. . . the more I like my dog.

This past Thursday I decided to go to a birthday celebration of dancing. Sure, great. It was fun. I enjoyed myself. However, at the end of the evening I was left with a rather upsetting thought. I don't get people. I feel I have a healthy sense of the types of things that people want (according to Carl and Isabel I'm an intuitive) but there were so many people there that just made no sense to me.

I was with a few friends, all women, who were constantly being approached by other gentlemen in the club wishing to dance with them (by approached, I mean hip-checked and by gentlemen I mean lumbering oxen). Now to give them the benefit of doubt, maybe some of them were simply reaching out to another human being in hopes of finding some proper connection either mental or physical (perhaps spiritual). But the level of ignorance portrayed by these fine, young, hippopotami was shocking.

Now I get it: You're at a club, you see somebody you find attractive so you go over and to try to dance with them. This is my understanding of the way that particular aspect works but all the subsequent events befuddle me. After a polite rejection, perhaps a look away or a turned shoulder I can see how somebody could assume that she is being coy, playful even. So a second, less polite, attempt is made followed by a less polite rejection: a fully turned back or consorting with other friends as a show of disinterest. At this point I can almost see the head bones thickening on this water buffalo. Okay, maybe the ethanol has creeped into the cerebrum and those hints are missed so a third approach is made with the intention of making quite clear that he wants to dance (is this really the objective anymore?) with the odd side effect of being somewhat rude. At this point the response is to go into herd-of-sheep mode where everybody associated with the target huddles into a tight wad of security. Usually, this is enough of a clue to discourage the approching yak.

"Usually" is the word that I am forced to use that gives me great consternation. I am astounded and saddened at the level of disconnect that I observe after this point. He's been rejected. He should move on right? Apparently not. At this point he stops making any attempt to pretend that he is still trying to dance and just tries to shuffle into the ovine pack. I don't even know what he's looking at at this point because everybody is trying to avoid eye contact with him. What's supposed to happen now? Is everybody supposed to turn around now and invite him into the fold for being such a good sport? This goes on for another couple minutes until he leaves with a none-too-polite smack on the target's arm for her rejection of him.

I know this isn't an isolated incident. I know this sort of thing happens in a host of different ways, in a plethora of realms even. It bothers me that for all the 'nice' people there are in the world there are these people and they are probably necessary for the world to work. I get it, I work with it, but I don't like it.