Sunday, July 17, 2011

Self-Inception (Mandy)

I am an idiot. That is a fact. This is evident in my predisposition toward the lovely lady named Mandy, with whom I am (hopelessly) attracted to. I have written about her in various posts -- posts summarizing our current situation and outlining steps to take in the future. For repeat readers, I hope my posts on the matter have been more about entertaining and less about didactic-ness...because I am about to re-reevaluate my situation with her.

There are many reasons I consider myself an idiot in relation to my relationship (or lack thereof) with Mandy. The biggest is perhaps the unwillingness to let go and just move forward -- which I suppose makes Westlife's song more relevant than ever. I often make intentions to minimize my thoughts or hopes related to her, but rarely act on them. It's the classic "intention without commitment", or "talk the talk but can't walk the walk". Part of this stems from the fact that she is absolutely gorgeous; I admitted to a confidant last night that, honestly, I consider to be the most beautiful girl in the whole world. Therefore, it makes is very difficult to forget about her, as the mere sight of her compels me to throw my plans of abandonment to the winds and jump back into the foolish aspirations of being with her, etc. In other words, she is what I consider to be the epitome of the definition of "eye candy" -- even more so as I know she has the persona to back up such a claim.

I think a good analogy for what I have been trying/failing to do is found in Christopher Nolan's film "Inception". The movie was very good, but I like it more for the ideas about dreaming and the subconscious discussed. One such idea is the act of performing an inception: planting an idea into someone's mind, which leads this person to act according to the planter's schemes. In my situation, I have been intending to perform inception on myself by planting the idea that my relationship with Mandy is over and now it is time to move forward. Yet this obviously has not worked. While part of the problem is the lack of commitment (discussed in greater detail later) to execute, I think the bigger part could be underestimating the difficulty of this so-called "self-inception". It's one of the most difficult things I have ever attempted. Period. It's probably harder by the reluctance to completely jump ship. Have you ever attempted to destroy a hope or dream of yours? Organically (e.g. voluntarily), it is excruciating at best.

My lack of commitment to implementing my (abandonment) plans is born of reluctance. As my confidant so helpfully pointed out, I have not been willing to follow through with moving forward with Mandy. In reality, when I have been taking a step forward, I seem to immediately take two steps back -- and the result isn't pretty at all. What can I do from this point on? I believe the first step is to repeating to myself the reality of the situation: I am powerless to influence her at all and, after clearly (albeit awkwardly) expressing my affections, there is nothing to do besides wait and hope for her to come around. In the words of Stephen Covey, the famed author of the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" (a blog post exclusively on this is coming), Mandy is outside of my "circle of influence". Realization of this is very important, because it persuades us to not waste time trying to influence something that we cannot really influence. I am still working on step two...

Frankly, I have been hoping to "get coffee" with Mandy for the past couple of months. The purpose of such a meeting would simply to ask her: WHY NOT ME? My rationale for asking such a question isn't as foolish (though it still is) as you may think. At the heart of it, I simply want to understand what about me repels her and whether I can ameliorate any personal shortcomings. Things like looks, height, and profession, I will not be able to change; but if it is behavior-based, then that is very much possible. I picture this as being a comical meeting if it ever happened --yet could be instrumental in solidifying my commitment to move forward (after all, I can't change my looks or height). Just to be clear, my confidant is very much against this course of action.

[I am tired and now going to sleep. This blog post was originally intended to be longer, but I have run out of things to say. It's essentially a stream of consciousness type of a post...]

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