Some Habits Are Hard to Unlearn
What just got me read??? Gee, I thought I looked okay, not great but okay. My voice is not too bad, not great but still passable most of the time. My clothes blend in with most of the other women here. My hair and nails are fine for the occasion. I am tall but not overly tall. My hands and features are not too out of proportioned with GG's. I walk okay. I do not have BO, bad breath, hair growing out of my ears, or a beard shadow. So what was it????How many times have we sat down after an evening out and gone over that same list and more to try to figure out just what we did that got us read? At first it was easy to figure out. It was the makeup or clothes or the voice, but as we got better, the reads still kept happening and the answers where not as easy to find. I wish the other day I had the guts to walk up to take group of women and just plan ask them how did they know?
Well yesterday, I saw it. Or let's say one of the things that gets me read. Gee old habits are hard to unlearn. I am sure that most of you grew up and were taught good manners by your parents that boys hold the door open for girls and let girls go first. How did I get this revelation? I saw my reflection in the glass at the mall while I was holding open the door for other women - strangers - and I saw the questioning look in their eyes of "why is this woman hold the door open for me."
I remember how unusual I felt when men started holding the doors open for me and started letting me go ahead of them but I got used to it. But now I find myself instinctually doing the same male thing when I am out in general society. I do not want to be rude but women do not do that for each other just as men do not do it for each other. It is fine to hold the door for the next woman but not to step aside for her to enter unless she is handicapped or she has her hands full of packages or babies, etc.
How do I unlearn 40 years of training? How do I learn a whole new manners set? How do I stop getting read? Practice, practice, practice...
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