Be careful what you wish for

I mentioned in my recent post the idea of attracting people into my life -- whether intentionally or unintentionally, and there was also the issue of not being able to make them do anything. Because even if you could, it's not such a great idea. You'll find ideas like this cropping up in various belief systems -- that you might have more power than you realise, but messing with someone or their free will really is not such a hot idea.

I've always thought you should be careful what you wish for, because you might get them. People disagree with me on this one, and maybe I should think more of crossing those bridges if I come to them -- but either way, it's just how I tend to approach these things.

What could be a case in point. It's no secret that I've wanted someone in my life for however-long now. I've tried the usual things -- placing ads online, meeting girls at punk gigs, all the rest, with very limited success. I have recently been trying to focus my positive thinking in this direction -- whether it's a matter of attracting love to me because I think it, or because I am happy and confident (two words that I have rarely used about myself before, but I am really feeling it a lot more often now) it probably doesn't matter. But as I say, you have to be careful.

I think it was Monday morning I was standing at the bus stop, trying to keep warm -- the usual stamping feet and blowing on hands and hoping the bus turns up this week. I'd noticed when I was walking to the town there had been a teenage girl walking a short distance in front of me, and paid no attention. When I got to the bus stop she arrived shortly after me, because either I'd walked faster or she'd walked a different way at the end. I wasn't paying much attention, just looking idly around at the other people. I saw this blonde girl and my first thought was "She's wearing way too much makeup". Maybe I was looking a little too long, maybe I had a faint, amused smile on my face as I looked at her. But she noticed. I thought I was going to get a "Wot you lookin' at?" sort of response, but instead she said hi to me. Slightly surprised, I said hi back.

The following few days I've seen her again. It turns out she lives over the road to me, I'd never noticed. I didn't realise the girls who lived there were even old enough to go to college. She has progressed in a few days to making a point of saying hi to me when she gets on the bus, walking home and talking away to me in the evening when we get off at the same spot, and last time I saw her actually choosing the seat next to me on the bus. Choosing the seat next to me, and not being content with just a smile and a nod in greeting but wanting me to actually take out my earphones and say hi to her properly. And perhaps even being a little sulky that I was reading my book the whole way home. When we got off the bus she said to me sorry, she hadn't been ignoring me, she could just see I had been reading. Haha, I miss those kinds of head games. In conversation I have established that she's about 17, and despite her attentions says she has a boyfriend. I also know she has been talking about me, because she asked didn't I used to be a policeman.

How she knows this is complicated, but one time Nick was round my house, watching a video when there was a knock at the door. The lady from over the road that I'd never actually spoken to but would smile and wave to in the street explained that she had just reversed into the side of my car. Except it wasn't my car at all, but Nick's car. Nick who had decided parking directly opposite her drive was a sensible thing to do. And so it was in his discussions with her about it all that it must have come up what he did for a living. He's the kind of person that has to tell you, it's a power thing.

So fast forward several years, and for this girl to bring up in conversation that she thought I was a policeman suggests to me that she has talked about meeting me. I didn't hesitate to put her straight that I was not now and never have been a policeman, nor would I want to be. And tried to explain who Nick was.

So, okay -- great, I can attract people to me, I can attract attention to myself. But I need to maybe work on it so it's not from 17 year olds who wear too much makeup and think I'll be impressed if they tell me they want a motorbike. This is what I mean about being careful what you wish for -- the "request", the idea, the thought needs to be more finely tuned.