I Don’t Understand Them or I Don’t Understand Me

I am curious about people, I study them and their behavior, I ask a lot of questions and I want answers to my questions even if I don’t like the answers. 

I think I create an atmosphere of trust and comfort in which people can tell me personal things and not feel they are judged for their behavior.  But maybe I don’t.

A few posts ago I told the story of a female friend who I occasionally socialized with who ‘unfriended’ me on Facebook after I suggested a ‘date’.  She said ‘no dating’, I said ‘no problem’; instead of acknowledging that, she cut off our main form of communication.  Did she think she couldn’t face me?  Did she think I didn’t mean it when I said not dating was not a problem?  Am I creepy or repulsive?  The initial invitation that set this all up was accepted at first, till she realized I was thinking ‘date’.  So until that moment, she wasn’t avoiding me.  And I thought I made it clear that I was OK with ‘not dating’ but still wanted to hang out occasionally as we had done.  No response.  Unfriended.  Geez.  Bullshit and drama.

So it might have happened again.

A female friend who I occasionally hang out with accepted an invitation to a small gathering at my apartment, one in which she knew the other people who would be here.  The party was yesterday, the invitation was Tuesday a few days before.  I didn’t say ‘date’ when I asked her but it probably seemed like a date.  But she said yes.  And a couple of years ago when I was not in a position to ‘date’ she seemed to open the door to that possibility if I did become available.  I invited her Tuesday night as we were leaving a work-related meeting we both attended, she said yes and asked me to text her my address.  Next morning I texted her but didn’t hear back the rest of the week.  I texted her again at Noon yesterday to update her on who was coming.  No response, other than the little iPhone notation that she “read message at 3:30”.  The party came and went with no further response and she didn’t show up.  I texted her again this morning asking what happened.  No response four hours later.  By the way, I sometimes text her at her work and she always gets right back to me.

So what does this all mean?  Is she avoiding me?  Is her phone broken?  Did she get in an accident and is now in the hospital? Am I creepy or repulsive?  Should I be calling instead of texting?  Let me point out that she is a lot easier to reach by text than by voice.  

I am pissed!  Why?  NOT because either of these women might not want to ‘date’ me, NOT because they didn’t come to my party.  I am pissed because they did the one thing I cannot stand … they ignored me.  Friends don’t ignore friends.  At least not in my world.  So maybe we weren’t really friends to begin with.  Maybe something did happen to her and I don’t know about it yet.

Maybe she changed her mind and was embarrassed to tell me.  I’d have trouble with that one.  She is NOT the shy, retiring type of person.  She has a very public job and is not the least bit shy about expressing an opinion.

Back to the title of this post.  I don’t understand them … women.  Or at least not these two women.  OR maybe I don’t understand me … something about me that results in this behavior from them.  Maybe I don’t create the comfort zone I think I do.  Hard to believe that, however, because I can name at least five female friends who are comfortable enough around me to tell me just about anything.  They trust me and feel comfortable revealing things to me.  Hmmm, I’m not trying to date them; maybe that’s the difference.  I don’t understand.