Pickles...

I seem to find myself in them quite often when I would prefer to be eating them, to be honest. I am a sufferer of the diseases known as Premature Familiarity and Foot in Mouth, as well as Overt Friendliness Syndrome. Today, I am going to share this with you in the hope that you can find a cure that doesn't involve me snarling at everyone I meet or shutting up. 

I would say that I am a genuinely kind person. Opinionated and at times aggressive, yes, but kind. Friends, please back me up because I'm already second guessing this notion. You would assume that nice people just get along hunky-dory with everyone they meet, right? I would think that, if I saw me and I thought I was nice. This is getting confusing.

Somehow though, I seem to have a habit of saying the wrong thing and rubbing people up the wrong way*. Not literally, I do keep my hands to myself, but there are always those people that just don't seem to understand that my loudness/strong will/sarcasm/weirdness is not a personal attack against them, nor is it a full representation of my feelings or thoughts at any given time. I also find that on the days when I think I’m just being kind, this seems to annoy people even more. They are suspicious. Who is this girl smiling at me and why?

I can recall numerous times in the last, oh, two years that I have been in these situations.

Take the time I tried to help a considerably older lady on to the bus. There was a line of people waiting as she tried to manoeuvre herself on, as well as a shopping bag with a large mop poking out of it and her handbag swung over her shoulder. I (politely) asked if she would like some help to which she (impolitely) declined. The mop then proceeded to fall out of her bag, and almost in slow motion I caught it and was so proud of my catch that I made the mistake of smiling and handing it back to her instead of throwing it under the bus. She snatched the mop from my hands and barked "get away from me, I don't need your help!" Needless to say, I removed myself from the situation and sat well away from her when we eventually jumped on the bus, you know, three years later.

Another time, I’d had a particularly bad day but was just so happy to be on the train home that I smiled at the seemingly well-adjusted girl in front of me in a 'phew, thank god it's home time' kind of way. She was obviously not as thrilled as me to be heading home as she asked me loudly "what do you want, c@&*?" What do you say to that? "Oh nothing. I'm fine, thanks so much for asking."

So what is it? Do I just have a look about me? Do not say public transport because I seem to have this effect all over the joint, at work, on the netball court, not to mention the Spring in the Valley catastrophe. The common denominator is obviously me but why, please explain.

I know I do become familiar with people quite quickly and some people don't like that. They just do not trust it, especially when I become especially intrigued and play a game of 20 questions with them that they a) do not want to be involved in and b) know nothing about. Is this curiosity a strength or a weakness though? You can never be too sure but I would prefer someone to see me as warm and engaging rather than distant and cold any day. 

Just last weekend, I proceeded to tell a guy I had known for 20 minutes (to be fair I had met him briefly ten years prior but that's beside the point) that he should come over to my place 'anytime' and pick a book to read. Too forward? Probably. Do I regret it? Not really, to be honest, because we actually had a sense of humour and could laugh it off as a Lucy-ism.

So yes, I'm now trying to be aware of overstepping the mark but I am also not going to change because for every one of those terrible/downright embarrassing encounters I've had, there are multitudes of positive, uplifting ones where I do say the right thing and people do appreciate the help or misplaced humour attempts. 

The moral of this rambling mess of a story is this: don’t let the haters get you down, especially those notorious haters in the form of old ladies. It just isn't worth it. 

xx Luce

*Is there a right way of rubbing someone up? Is it a cat like thing, where you're not meant to brush their fur towards their head for fear of them scratching your eyeballs out? Who knows.