Backfire

Backfire

February 18, 2018

Hank was a guy who saw people who skirted the truth as weak and spineless.  He didn’t approve of soft-pedaling language.  To him, the truth could stand on its own and therefore should be expressed regardless of the consequences.  For Hank, truth had a certain shock value and he enjoyed watching its impact on others.  He would get excited at the prospect of blowing someone away with his unexpected bluntness.

If he went out with a woman and at the end of the evening nothing clicked between them, he would not be subtle or fake a future possibility of seeing her again.  He would tell her “frankly” why there was no potential for romance and give explicit details as to what she did to fail his “test.”

He often bragged about giving women information that would help improve them for the next guy.

Then he met Sara and overnight he became a changed man.  On their first date, he corrected her in the middle of a sentence, when she mispronounced a word.  She immediately lashed out and told him that she thought it was rude and ill-mannered to correct people while they were speaking.  She responded angrily as she insisted that criticism was usually done by very insecure people who needed to feel superior to others in order to feel equal.

Hank was outdone, but undaunted.  He had never had a woman speak to him like that before and he was flabbergasted, but he didn’t stop.  When he later pointed out that she was using her dessert spoon to eat her soup, her retort was quick and pointed.

She pointed out that a real man would be more concerned with her character than her knowledge of the proper eating utensils.  She accused him of having petty values and suggested he focus on things of substance.  She also warned him that if he uttered another critical remark, she would leave him sitting alone in the restaurant.

Hank was immediately smitten beyond his own recognition.  He had never met a woman with so much spunk.  He was spellbound by her boldness.   From that moment on, he never uttered another critical remark to her and gradually as the relationship progressed, and his fascination for her increased, he lost his zeal for bluntness.  Suddenly, “the truth” for him was no longer exciting…but Sara was.