The Dumbest Thing Said to Me in Recent Memory, and What I Learned from It

So here's an excerpt from the email that put the proverbial nail in the internet dating coffin for me (I promise this will be the last time I complain about internet dating, and my story does have a larger purpose than just to criticize this guy):

"Karate, huh? You'll never get a man to marry you if he thinks you can beat him up. LOL"

Ha ha. Hee hee. Ho ho. Ha. Ha. Haaaaa.

After I picked myself up off the floor and the debilitating stomach cramps from my rounds of raucous laughter at his incredibly witty comment had subsided, I started to get angry. I read his comment again, saying to myself, "Oh, no, he di-in't!" If I remember right, there might've even been a little head- and finger-wagging to go along with it. In my head, I was ranting to this clueless idiot how if a man can't handle a woman learning how to defend herself and her children then he's no man at all and he can just take his stupid comment and shove it up-

But then it occurred to me...didn't me being pissed off at this guy mean that, at least on some level, I cared what he thought of me? That I felt like I had to justify myself to a complete and total stranger, even if it was only in my head? Nah, it couldn't mean that...COULD IT?

The thought sent a chill down my spine, and got me wondering how many times I've been guilty of stifling myself (sorry, just had an Archie Bunker flashback for a second) because of fear of what other people might say or think of me. Some of the results aren't pretty (but they are pretty pathetic):

The shoes that are so hideously ugly I think they're cool, that I wore once and then hid them in the back of my closet because a couple of people looked at them funny.

I love to sing along with the radio in my car and tap out the beat on my steering wheel, but I won't do it at a stoplight because I don't want the people in the cars next to me to think I'm a wacko.

I don't like telling people who aren't very close friends what my book/short story ideas are about, because I'm afraid they'll think I'm a SERIOUS wacko.

My instinctive tendency when I see people looking at me for more than a second or two to think, "What? OMGosh, do I have something in my teeth? Did I suddenly become hideously disfigured on my way here from the car? Did I grow a camel hump on my back? It's got to be something bad, otherwise why is that person LOOKING at me?"

Blah blah blah...you get the point. As much as I hate to admit it, Idiot Internet Guy brought a muddy issue into sharp focus for me. For that, I guess I should thank him. *Ahem* "Thanks a lot, you-"

I care too much about what people think. Specifically, I care too much about what people think regarding things that SHOULDN'T MATTER AT ALL. Of course I should care whether I just stomped on someone's feelings like I did to the spider I once found in my bathtub, or whether I'm backsliding into sin quicker than Picabo Street slaloms down the side of a mountain (insert worried fidgeting that people will find my name-dropping pretentious). But what I look like while I'm singing in the car, whether my enjoyment of karate really is a turn-off to men, whether my lipstick is too red, etc, etc - are those things really worth hanging my hat on?

The last time I checked, there was no 11th commandment in the Bible that reads, "Thou shalt not wear Doc Marten mary janes with tiny pink and purple flowers on them." And I'm pretty sure that His opinion is the only one that really matters in the end.