I Am a Cold-Hearted Wench

Everyone pause in preparation for a profound moment of introspection on my part...

Ready? I have discovered that I am a cold-hearted wench (as the title implies). How is this possible?! I am a psychologist! I MAKE A LIVING being the person that people trust with their secrets and hurts and general life junk!! Research would suggest that the strongest healing component of psychotherapy is the therapeutic relationship between patient and therapist, and that this relationship hinges, at least in part, on the therapist's ability to form a connection with the patient. People don't connect to cold-hearted wenches, as a general rule, so how on earth did I deduce the label and apply it with such conviction? Clearly I am off my rocker, as the label is just not logical. The defense (and Mr. Spock - logically) rests.

I have several pieces of damning evidence to present to the jury. For one thing, I hate mushy cards. Seriously, they make me uncomfortable. If any card has more than a paragraph worth of writing in script font, paired with pastels, glitter, rainbows and watercolored graphics, a small shudder goes up my spine and I grit my teeth in a fake smile of gratitude after skimming the words.

Secondly, schmoopy couples make me roll my eyes. I don't like couples hanging all over one another, acting like they cannot stand a moment away from each other or that they are so desperately in love that they don't care about any other people in the room. This is a very big bummer because my spouse kind of likes it when I act like this around him. Bleah. In fact, generally speaking, romantic efforts should pretty much be contained to occasional surprise flower boquets. Hand holding gets too sweaty, sitting with someone's arm around my shoulders hurts my neck and back after a while, and a hand rubbing my arm or thigh makes me want to swat at it. When I see movies with people lying facing one another and blissfully staring at one another, I want to move them apart so they can avoid breathing each other's used up air. Ack! Even extended make out scenes make me think of literally swapping spit or if either of them ate garlic or onions. Another point of proof that my heart is as shriveled as the Grinch's, recently at a wedding, the groom wrote a song for his new bride and sang it while providing guitar accompaniment (which he also wrote, of course) during the ceremony. Normally wedding music only makes me uncomfortable when poorly performed (and there is an abundance of poorly-performed wedding music out there). This was nicely done: nice voice, good tune, well-played. But I squirmed the whole time, avoided watching the couple, and thought, "Akward moment!" Shmoopiness gives me the heebie jeebies.

Beyond the romantic, I have little symptathy for people with annoying sicknesses, like the common cold or sore muscles. Take care of your darn self. Get a tissue, take some Ibuprofen, go to bed, suck on some cough drops, drink some whiskey, whatever you can do in the moment to slightly improve your suffering and leave me out of it. I'm the mom who tells her kids, "You aren't puking, pooping uncontrollably, or have a fever. Buck up and get to school."

So, there you have it. I'll take my Ice Queen crown now. And the bad thing is that I didn't used to be this way. So, if any of you find my romantic/compassionate side, please return it and I'll see if we can have it surgically grafted back on to me. I have a sneaking suspicion that the cynical side will reject the transplant.