GenQ - For the not so straight individual

I never knew my grandmother, she died along time before I was born. But she had two simple rules in life, which she passed to my mother who passed onto me. I live my life by these two rules, the first one is keep life as simple as you can. The second, is to be nice to everyone. But i think the second one is getting me into a little bit of trouble, let me explain.

Being nice to people is getting me into a lot of trouble, people seem to be taking me being nice the wrong way and all the time. For instance some guys think am not being generally nice, instead they either think that I am being creepy and trying to bed them, and the others, well, the others think my being nice to them means that I want to bed them.

What the hell happened to the interpretation of good old fashioned values?!

Classic example, and I will have to change the story around to protect the real life people in this story. Imagine I work in retail and have to deal with people on a regular basis, I am paid a wage to serve customers, to be nice to them and make sure they come back and spend more money. So of course I have to be nice, not that it is a problem, niceness comes naturally.

But when a customer comes in and mistakes my being nice, for me being interested in him, this is where the drama starts. Because the customer starts coming in regularly, ringing only to speak with me and do business with only me, oh and I almost forgot to mention the gifts started coming in too. This new attention is sort of flattering, my boss loves all the extra cash flow, but when I start getting asked out on dates, and I start freaking out, I start to wonder what the hell am I going to do?!

The best thing to do in my mind would to be go to an expert and ask them what on earth I should be doing, but hey thats me! I am not really good at taking my own advice, give advice I'm great at, taking my own, well I have a bad track record. So I guess the only way to do this is to have some sort of outer body experience and get the confused side of me to ask the expert side of me what the hell I should do.

Here goes. Dear Dr Love, what the hell should I do with this customer who is now on the verge of stalking me? He's great for the business and my boss tells me to grin and bear the situation, but I hate the confrontation with the customer, and I hate the thought that this guy likes me and I have no emotional feelings for him what so ever! What should I do? - Confused side of the head.

And here is how I would answer.

Oh my Confused side of the head, quite the predicament you have landed yourself in, it would suck to be you at this point in time! But the best thing to do, which isn't the simplest is to confront all parties, firstly yourself. What is the out come you want? Followed by your boss, you must share with him your concerns, tell him that you are uncomfortable yet concerned about the consequences involved both personally and with the business. Then finally the guy who is about to become your stalker! Tell him your not interested and if he keeps it up tell him to fuck off! Easy said I know, but when you get the guts together its easy done!

I am feeling so much better now!

Got a question for DR Love email drlove@queerplanet.com.au