I’m a bit of a sucker. It used to make my husband laugh hysterically when guys would hit on me in front of him and I had no clue. I take what people say at face value and don’t read much in to it. Those guys could have been talking about something with massive innuendo and there I’d be going oh yeah ? You have etchings in your apartment you’d like me to see ? Sweet talkers -damn they’re good. By the time you’ve figured them out, you’ve already got a cavity. To be really sickly sweet, the cavity isn’t in your tooth but in your heart. And those are harder to fill.
We all know a sweet talker or two. That smarmy stereotypical car salesman whose smile doesn’t quite reach their eyes until you’ve signed on the dotted line. Then they gleam because their sweet words have you trapped. Either you’re now somehow committed to another three years on your phone contract when you’d been calling to cancel or you find yourself married to someone who said all the right things only to turn in to Mr. Wrong by the first wedding anniversary. Either way, you’re screwed and both contracts are equally hard to get out of.
I’ve never understood sweet talkers and have never been able to tolerate anyone that I discover to be less than genuine in their person. If you sweet talk me once, shame on you. If I continue to believe the crap dripping out of your mouth like molasses off a spoon, well shame on me doesn’t even begin to cover it. I understand getting hoodwinked. Heck my first real grown up sweet talker experience was actually with a car salesman. No – he didn’t have any etchings. I ordered a brand new red VW GTI with a sunroof. So thrilled ! Imagine my surprise when I go to pick up my car and it’s black with air conditioning. You can bet his eyes were gleaming when I drove away in a car I didn’t even order. Every car salesman, auto mechanic and MTO employee has paid the price since.
Where sweet talking hurts the most, I think, is when it is from someone you believe loves you. In fact they might even love you. Perhaps they love you for the wonderful person you are. Perhaps they believe they love you and you will change them for the better. Or perhaps they are just happy to have found someone willing to believe their sweet talk on a regular basis. Perhaps some other hapless victim saw through their sweet talk and kicked them to the curb so the sweet talker knows a sweet deal when they have it. Perhaps some have even encouraged the sweet talk through a misguided sense of parental pride. However it happens, I believe sweet talkers are made not born.
I have heard the sweet talk from someone claiming to care about me. The “not me’s” and the ” but you heard me wrong” and the “it’s not what you think”. Oh, I’ve heard all that crap and every person after that has paid the price. My lack of trust, my scrutinizing every word, my BS meter on high alert. Yet even after all of that, I can still be suckered. I can still fall for the sweet talkers of the world. This is evidenced by my ongoing contract with Rogers. Those darn wily cell phone people with their sweet discounts and data plans.
It saddens me when I hear of someone being sweet talked to their detriment. To know that they have their lives and hopes and dreams tied to someone who probably doesn’t even care that they had hope to begin with. The sweet talker only thinks about themselves. They only think of what can be done to make themselves look good or make life easier for them. They sweet talk their family, their friends and anyone they can to do things for them. Before you know it, your whole life is taking care of the sweet talker who promised you the dream you know you’ll now never get without getting it yourself. Sort of adds the salt to the sweet without the satisfying crunch of popcorn to ease the angst.
I’ll never be able to figure out what makes a sweet talker tick. I’m a bit of a straight talker myself. If I need something done, I’ll usually do it myself. If I need help, I’ll ask. If it’s my husband that I need help from, well heck, I can ask him to come up and see my etchings and he doesn’t need the innuendo explained like I used to. To me, a sweet talker is a sad excuse for a person. Someone who was either never given the skills or was never expected to learn the skills to take care of themselves. They’ve somehow developed this sense of entitlement along with their sweet talking in order to get through life. What they leave in their sticky trail of saccharine spiel is broken hearts, crippled lives and crushed trust.
What a downer post for this Thanksgiving Day huh ? A day we should be thankful for sweet treats like cranberry sauce and whipped cream, where the only thing dripping molasses is Pecan pie (my husband’s favourite which also gets me some points to cash in on those rare moments where he doesn’t want to see my etchings). Most of the time, I am thankful I’ve had a few sweet talkers in my day and my heart is full from the real loves in my life. Other times no matter how much sugar you pile on it, crap still tastes like crap and the lesson is lost in the hole your dreams fell in to. To this day, I wish I’d stuck to my guns for my red car and told that salesman where he could stick his sweet talk. But I’m not bitter or anything. I’m too sweet for that.