Torn

I had a man come up to me today at work and tell me that our jewelry selection had inspired him.  Looking at him, I didn't expect that to come out of his mouth.  Slicked back hair with a Bluetooth in his ear, mid to late thirties.  I'm in an adventurous mood so I ask him if he's an artist.  He waffles a little bit and then looks me straight in the eyes and tells me he paints with watercolors, and he's great at it.  Interesting.  Let's see where this goes.

I ask what inspired him so much, was it the color or...what?  He says it's inspired him to make jewelry, just out of the blue.  Then he blurts out that he wants to make butterflies into jewelry.  He likes butterflies.  He likes them a lot.  And not just gold or silver butterflies, but true-to-life butterflies with the right colors and everything.  So a Monarch butterfly would look like a Monarch.  He wants to start his own business, but he wants to do something he loves.  Then we were interrupted by another customer and the unspoken end of our conversation is that he wants to make butterfly jewelry as a business because he's passionate about it.  OK.

Now, I'm a little torn here.  This seems to be a reoccurring thing that zips through my brain when I am faced with these situations.  Is he fucking with me or is he serious?  Is he saying this to me because he's socially awkward or just flat out lying or is he confessing a secret to me he's never told anyone and just randomly picked me?  It seems so weird, this subject he brings up without much prompting from me.  I am totally judging him by how he looks versus what's coming out of his mouth and it's just not jiving for me.  But at the same time, if he is telling me the truth, good for him.  Go make butterfly jewelry.  I'm sure someone would buy it.

My judgement or perception or awareness or spidey senses or intuition is something I've never paid much attention to.  We are told not to judge.  But don't believe what everyone tells you.  Should I give people the benefit of the doubt, or should I be more, oh, I don't know, not cynical, but closer to mistrustful?

I've suffered from gullibility for my whole life so this shift would be significant if I decided to go down the suspicious path.  Or should I stay on the rainbow road?  I guess it would depend on how serious the situation is.

I'm going to believe him about the butterflies.  Why not?