Adam & The Girl who only Kissed Once

Are you locking people in?

Adam is my neighbour’s kid.
He often stops to pet my dogs in the garden, and he tells me just about everything.

The other day he mentioned a girl in his class.
From the way he talked about her, I could tell there was ‘interest’.

“Are you going to pursue it?” I asked.
”Nah,” he shook his head. “We’ve already kissed.”
When he noticed my look of surprise, he added, “She’s kissed a few other boys. They told me that’s all she ever does. One kiss. And then that’s it.”

Right.

But what if…?

“Ehm… what if she’d like a second kiss, but doesn’t know how to make that happen?” I hazarded.
He shrugged. That didn’t seem likely at all. Not with so much evidence against that.

“Okay. And what if it’s her experience that boys only kiss her once, and then move on?”

Seeing how he was in fact doing exactly that, the idea caught his attention.

“Maybe she’s just waiting to see what will happen next,” I hinted. “But of course, if you’re also just waiting to see, you’ll both be waiting a very long time!”

He nodded. That made sense.

Of course, I don’t actually know the girl. I was just projecting.
All I’m saying is that we don’t always know why things happen a certain way – yet that doesn’t stop us from coming up with our own interpretation of events, our own reason why. It’s how we make sense of the world.

Projecting our expectations: locking people in

But if we start projecting that interpretation onto other people, we lock them into what we expect them to do. And, more often than not, that is actually what they end up doing! Which is why it’s called ‘locking them in’.

Yes, we really are that powerful as creators. The force of our expectations is great indeed!

But mostly it’s just common sense! We don’t really give them the space to do anything else! We don’t make that one encouraging gesture. We don’t ask that one leading question that could have changed everything.

Seeing the part we play

And we don’t even see it, we don’t recognize our own part in the exchange – or the part we omitted playing. The part that would have invited a different sequence of events. We just see them as ‘doing their thing’, assuming they’re doing it entirely of their own free will.

Their reason for doing what we expected them to do may have nothing to do with what we’ve been telling ourselves.

But we’ll never know — unless we bring it out into the open.

Breaking the spell: unlocking someone

Bringing it out into the open doesn’t necessarily mean we have to discuss it with them. Our own awareness of it, bringing it up to our own level of conscious recognition, is enough to break the spell and to unlock someone – to release them from our expectations. Including ourselves. Cos with all that boys’ talk, Adam had equally allowed himself to be locked into the scenario of ‘just the one kiss’.

Adam had a party that same evening.

“So, what are you going to do?” I asked him.

He shrugged, but his grin told me he no longer had her -or himself- locked in at ‘just one kiss’.

This morning I bumped into him just as he was leaving for school.
“Had a good party?” I called as he rode past me on his bike.
He looked at me over his shoulder, beaming. “Fan-bloody-tastic!”

Dani Dakota 💕

Adam & The Girl who only Kissed Once

Are you locking people in?

The other day he mentioned a girl in his class.
From the way he talked about her, I could tell there was ‘interest’.

“Are you going to pursue it?” I asked.
”Nah,” he shook his head. “We’ve already kissed.”
When he noticed my look of surprise, he added, “She’s kissed a few other boys. They told me that’s all she ever does. One kiss. And then that’s it.”

Right.

But what if…?

“Ehm… what if she’d like a second kiss, but doesn’t know how to make that happen?” I hazarded.
He shrugged. That didn’t seem likely at all. Not with so much evidence against that.

“Okay. And what if it’s her experience that boys only kiss her once, and then move on?”

Seeing how he was in fact doing exactly that, the idea caught his attention.

“Maybe she’s just waiting to see what will happen next,” I hinted. “But of course, if you’re also just waiting to see, you’ll both be waiting a very long time!”

He nodded. That made sense.

Of course, I don’t actually know the girl. I was just projecting.
All I’m saying is that we don’t always know why things happen a certain way – yet that doesn’t stop us from coming up with our own interpretation of events, our own reason why. It’s how we make sense of the world.

Projecting our expectations: locking people in

But if we start projecting that interpretation onto other people, we lock them into what we expect them to do. And, more often than not, that is actually what they end up doing! Which is why it’s called ‘locking them in’.

Yes, we really are that powerful as creators. The force of our expectations is great indeed!

But mostly it’s just common sense! We don’t really give them the space to do anything else! We don’t make that one encouraging gesture. We don’t ask that one leading question that could have changed everything.

Seeing the part we play

And we don’t even see it, we don’t recognize our own part in the exchange – or the part we omitted playing. The part that would have invited a different sequence of events. We just see them as ‘doing their thing’, assuming they’re doing it entirely of their own free will.

Their reason for doing what we expected them to do may have nothing to do with what we’ve been telling ourselves.

But we’ll never know — unless we bring it out into the open.

Breaking the spell: unlocking someone

Bringing it out into the open doesn’t necessarily mean we have to discuss it with them. Our own awareness of it, bringing it up to our own level of conscious recognition, is enough to break the spell and to unlock someone – to release them from our expectations. Including ourselves. Cos with all that boys’ talk, Adam had equally allowed himself to be locked into the scenario of ‘just the one kiss’.

Adam had a party that same evening.

“So, what are you going to do?” I asked him.

He shrugged, but his grin told me he no longer had her -or himself- locked in at ‘just one kiss’.

This morning I bumped into him just as he was leaving for school.
“Had a good party?” I called as he rode past me on his bike.
He looked at me over his shoulder, beaming. “Fan-bloody-tastic!”

Dani 💕