The Guest List

Back to the big birthday party. My husband and daughter are planning the event. I am hearing things like: "Is Union Station the only place you want the party?" and "What about something higher?" Higher?? I'm scared of heights - what could they possibly be thinking? I am now imagining a bungee jumping party or possibly parachuting. But then, they did ask if I wanted the event to be formal...so surely we wouldn't be bungee jumping in cocktail gowns - would we?

I had to come up with a guest list. You would think that after this many years a guest list would be a simple task. One of my requirements is that only people that like me are going to be invited. This party is NOT a politically correct party. I am not going to "put on a good face" and invite someone who doesn't like me just because it's the right thing to do. Unfortunately, that made the guest list task a bit harder. I had to think of people that actually like me!

This brings me to a topic that baffles most people. How do we know when people really like us and are not just being polite?

Well, I wanted to know the answer so I did what most people do...I went to Google. I entered the following phrase "ways to tell if people really like you." When I saw what was in the results list, I began to wonder if this was a good question.

Result 1: Ten ways to tell if someone is lying to you. I took that to mean that if people like you they won 't lie to you. At least not too much - I mean, there is that "do I look fat" question that no one in their right mind is going to answer truthfully.

Result 2: If you are thinking about suicide. I'd like to think that if people really like you they are going to disuade you from suicide. But, on the other hand, someone who really likes you may want you to have what you really want and help you out with that suicide thing. Hmmm....???

Result 3: Top 10 ways to tell if you spend too much time on video games. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that if you are wondering about your time with video games, you don't have time for friends anyway so it doesn't matter if people really like you.

Result 4: Stuff white people like. I am not kidding! This is an actual web site! From this I learned that if you are a moleskin notebook, white people will really like you. What is that all about???

Result 5: WikiAnswers - How can you tell if someone really likes you... Here I learned that if you don't have sex with someone for two weeks, you'll find out if they really like you. Well, I've been not having sex with all of my friends as long as I've known them - so does that mean I'll have to have sex with them and then stop to find out if they are really my friends? PASS.

Result 6: Amazon.com: How can you tell if you are really in love? That's a little too much for my question. Next.

Result 7: 10 Ways to tell if you should be self employed. Maybe this is something that goes along with the question, "Do my employers really like me?" If the answer is no - guess what? Interesting, but not the topic I'm looking for.

Result 8: Seven ways to tell if you're boring someone. This one works for me. If I can't tell that I am boring someone, then they must really like me. I'm sure it's very difficult to look and act interested while I'm talking. This one gets a thumbs up!

Result 9: 10 Ways to tell if you can afford it. I don't know...if I have to buy my friends, I think they don't have any incentive to really like me. On the other hand, buying friends guarrantees that, for the duration of the money, those friends are going to be really, really nice to you. Nope - toss that one out too.

Result 10: 10 Ways to tell if you are a Perfectionist. I have a feeling that when you discover you are a perfectionist, you will also realize that there aren't any people worthy of being your friend, so there's no sense in worrying about it anyway.

So, my research reveals to me that I won't know if someone likes me or not. The best way for me to determine if people really like me is to know if I really like them. If I do, odds are good that they like me too.