Out of touch, over time

I think today's post is going to be messy, but I will start with a story.

My second year in college, I went to an acoustic night. A friend of mine was going to be playing, and I was waiting for him. 

This guy walked up that I found very attractive from seeing his picture in the football team's press guide. We had never met, but a couple of week's earlier I had made room for him at a basketball game, until some friends called him to their spot. So, our previous only exchange had been when he thanked me.

He showed up at the acoustic night, standing and watching for a while. I looked at him, saw he was looking at me, and turned away. Every time I looked back over, he was looking at me. Obviously, he was playing wrong; you are supposed to try and not be caught. 

He left, but after the show was over I decided to take our loop round the student center to see if he was still around. I saw him at the study tables. I went over, and he watched the entire approach.

Then we had a nice conversation and would talk whenever we met, but he never asked me out.

You could certainly decide that I fumbled the ball there, and more details would only make that more likely. However, you could also make a case that I was obviously interested enough that if he had any interest at all he had a green light to act on it. 

(Unless I was sending other signals that I didn't realize, which is a distinct possibility.)

Here is one key factor that I did not realize until much later: although he did not "know" me previously, I had attended a lot of spring practices while I was taking the Football Coaching class.

He almost certainly recognized me from that. Attending one practice was required, so everyone in the class did that, but I kept coming back because I was really struggling with the class. Also, most of the other students were guys. There was another girl, but she understood football better, so she probably only went to one practice.

Sure, they were busy practicing, but I would not have blended in. When he saw me at the game and at the student center, he probably recognized me. That didn't even occur to me until years later.

That kind of helped it occur to me that I was probably pretty visible when I was busily folding sweats and distributing water at high school basketball games. They were pretty well-attended. Maybe even at those assemblies where I won school spelling bees, people notice. 

Perhaps I was always more visible than I knew.

I have written before about how after the first time I was teased for being fat, I was never able to give myself any credit for the fitness that I had. That I was not really fat yet then never sunk in. I passed most of the presidential fitness tests, but only the two that I couldn't do mattered to me. They were my proof that I was just a fat slug.

There is a lot that sets us up to not know ourselves. We doubt our bodies signals and ignore them until we stop hearing. We doubt the connections we feel with other people and we put up protections that may not be necessary, but are also probably less useful than regular resilience would be.

And then, when we do get a bad signal, to keep us safe, we convince ourselves to be nice, and to not make a scene.

The next two posts are going to be about two things going on in my body, neither of which should be happening, but for different reasons.