Presenteeism on a date?

It does not matter how energetic one is. How enthusiastic, how effervescent, how charismatic, how vivacious. If your exuberance falls upon an unreceptive other, it dies. 'Passion killer' comes to mid. 'Killjoy'. 'Damp squib'. 'Party pooper'. If he or she is a 'blort' (that's a word from my varsity days, sigh, such fun) then your vibey parade will be rained on so to speak, no matter what. And you, the happy bunny are left feeling a lot less jolly as a result.

That is exactly how it is on some dates. On the occasional date I can feel the apparent absence of energy (actually it is not an absence, but rather just very low energy) as I approach my date. And my heart sinks. "Deep breath Mary1, you can make up for this lack, maybe he is shy? Maybe he is scared (not surprisingly)?" I say to myself as I mince over to John. What I should also say to self is that maybe he is just a drip. Let's be Frank. But I digress.

You see, I am clairsentient. Lovely word. Like a clairvoyant has a second sight ability, I have a second sense of perception, especially of feelings, energies, vibes. Truly. It is a blessing. Sentient means feeling and it is an extremely heightened form of empathy. An empath reads and feels emotions that are coming from others. Clairsentience is the ability to feel and experience energy in an intuitive way. And the energy of the other affects me. Makes for a heavy date sometimes. Not always, of course.

So I am ever hopeful en route to meet my next John that his energy will be compatible with mine. Not so with John17.

John17 was a pleasant enough sort of chap. I can say nothing nasty, bitchy, degrading, ugly, derogatory, acidic about him at all. He just had this 'nothingness' about him. It was as if he had no energy, it wasn't low energy even, it was an absence of energy scenario. And I work in absence management so I know all about absenteeism in its various forms. He was there so, he wasn't absent per se. What John17 was suffering from was 'presenteeism'. That's when you are there in body, but not there energetically. Truly. Ask me. It's my job. I get paid to manage this sort of thing. We have a whole team managing absence in my company. Workers are absent all the time. It is a big business this absenteeism and presenteeism story. Presenteeism smacks of AWOL (absence without leave) and MIA (missing in action) to borrow some defence force terminology (I love a man in a uniform, so does my Mom, not so much the new South African National Defence Force, I have to admit). In that when you are suffering from Presenteeism you are not all there.

John17 was chatting and drinking his beer and snacking on the peanuts and crisps (I noticed as I was hungry and we were competing for those snacks; I asked the waiter for more peanuts and crisps as I do on my favourite hotel veranda) but I could feel he was not 100% there with me. He was present but absent. Which is fine. It meant I got to meet lots of other present, high energy Johns for which I am grateful.