A treatise on reading too much into things

Last week, there were three instances where I could have easily read way too much into things. Today there were two such instances, and anyone more socially inept than me would be wise to heed my advice in this area. I have a history of doing this, and I've recently begun with a brand new social network so I thought I'd mention these instances that I've successfully managed to simply gloss over instead of running the hamsters in my brain.

Last week, some girl needed a ride to the car rental agency so I gave her one. When I told her I was going, she took a step toward me and I waved, and she waved back and I left. Did she take a step toward me to try and hug me? Is that supposed to mean something? No. It means nothing and 9 times out of 10, anyone who would say otherwise is over thinking the situation.

Today, I walked past a girl on my way into the conference room. There were 5 rows of tables and she was in the last row, I went to sit at the second row. I was focused on ACLS reading today, and 20 minutes after I sat down she got up and sat down next to me and asked, in her own words, why so serious? I explained to her that I had my game face on. Should I read into her getting up from her own seat and moving her stuff to sit next to me? No. No I should not. Sometimes people just want to sit wherever they expect most of the people in a group to sit, and that's more or less exactly what she did.

Today, as I was leaving the training area, a girl and her friend walked by and, despite having no prior conversation with me, she stopped, turned around and said "Bye, bye Jeremy! Bye!" Should I read into that? No. She was just being nice, maybe she even pities that the Internal Medicine Program Manager thinks I'm very talkative, or that I sometimes went out of my way to make jokes during orientation. There's such a small, slim chance that any of these women are interested in me, versus the overwhelming likelihood that they're just being friendly. Reading too much into things is a classic rookie mistake, gentlemen. Don't make it.