Nothing Personal

So My Therapist Says that when two people fail to make a connection, it's Nothing Personal. I had a good friend from South Africa once who used to occasionally use a native phrase that I find helpful from time to time: "Bullshit."

Nothing Personal? I do not choose you, a person, to be my marginally wedded spouse. I do not choose you, a person, to take to dinner. I do not choose you, a person, to bed, wed or be fed. How, in the name of all that makes sense, do we figure that's Nothing Personal? It is absolutely personal! And there's nothing wrong with that. Why do we make up the little lie - and then repeat it so frequently - that when I reject you (or you reject me) as a person that we must euphemize it into meaninglessness? There are people who should be rejected. That's personal. And it should be. Those are not good persons.

I have hired and fired untold numbers of people in my day. Every one of them was personal. I was firing a person. How could it not be about the person? It was about their performance, qualifications, execution, attitude, comparative worth in the workplace. If that ain't personal, I don't understand personal.

There are a couple of men I've met who keep one toe in my water (on the off-chance they run out of other options, I firmly believe). They are always VERY busy. I have known members of Congress who were not as busy as these men. I have known paramedics who had fewer unexpected emergencies to which to tend. These are guys who make it a point to touch base once every couple weeks to keep their connection valid under the assumption that I will never have anything better to do and will be more than willing to go belly-up (or down) for them at a moment's notice. The frequent backing-out of all-too-tentative plans to maybe make a call to potentially set up a possible dinner or drink - maybe - are usually ignored without comment or explained away with increasingly tortured and amazing convergences of bad timing, fate, karma and automotive/immunological miracles of bad luck. But it's always Nothing Personal.

I'd rather be told, if the truth were told, that I'm not their type. I could stomach being told that if I were the last person on earth, I'd be the first person they'd date - but not until then. I have turned down and been turned down the average number of times for a person of a certain age, I would imagine. But Jesus Tits (as one of my favorite teachers used to exclaim), can we just tell the truth for a change? It's personal. Get over it.

The only time it's Nothing Personal is when you're dealing with an animal, vegetable or mineral. It's Nothing Personal when you choose this blouse over that one. It's Nothing Personal when you (rightly) pick Coke over Pepsi. It's Nothing Personal when you like lilacs and not daffodils. It's Fucking Personal when I don't want to go out with you - or stand you up - or criticize your existence - or trash the way you screw. It's Way Personal when I do go out with you - and screw you - and think about what might be if things go well and the planets align. And it's Absolutely Personal when there's some aftermath to that and you think an explanation is beneath you. (Insert Primal Scream here)

There. Thanks for listening.

It was Nothing Personal.