An illustrative example:
One afternoon I walked into Best Buy—the superstore for gagdets and other first-world shit you don't need—looking moderately cute and ready to get my flirt on with some store associates.It was a spectacular failure.
My mission's strategic planning was deeply flawed from the start, since I walked in with my father and my child. "No matter," I think to myself. "I've got curves and can talk boys up pretty well. I can do this MILF stuff." After several minutes of playful chat-up with Victor, an attractive cell phone sales associate, I felt like I was in good territory. Even better, my father had gone on a walk around the store with my kiddo to keep her happy. Things were looking up. I wasn't expecting a pick-up or a phone number, just that warm bubbly feeling of successful mutual flirtation. I was beginning to think that I may even be able to pull it off despite the family accessories.
I had been talked into a sales transaction, and my flirty Best-Buy helper had just requested payment, "And that's fifty dollars even." Great. Here you...oh shit. Where's my wallet? I double check my purse: yeah, there are my keys, some diapers, tiny sunglasses, some old Kix, a few kleenex full of babysnot, and absofuckinglutely no wallet.
I become more acutely aware of the queue of irritable and impatient customers forming behind me. At this point I also remember that my family, who had heretofore been a minor hindrance in my witty conversational parries, were nowhere to be seen. My only recourse is to call my father to locate them in the store and ask him, out loud, to come bail me out.
As my dad swipes his credit card through the electronic card reader, my shame is complete. Utter MILF failure.
My last MILFL post was about confidence. My experience at Worst Buy was certainly no reflection of such confidence. Neither really was the following anecdote, but stay with me, there's a point to all this.
I recently went out with a dude I knew peripherally years ago who randomly hit me up for a drink. We didn't know each other well enough to be genuinely interested in each other, so getting drinks was less of a date and more about spending a few more hours in the same 6 foot radius to determine whether we could be interested in each other. We met with this guy's friends at a smoky dive because bottled domestics were only $1.
One dollar beer. That should have been my first clue that the evening would be less than stellar. One dollar beer is indicative of cheap dives where the patrons come to get drunk, and get drunk quickly and cheaply. I braved it out for another hour or so, but the guy I had arrived with just seemed bored. Maybe he thought ennui was cool. It kind of made him seem like an ass. As the clock crept up on 11pm, I had lost interest in the whole affair. It was glaringly obvious that the conversation wasn't going to be worth my time, and I was still at least several hours away from any good action with this guy, and frankly, that effort was beginning to look very not-worth-it. I excused myself to the restroom, having $2 worth of piss poor bottled beer in my bladder.
After vigorous hand-washing with inadequate smelling soap, followed by my own personal application of anti-bacterial hand-gel hanging from my key chain (a real dive, this place was), I go to head back to our table, when on the inside of the bathroom door, I see this:
And I thought: yes, yes I am. Too beautiful for this half-assed social ritual in which the players are bored and lazy and more concerned about cheap beer and a six-foot radius than actually learning anything valuable or genuine about each other.
So I went home to my kid. I had to shower before snuggling her since I was soaked in cigarette smoke, but I felt so great for having left, because I finally believe
I am worth it. I'm worth more than cheap beers and apathetic conversation and a potential sweaty midnight groping session. Maybe that's not exactly confidence, in the strict definition of the word, but I'm finding that when you have the courage to treat yourself kindly, you won't let anyone else treat you otherwise. Similar to the sabotaging dicks of last week's post, the ones we become when we can't quite believe we deserve to be loved, being willing to compromise your own sense of self-worth in order to be liked makes you a pushover, not a MILFL.
I think these dysfunctional relating patterns (of dicks and pushovers) all come from the same place. Maybe, like this lady says, it comes from somewhere called the swampland of the soul. I have a hunch it has to do with not believing we're enough, and when we don't believe we're enough, how can anyone else? Then you end up cock-blocking yourself from authentic love and connection.
But I fully believe there's something universal about this self-cock-blocking of authentic connection. We do it. We all do it. If you're feeling brave, send me your anecdotes and stories of your own experimenting with attempts to be L-able, and what you have learned from them.
Photo By Libby Williams, whose blog may be found here. Posts are edited by SELF.
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