Internal Reflection on My External Manifestation

The other day I had an incident with a boy (purposeful use of the word ‘boy’ instead of ‘man’) and it has been on my mind for some time. Not because of what he said, but rather because I question why he had the audacity to say what he said. I am a firm believer that the majority of things that happen to you say more about you than they do about the situation. Basically, if you are they type of person who continually attracts certain types of people/situations then it probably has more to do with you than it does with the person/situation. Men always say to me, “I want a girl that is smart and independent like you,” but don’t seem to realize that those types of women don’t want a man who can’t keep an intelligent/deep conversation or is dependent upon her. When a woman says that all men are dogs or speaks negatively about men, they fail to realize that those are just the type of men that are attracted to her. These statements say more about the speaker than they do about the subject. I don’t really have that view of men and I have always felt that it was because I don’t attract nor associate myself with the type of men who disrespect me. At least I felt this way until recently.

So this is what happened. I received a call from a new number and when I picked up a man said, “Hey girl where have you been?” I said I had been around and inquired who it was. I won’t say his name, but for this entry we will call him Sam.

Sam is a guy that I first met when I was a freshman in college and seemed nice. He was older than me and the thrill of dating someone with their own place was exciting. He never really made sexual passes at me because I had already told him that this was not an option for us as we were just friends. Eventually we stopped talking and I met a man that would become my boyfriend. Sam and I ran into each other again and this happened to be the same time my relationship was ending. In fact, the last time I spoke to Sam was a few weeks after my relationship had ended. I remember that I stopped talking to him because his conversations became increasingly more sexual. I was still in the process of trying to make my relationship work, still in love and did not need his distractions or company. Besides, his comments made me uncomfortable and it seemed as though he was just trying to “hit”. These last conversations took place nearly 4 years (about 3 ½ years) prior to this random phone call.

You can imagine how surprised I was to hear from him and curious I was of what was going on. I said hi and answered his questions about what is going on in my life. Soon he told me that it had been some time and that I owed him tons of kisses and tons of hugs. I rolled my eyes, but didn’t want to be mean so I continued the conversation. He asked me if I was still as spontaneous as I was before and I said, “No. With studying, work and MCATs I am too busy to be spontaneous.” I was also thinking that I was too busy to have fraternizing calls and wanted to ask his purpose of calling, but I didn’t want to be rude. Then he asked me if I had pictures on my phone. I stuttered because I was so confused to why he was asking this and began to think that he was leading to a sexual conversation. I answered the question with “yes” because I didn’t want to be one of those girls who automatically think every guy is trying to hit on them and I wanted to see if he was REALLY asking me a sexual question. He heard my hesitation and said, “Well let me be a little more specific. Do you have any naughty pictures on your phone?”

I was so done! I didn’t want to loose my cool and loose my class, so I simply wished him well in his future endeavors, told him it was nice to hear he was doing well and wished him a great day. He then told me to “chill out” because he hadn’t asked me to send him the pictures. This added to my frustration and I firmly told him, “You do not call a classy woman after four years and ask her if she has naughty pictures on her phone. It is rude and it is disrespectful, so again I will say to you, ‘Good luck in all your future endeavors, I wish you the best of luck in all you do and you have a great day.’ Okay?” He said okay and we ended the call.

Here is what is bothering me. If the types of men you attract say a lot about who you are, then what does this say about who I am and the character I display? Do I really come off as the type of woman who you can say these things to? Was I wrong for not ending the conversation sooner? I really didn’t want to allow him to stagger my emotions and come out of character, but maybe I should have cursed him out and hung up on him. Granted I refuse to use this incident to say that all men are dogs and only want sex because I know TOO many classy gentlemen who are not like this, but I am not used to getting this from men who know me. Strangers have approached me incorrectly, but I tell them not to approach me that way and I understand that I don’t have a tattoo on my forehead that says “Classy lady here, approach her as such.” Sam knew me from a long time ago so why would he approach me this way? What do you think?

A penny for your thoughts.