normal like nothing happened.
I’m a work in progress, still learning how to navigate the world of women and relationships. We’ll see.
Too bad we don’t come with a manual, Rex. Don’t beat yourself up too much, we’re all in a learning process !
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A manual would be helpful
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I’m just not sure who could write it, we are all our own brand of crazy !!
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Yeah. It was more like “I said something idiotic” but “I am an idiot” had a better ring for the title of a blog post
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☺
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I feel your pain. This kind of thing has happened to me many times. I’m a slow learner.
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I think you did fine..that is after the comment in the restaurant. Owning up to the comment, giving her respect, crying are all signs that show her you care. It sounds like a normal fight on the road to forever 🙂 Hang in there…you guys are learning together.
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Yeah I’m sure it’s fine. I was just amazed at how on a dime she changed back to normal
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You said all the right things 🙂
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We are human which means we make mistakes. The fact that you recognized it and owned up to it, well that puts you in a class above most. Mona probably recognized this too.
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Hey, you talked out it, owned up to it and worked it out – no one is perfect – this was something I liked about my Cowboy – he would listen to what I said and then we talked about it, it’s more than a lot of people get and I think you did great!
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You are doing a great job – if you weren’t you still wouldn’t be speaking.
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