Tuesday, October 4, 2011

How being a people pleaser cost me $1,005.

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:

Jane said...

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.

Jill said...

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.

Tara Thayer said...

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.

Margaret said...

Been there. Just remember, it's only money, but being yourself is valuable.

Molly Irwin said...

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.