Am I wearing a mask? What am I hiding behind? I think I’ve found what my mask is, or at least the mask I use the most. My mask is the confident flirtatious guy mask. During my quiet times I have been listening to the sermon series Masquerade by life church pastor Craig Groeschel God has really been speaking to me through this sermon series but I haven’t really been convicted about anything until just a little bit ago as I was thinking back on the day. Today has been what you would call a normal day, very chill nothing to special happening (except getting to see my sister an mom for like two seconds which was great but it was only for a few min so it didn’t have like a huge affect on the day as a whole) but then I remembered something that happened right after choir that in the moment didn’t seem like a big deal but once I looked back on it I could tell that something was not right. A friend of mine who is more like an acquaintance because a lot of my friends know her really well but we have never actually gotten to know each other personally was with a table full of an assortment of bucks guys, phi lamb girls and some other friends and they were all eating. As I walked up she was getting up to throw away some trash. I excitedly said hey because I hadn’t seen her in a while but all she did was make eye contact for a few seconds and then kept walking. She came back and was saying bye to everyone and she didn’t even look my way. I should have noticed it then but I was so distracted by the rest of my friends and she was gone so fast I didn’t have time to give it a second thought. Now as I look back at that scene I am really bothered by it because she was obviously avoiding me, which means I hurt her in some way or she was angry at me for something. And I think I know why. The other night we had a conversation via facebook. It started out innocent enough, I complimented her on her profile picture and she on mine and we started kind of flirting innocently. The flirting started getting a tad more serious when I started asking her questions about herself and what she thought of me. So long story short I said some things I shouldn’t have, I made some assumptions that turned out to be false and I hurt her feelings. So now I’m asking myself why. Why on earth did I feel the need to compliment her on her profile picture? Why did, after she accepted the compliment and then complimented me did I have to continue flirting!! Why couldn’t I have just accepted the compliment and moved on? Well I have an answer for that as well. It’s because I’m insecure about myself. For some reason I am still insecure about my looks. I care way too much about what other people, namely girls, think about the way look. It’s turned into something I have to have. I have to have attention from girls to feel good about myself. And I’m afraid of them changing their minds. That’s why I couldn’t leave it at “I like yours too” I had to push and get her to give me more compliments, tell me good things about myself. That I was a good lookin’ guy. That I was sweet, a gentleman. That I loved God. I needed her to tell me these things and more. So I pushed and pushed and was willing to say anything to get her to return the favor. I showered her with compliments about her looks, her faith, her character, anything I could think of in hopes that she might tell me nice things about one of those aspects of my life. Like I said before I even made assumptions about her recent breakup. How douchy was that? I actually brought up something that might be tearing her up so that she would think that I was all wise and spiritual and be impressed by my advice and level of comfort I was able to bestow upon her. I wasn’t thinking about her feelings at all. I was only thinking about myself. Is this the reason I am such a flirt? Is this why I always have to get attention from girls? Because I am not secure enough in Christ that I can rely on what he tells me in his word but that I have to go seeking praises from man? This has to change. I am essentially using girls when the primary reason I’m flirting with them is so they will give me attention and shower me with compliments and I refuse to do that. I will not use girls. That’s not me. I’m not like that. I have to continue to get closer to God so that I get my assurance from him and if someone else wants to compliment me that’s just icing on the cake and not what I’m feeding off of. I really hope that I can fix this friendship that I royally screwed up. And I hope that I can get to a place where I don’t have to have girls’ attention all the time to feel good about myself. I know with God’s help I can and will overcome.
