Fitting in with others

Proving oneself

Somebody told me that his father has missed out on so much. Not around to see what he had achieved. How far he had gone in his career. His father never saw the house he has fixed up and so on. Who is the one that really missed out? It is the son the most. The son relished showing his father all these things. We want to know in our mind, that things are known, in the minds of others.

How many times do you hear people say that they were written off as a failure but proved the doubters wrong. The scornful teachers that didn’t champion your cause will be long retired by the time you make a success of something. They won’t care if you become greater than the greatest chump in history. No amount of awards and accolades will make them feel any contrition. You rarely get the opportunity to go back and face the castigator. You may hope that they hear about you in the news or on the grapevine or even indulge in the fantasy that they will look you up and discover how you have turned out. In practice the score is only settled in your own head, not in anyone else’s. The same goes with any social encounter for when another opportunity arises to present your case again, they will simply change the rules or obfuscate. They may pretend they can’t fully recall the events or twist the accuracy of what was said or meant. They will use the doctor’s trick to deny being in the wrong. It goes like this. You tell the lady that she is going to have a boy. However, you write in your notes that she is going to have a girl. You get the gist. If she says you got it wrong, then you produce the notes. Trying to prove yourself worthy or prove to others that they were wrong can be futile. We want to prove things to create a happy ending to the story in our mind.

Two heads. Your head and the other. You want to know the information in the head of the other is as you want it to be. That way your head knows that they know. They may forget. They may move away. They may rewrite that information, and you may never know that they no longer know what you thought they knew. You thought you had the information in their head settled. There are two heads but the one head, your head is the head that plays with your priorities. We can worry about the information in the head of another if we believe they can stymie our goals. The information in the head of the other can on occasion help or hinder our ability to fit in. However, for the most part we want to know in our head that information in the head of another is accurate simply to fill a curiosity pathway. Nothing more. We simply want to know that they know.

People can misconstrue what we have said. They misunderstand us. We like to set the record straight. We want people to get the facts right. There are also times where people make a rather good point, and we struggle to counter their argument. We find the counter to their point and want to return to it. From our point of view, it is unfinished business, from their point of view it means very little. They feel they won the debate. We want to bring the subject up again and challenge them once more. All they want to do is move on with what they are doing. Not go over something that means little to them. We like to get others to know us a little more, often to prove that we are as worthy as them. What prey is so great about wanting the last word and wanting to show them?

To the backdrop of very loud, fine, live music, I danced hand in hand with a brown-haired girl. We danced together rather well. In between songs she disappeared. She vanished. Somebody very tall and somewhat thin came over to me and told me; I was good at scaring them off. He had an eye on her for a while and now had lost his chance. I was rather taken aback and wary of any potential violence coming my way. I am accustomed to dancing with lots of people, the more feminine the better. Just for the fun of it. This to me was not dating, it was nothing other than having a good time. A few minutes later she returned, and of course we danced some more. This time a little more provocatively. Why was I unable to resist making sure the sore loser saw us together again? The journey towards not caring about the respect of others is long and hard. The desire ‘to show them’ is compelling. The chance of seeing any of these people again, anywhere, is slim but winning a situation can be the focus of the moment. Some may say that they do not care about what other people think, but their actions say otherwise. Even if it is just that; wanting to make sure others know that you don’t care what other people think.

People will accuse you of misdemeanours, brand you a money grabber, a gossip monger etc. The people that accuse you of such things are, more often than not, guilty themselves of such behaviours. Accusing you is camouflage - a way of obscuring the truth about themselves. They end up red faced when you effectively place a mirror between you and them. Are you accusing me of x to conceal the fact that you are even more x than me?

Whilst talking to three pretty lovies, the subject of motor racing comes up. I point to my friend who was standing some way away and tell them that he is a fine engineer in a car engine company. They turned to look at my friend briefly and acknowledged what I had said, and we carried on the conversation for a while. Later however this friend thanked me for disrespecting him. I pointed out that firstly I am not in the habit of putting someone down to impress people, especially those that I have just met. Secondly, I had not said anything untoward, I was in fact in praise of him. This is an example of how some people make assumptions about your behaviour and resort to a negative view. Nothing would change his mind. I had belittled him and that was that. I cared for my own reputation. I can’t claim that I never care about what other people think as in this case I most certainly did. We want to maintain a reputation; decent and trusted.

A feud. A battle. A disagreement. Discord. Few of us escape problems with some people. One thing I do know is that when I moved away I had very little inclination to return to those battle grounds to set the record straight. Maybe we can stay where we are but consider how important these disputes would be, were we living far away.