i'm not gonna touch that

Patterns of people's behavior just baffle me. I try to let others' behavior guide my own. As aggressive as I may seem, I'm constantly trying not to alienate people so I temper my expectations and actions to what I think may be acceptable to others. So when there's a sudden reversal of things, I just don't get what's going on or what my place is. I know I'm not the only one to deal with this, but it's just frustrating. And it makes you want to give up, just curl up, be a fucking hermit and be done with it. But I can't deny, despite my anti-social, introspective tendencies, I'm a social person. People are fascinating to me, and I'm constantly learning things because of people I know and people I meet. But this other side of the coin...

To illustrate just one of the recent frustrations, let me tell you what happened the other night. I went to a concert with a friend. Between sets I noticed an acquaintance standing by himself at the bar, so I decided to be polite and just say hi. In the interest of somewhat full disclosure, I'll say we have a bit of an awkward past, but whenever we've run into each other in the past, there's never been a problem. We couldn't have talked more than two minutes and in that span he made sure to tell me he has a girlfriend he lives with, and in order to stop talking to me he said he really had to go to the bathroom. He clearly thought I was hitting on him, which was not at all the case. I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything at all that would be interpreted that way. And as if I would hit on someone who looked like he hadn't bathed or groomed in days! But after the whole brush off, which in itself wasn't a problem (I was done talking to him anyway), I was left with this feeling of yuck. This is why I don't have the courage to actually approach men I find attractive in public and try my hand at hitting on them. I fear that I then become this joke that I have for this guy. I could give a shit about what he thinks of me, but in the end, it just underscores my uncomfortability with people's behavior and sudden deviations from patterns.

Of course, I'm postmodern and I should expect this kind of thing, but I'm also human.