So I think a lot of the people who know me are aware of my timid, bashful personality when it comes to new people, social interaction, and taking initiative. A lot of people also know about my anxiety and problems with my self-esteem and self-image.
Slowly, over the past several months, I've been trying to change for the better and come out of my shell some more. It's helped having a job where I need to talk to people I don't know and be in close quarters with other people, forced to get off my computer and interact with others.
So something happened yesterday. It was slow at work (I work at Jimmy John's, by the way, which is a sandwich shop) and we only had like, five people there, other than myself. I was at the register when these three guys came into the shop. One of them was enormously cute, like I found him so attractive, he was gorgeous and they all appeared to be my age. Once they walked away to their table, I turned to a couple of my co-workers and gushed about how cute that boy was.
One of them just laughed and said that yes, he agreed that guy was attractive. The other one did something I was not comfortable with. He told me I should go and give the guy my number.
Now, just so you have some background info, I've only confessed to three guys before that I liked them. The first time, I didn't even do it myself; I told a friend, she told him, he freaked out, then would tease me about random shit and my crush until he finally moved away. The second time, it was my best friend and he told me he'd like me if I were prettier. The third time, the guy literally just ignored me.
So no, I'm not comfortable with walking up to someone completely out of my league and handing them my fucking phone number.
This co-worker of mine – let's call him George – kept pushing me to do it, and eventually said he'd go and give the guy my number if I just wrote it down on a napkin. Exasperated, I did. He went over and gave it to the guy, then came back. All the while, I was flipping the fuck out because what did I just do.
My phone buzzed with the guy's phone call, but I was hiding out in the back and I couldn't answer it in time. Eventually, the boys left, and George said that the cute guy had said he'd call the number again later since I didn't answer.
I was so fucking nervous, my anxiety was spiking so high, I couldn't stop obsessing over it, especially not after George took my phone, pulled up the guy's number, and texted him 'Can I take you out?' I wanted to cry, but I tried not to let it show, tried to make it seem like I was just nervous, no big deal.
I kept obsessing and panicking and talking about it for like fifteen minutes and this girl I work with – we'll call her Sarah – started saying, "Why are we still talking about this?" and, "Stop obsessing over it, god." And like, she was trying to say it a little less harshly, but I could see that she was clearly very annoyed, so I tried to deflate myself, calm down, and just ignore my phone. Which is extremely fucking hard when my anxiety was so high, I thought I was going to have an attack.
But I'm just so fucking mad right now as I think back on it.
All of them kept telling me it was no big fucking deal, that there's nothing wrong with giving a guy my number, even if he's out of my league, even if he rejects me, and none of them fucking listened to me when I repeatedly said that I have horrible anxiety and that I can't deal with things like that and that I wanted to cry and that I didn't want to. They pressured me into doing it, something that I didn't fucking feel comfortable doing, and then had the fucking nerve to make fun of me for stressing out over it.
Like, I'm literally crying right now because I still feel so anxious and bad about it, especially because the boy had replied, "Are you the one who took our order?" and I said yes, and then like five minutes later, after the boy not answering me, George had gotten his number and started texting him from his own phone, then told me that apparently the boy has a fucking girlfriend.
Call me paranoid or whatever, but I honestly believe he only said he had a girlfriend because he remembered what I looked like. If he really had a girlfriend, he wouldn't have taken my number so readily (at least I would hope so). If he really had a fucking girlfriend, he would have just said, "No, sorry, I have a girlfriend," when I/George asked him out, instead of fucking asking who I was, realizing who I was, and then ignoring and rejecting me.
I felt like absolute shit and I still do and this is why I say fucking no when people tell me to go do things, to break out of my shell, to take chances. It's because I'm not fucking ready for this, I'm still working on my fucking self-image and happiness and anxiety and depression and I can't fucking risk making myself feel even worse because now this will just be added to my list of times I felt ugly and inadequate and like, yes, I know I didn't have to do what they said, but it's hard when people are essentially calling you anti-social and don't even try to deny it – even a tiny bit – when you say, "He's out of my league, he won't like me, he'll think I'm ugly."
It might not seem like such a big deal to some of you, but I've been crying while typing this and just – fuck people who pressure people into doing things they don't want to do. Fuck all of them. I'm so done right now.
