Old 10-13-2011, 06:24 PM
  # 126 (permalink)  
FT
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 3,677
Here and there my AV shows up, maybe just to let me know he's there. I don't try to ignore him anymore. I just look at him sorta like the noisy, smelly guy that gets on the bus and there's no other seats left except the one next to me. Okay, fine, you can ride next to me for a minute, but you're annoying and I'll be glad when we get to your stop.

Sometimes, he smells pretty good and has interesting things to say. But I recognize him for what he is, I smile politely, engage in polite conversation, but ultimate we part ways soon enough and go our separate ways.

I'm just not a drinker. I have to live in this society, and I can't control who gets not the bus or when. When that charismatic fellow charms me, it still doesn't tempt me to get off the bus with him.

Stoopid analogy, yes.

But, this happened to me the other day when my husband and I were riding our bikes down by the marina. There's a nice Italian restaurant there, and the restaurant was holding a free wine tasting. We rode past the people sitting outside at tables with big umbrellas, and I could smell their food and even their wine. Lordy, how lovely and romantic was that?

For just a minute, I romanticized how lovely it would be if that were my husband and I sipping wine under the umbrellas. How could I deprive myself of such?

But the thoughts and attraction were fleeting, and the daydream gave way to the reality of how we wouldn't stop at the "tasting", and we'd be home finishing off several bottles before the night was through. It's sort of a conditioned response these days --> thoughts of wine --> lovely, unrealistic daydream --> memories of overindulgence and hangovers. Like dominos falling in sequence, the end result is always the end result. The imagery works for me.

The tricky part is that the AV can sound terribly charismatic if you don't call it on its lies straight away.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. No more, no way, no how, go away.

FT
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