Charm is overrated

This is a follow-up to my post "Annoying and not so annoying people."  I continue to wonder about why I like some people and dislike others.

One sort of person I tend to dislike is charming, flirtatious people.  I think I used to push aside that dislike.  I used to think I only dislike flirtatious women because I'm jealous of the attention they get from men.  I used to think I only dislike flirtatious men because I'm jealous of the attention they give to other women.

I realized though, that's not all there is to it.

But even if that was what there was to it, so what? I could still dislike them.  No point in trying to make myself feel how I think I ought to feel, i.e. not jealous. Better to feel what I feel.

I find just because you feel something, you don't have to do anything about it.  You can just sit and watch the river go by, the river of thoughts and feelings.

Anyhow, back to charming and flirtatious people.  What do I mean by charming and flirtatious people? They are the people who try to draw a reaction out of you, who try to make you like them.

I've never liked pushy people.  I've always liked people who give others room to be whoever they are.  I like people who listen and watch, and respond according to what they see in others.  If someone shrinks back from them, they stop pushing so hard.

And I just realized in the past few days, that's the same reason I don't like flirtatious people, because they are  pushy in a way. They are trying to push me into responding to them in a certain way, to push me into liking them.

I was once close to someone like that.  When he was with people he did not know well, he demanded their attention.  That always bothered me.  But when he was comfortable with people, he mellowed out, and that was the side of him that I liked.

There are some people I know who are really high quality people.  They are comfortable enough in themselves that they aren't always trying to make other people respond to them in a certain way.  They just go about living life with integrity, joy, playfulness, and kindness.  Those are the kind of people I want to be around, and that's the kind of person I want to be.