I'm doing some soul searching because this one was expensive.
I was rear-ended. Jack and I were waiting at a light and boom, we lurched and crashed. We were fine. I hopped out of the car, shaken, and looked at my bumper. "I'm so sorry," said a well-dressed guy who hopped out of the shiny black Mercedes behind me, "I was looking at my..." he trailed off. We're okay, I said, scanning the bumper. It just looks like a few scratches. His license plate was dented. Really, I said, I think it's just a little scratch. Don't worry about it.
He smiled. He thanked me. He apologized. He left.
I took the car in today and the damages total $4,095. I have to pay the $1,000 deductible and the insurance company covers the rest. I feel like such a fool for not getting his information, and I have to ask myself, why didn't I?
I think it's because I'm a people pleaser.
I can't help it, but I have a need to be liked, to be easy-going, to get along. I've had it for a long time. In fact, my mom just gave me some old journals and in eighth grade, I wrote "I want to be popular" over and over again. Sometimes I find it hard to outgrow that feeling, even though I'm not really attracted to friendships with the alpha girls. I can still spot them in the preschool pick-up, the PTO, the spin class. I hate to take it back to eighth grade but it happens. Growing up, I was not the most popular girl by any stretch, but I had certainly had friends, of both sexes (my other journal theme). There's a part of me that wants to fit in, but really, I'm also so much more comfortable a little on the edge. My friend Sam once said that she thought our group of friends found each other because we were all a little outside the mold of our preppy midwestern college. I took that as a compliment, but I also worried that too much of my weirdness was showing.
Oh, the $5? A rude cashier over-charged me. I sort of thought so, but I doubted myself instead of her, and just took her word for it.
It's exhausting, and expensive.
5 comments:
Believe me when I say it all changes the closer to 50 that you get. The hormones kick in and make you a real b*&#ch! People pleaser- begone!
...and I'm sorry about your accident.
Frankly, on a different day of the month, I probably would have been just fine.
Glad to know that people pleaser will finally r.i.p.
And the accident was really no biggie. Just a hassle. And an expensive one.
i had a similar discussion out of nowhere with the woman who cuts my hair yesterday...about the alphas and how you can spot them right off...and she's a bit younger...not 40, but ethnic in a catholic school environment, and she's just like "come on, girls. let's get over it and work together here."
wise words come in all sorts of places...
plus i walked out with a dang nice haircut.
sorry about the crash, jill.
xo.
t.
Been there. Just remember, it's only money, but being yourself is valuable.
It's not easy being please-y. Though I'm pretty good at saying no to people now than in my 30s, I've procrasinated on submitting some OLD expense receipts for this very reason. Maybe a good-looking guy caught you off guard. It happens.
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