Insecurity Walls and Cold Wars

Yogini: You should say something to him.

Shopgirl: Impossible. Saying something would totally undermine my ego.

Yogini: It shouldn't be a power struggle.

Shopgirl: You're right. It shouldn't have to be a power struggle but there always seems to be one anyway.

I glanced at my phone to check for incoming messages. None. I wasn't sure what kind of response I was expecting or if my expectation was in itself a lack of any response altogether. I slid my phone aside and decided it was best to leave and let be. I turned my attention to the panda assembling the drum set on stage:

Drummer for Sanguindrake at Hotel Cafe. Yes, folks. That is indeed a panda.

It's easy to find yourself on the defensive edge of a personal Cold War. Anticipating the next move, having one-up on the opponent, yet never really accomplishing anything? Yeah, that's a cold war. I get caught up in all these stupid little games, which more or less might just be in my head, though my deluded sense of hubris would certainly argue otherwise.

It's the game of cat and mouse that men and women play. Take cat-string theory, for instance. A few years back, a guy friend of mine pointed me over to The Game by Neil Strauss, a geek to chic story of a man's journey to becoming a world-renown pick-up artist, AKA a world-class man-whore. In the novel, Strauss describes cat-string theory:

Listen. Have you ever seen a cat play with a string? Well, when the string is dangling above its head, just out of reach, the cat goes crazy trying to get it. It leaps in the air, dances around, and chases it all over the room. But as soon as you let go of the string and it drops right between the cat's paws, it just looks at the string for a second and then walks away. It's bored. It doesn't want it anymore.

I reconsidered my end of the cat-string theory. Was I the feverish feline on alert for the bait?


Yogini: If you really are friends, there shouldn't be a power struggle.

Shopgirl: I like to think that we are, that we've both moved on from our fling and are perfectly capable of having a platonic relationship, but all this ambiguity makes me feel like he's breaking up with me.

Yogini: That's silly. People don't break up with friends.

Shopgirl: Precisely. Which is why I feel even stupider about this whole thing.

Yogini: Maybe he's not over it yet. Maybe you're not over it.

Shopgirl: Me? Not over it? Yogini, you know me, I'm way too noncommittal in way too many ways to ever consider something remotely meaningful. And you know that I'm moving.

Yogini: Then why do you care so much? You have plenty of friends--why him?

Shopgirl: I don't know. For some reason, I'm drawn to him. He's intense in so many ways that I wouldn't ever anticipate from anyone, but the intensity resonates with me on levels that most people never understand. It's like he sees me for who I am, seeing through the walls I put up to purposely shut people out.

Yogini: Walls, huh? Even me?

Shopgirl: Well of course not. You know what I mean!

Yogini: Ok, just checking. Carry on.

Shopgirl: So I feel like we're on a similar brain wave, which was jolting because I felt like he could see into my insecurities. He read me like a book and asked me to read him in return, but I refused because I completely freaked out.

Yogini: So what do you think about it now?

Shopgirl: In retrospect, him reading into my insecurities is almost comforting. It's as if I don't have to put up any fronts. He knows who I am without me having to explain. That's hard to find in anyone, dating potential or friend.

Yogini: Why don't you tell him that?

Shopgirl: Are you nuts? He'll think I'm psycho.

Yogini: What've you got to lose? And besides, you're supposed to be friends right? You'd be completely honest with me, why not with him?


I reach for my iPhone and swish through the pages. Shall I send my neurotic thoughts via text or Facebook message? I opt for the Facebook message since it was going to be a long one.

A softer, yet bolder me,
Shopgirl.