A Computer Knows Me Better Than Me

So Mat and I are starting pre-marital counseling through church and I am super excited. The first step was taking an online survey and then meeting with one of the pastors to go over it. Nothing to surprising when they went over mine and Mat's answers. The things we knew needed work/ more discussion and planning were what we thought they would be. It was still good to voice them to someone else and get a little bit of reassurance about how we were handling them and advice for the future.

What was more interesting was the personality profile results. Weirdly I am someone who is confident but not aggressive. Normally confident people know what they want and ask for it, which was this surveys definition of aggressive. I wasn't to surprised by this revelation, and I think most people who know me would agree. I will stand up in a debate and defend my side or challenge someone who does something that upsets me. But in many other things I am not aggressive. There are 2 sides/reasons for this. The first part is that I know what I want but I hate to ask people for help. Especially when it comes to Reese. I hate asking people to babysit her or do other things for her. She's my kid, she's my responsibility so I need to take care of her. My parents have told me over and over again they have never felt like I abused their generosity in asking them to watch her. And I know Mat loves taking Reese out to spend time with her. But I can't help but still feel like I'm asking people to do me a favor and I'm burdening them. Definitely something I have to work on. I still don't want to take advantage of people, but I do need to realize that there are other people like me, who like to help people. And people who enjoy spending time with Reese and don't mind watching her for me, or even really enjoy getting some time alone with her.

The second side to this is similar about not being a burden but a little skewed. I don't like feeling like people are hanging out with me b/c they have to or feel obligated to. I've always believed if someone likes/loves you they will put in effort to spend time with you. I kinda sucked at that rule during college and lost touch with alot of close friends. Some of it was because I didn't think those friends would like the person I had become. But that's a whole different blog. Now I try to make sure I IM, call, text, or visit with my friends to keep in touch. I always hope that my friends will do the same. To me there is no better feeling then when people chose to come spend time with me. It's a weird way to think about it but sacrificing their time to come hang out with me is really nice.

So far I've talked about stuff that didn't surprise me so you probably wonder why I chose the title I did. Well here it is. Another aspect of the personality profile was that I am comfortable in social situations. I knew that from how I was raised. May mom was always hosting dinner parties or I went to parties with them. Being in these situations I learned to start conversations with lots of different people and how to interact at a party. I'm very lucky because Mat is not a big social person like me but still can handle himself at a party. I've dated guys where I felt like I had to hold their hand the whole time (and not in the romantic way). Guys who felt awkward being around people they didn't know, or just in a party situation. Tim (the pastor we met with) said that it was good I was aware of that. And that I recharged myself through those events. At the time I dismissed that. I've never been someone who needed lots of friends, I just feel comfortable when put in big social situations. Or at least I thought that until tonight. I've been a SAHM for 2 days now. I love getting time with Reese, it's been great. Tonight Mat and I went to a tasting event at the place we're hoping to have our wedding. I felt off the whole evening as soon as I left the house. I thought maybe it was because I felt bad leaving Reese. She hurt her thumb with splinters (I'll explain more in another blog). I didn't know what was wrong, and I kept trying to figure it out. Then we got to the event. Within 5 minutes I ran into a sorority sister who works at the place and a fellow ISAT grad who's wedding is a few weeks within mine. Chit chatting with those 2 and catching up I suddenly felt so much better. Hillary and Neil showed up and I got to introduce them to my friends and show the place to Hillary. As Mat and I left I suddenly felt so much happier.

I didn't figure it out till I was in the car, but the computer was right. Social situations energize me. At work there's lunch and other random interactions with coworkers that provide that socialization. I really hope that I can find a way to fulfill the social needs in other ways now that I'm at home. Because I really don't want to feel like I did today again.