When people say “don’t take it personally,” I think "Sure, I can do this" when:
- Frieda is always late for our lunch dates. That’s just her. If we agree to meet at one o’clock, I’m fully aware and prepared (armed with book and/or pad and pen) that she won’t show until 1:15 or 1:30.
- Greg’s a busy, busy guy and lives, in best traffic, a couple hours away. Now that I don’t drive anymore, we rarely get together since I can’t travel to meet him halfway. I miss seeing him but //shrugs// I understand. Driving the whole way down here is a LOT.
- A former employer – mostly a wonderful and caring person BUT, when stressed or taking heat from a client, would pass that fire down to employees whether it was deserved or not. Often enough, it was not. There was a distinct lack of poise under pressure. I chose not to work there anymore but remain friendly, if not terribly close. We just have different workplace styles.
In other circumstance not taking it personally is much harder to do.
A friend’s spouse was unfailingly condescending, critical, and otherwise rude to me – often in a spectacularly childish manner. This was right from first meeting too – no getting-to-know-and-dislike-you period. Just straight off Dis City.
I absolutely took my friend’s spouse’s behavior personally. There was and is something(s) about me that they DO NOT like and that was made quite clear.
The (non-drunk) friend and I are still in touch but now distant. We exchange memes or pics via text message on occasion but that’s about it.
The Amazing Bob used to tell me that this person (the spouse) was just a brawler. He’d known a million assholes like this in his life – folks who were perma-angry, always looking for/hoping for a fight. Given my own shoddy grasp on people skills, I should have totally recognized this and kept a polite distance. Hah! Have I met me?! I'm not so dispassionate.
Instead of just taking TAB and Jen’s word, that this person’s just an ass, I kept/keep looking for ways to blame myself for the their awful behavior toward me. WHY? Because if I’m at fault, I can fix the problem. I can somehow make things allllll better. The closeness with my once very dear friend can be restored.
Yeah, yeah, that’s mighty damned presumptuous of me, eh? I not only don’t have the super powers to fix everything, it’s rather bold and selfish of me to hog all the blame. There’s plenty to go around.
So, in this particular case, perhaps half of this person’s jabs and slights are pointed and intentional and the other half are just their normal personality? I’ve spent an enormous amount of time puzzling this out over the years primarily because I miss the closeness my friend and I once shared.
Paul Simon’s songs Think Too Much (a) and Think Too Much (b) come to mind.
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
~ Helen Keller
I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.
~ Carrie Fisher
I find it hard to understand how certain people can be such an essential component of someone's life one day and then just disappear the next. Shouldn't it be able to endure forever?
~ Jonathan Harnisch, Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia
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