Invariably, people refer to you in expected — and sometimes unexpected — ways. What’s the strangest thing you have been called?
Share why if you wish.
Asking — and answering — life's interesting questions
Invariably, people refer to you in expected — and sometimes unexpected — ways. What’s the strangest thing you have been called?
Share why if you wish.
Years ago, before I was happily married as I am now, I was in the dating pool. For a few months, I dated a young woman — let’s call her Jill, since that was her name.
After we had been dating for awhile, Jill said that she had been thinking about our relationship in general, and about me in particular. She had decided that I was, in her mind, ‘dull’.
“Don’t get the wrong idea!” she quickly followed up. “Not ‘dull’ as in ‘boring’! I mean ‘dull’ as in ‘not sharp’.”
Surprisingly, she was not advocating an end to the relationship. She just wanted to make sure our lines of communication were clear.
In thinking about it over the years, I have come to the conclusion that she didn’t actually mean that I was ‘not sharp’. Rather, that I was slow.
In fact, it is true that I often take time to digest information, and I am rather deliberative before making a decision. I don’t make decisions quickly, nor undertake actions without plenty of forethought.
Someone who is ‘sharp’, I suppose, would not behave this way. They would understand what you are saying before you finished explaining. They would leap into action immediately, with an intuitive idea of the right thing to do.
I am none of those things, so I guess in a way, the description ‘dull’ kind of fits. Even though it is an insult.
My former boss told the company VP that I was a pain in the ass, but that he appreciated that about me.
I was once called an East German judge for how stingy I was in weighing applications for a hiring committee.