What You Don't Know Can't Hurt Me
My mistake is that I need to ask people if they are kidding or they are serious before I act on the signals they give that should be telling me if they are kidding or serious, because sometimes people give whatever signal at whatever time just to confuse you as to whether or not they mean one thing or the other. Right?
I'd save myself, I think, a lot of trouble if I did that. Whatever it is I just said.
Over the weekend, in a generally positive social setting, I was reminded of something I did 40 years ago by someone who had a smile on their face, right there in front of everyone in what I thought was a convivial setting. Thinking, because this same person just moments before was instructing me on how people just get over things in the past and that's the way of the world, I figured they were sort of making a big joke about this thing I did and so I played along. I thought. But somewhere between my ear and my mouth it turned out I must have missed a sign telling me that - no - this thing I did was something they weren't ready to get past, except everything was done in this crooked smile to make it look like they were just kidding, and no matter which way I took it, it was the wrong way to take it. And in our group even people who (should?) know me better were doing the opposite of rescuing me from this trap I found myself in, siding with the person who had the crooked smile sending the mixed signals. Whichever way their wind was blowing at that moment.
I mean to say I didn't realize I was being chastised for something I did 40 years ago in front of the group. I thought I was being teased and it's a no big deal joke so if I teased back that's what you do and we're laughing only we stopped laughing somewhere along the way. What I guess I didn't realize was that I was, actually yes, being chastised for real in front of the group - only I wasn't because of the goofy smile - but if I took it seriously I'd have been wrong. Except it was serious again when I tried to make a joke about it.
At about that point was when I decided I couldn't wait for the night to be over and I have to admit scratching my head about what the hell that was all about all Sunday long. To the point it wouldn't actually matter to me if I saw these people again or not because when i thought it was just teasing I played along until it was serious after which it was obvious I was taking everything too seriously.
Can I just ask what the heck I do to pull this kind of shit in? I recognize I have to be careful about that question because if the people I hang with heard me say it they'd say I was taking it too seriously. Unless I kept making a joke about it in which case I would be viewed as insensitive because (as I was told) "well obviously it still bothers them."
It would never occur to me to wait for a moment in a group conversation mixed with opinion and memory to openly chastise someone for something they did 40 years ago. If I was pulling somebody's leg it would be a leg pull and would (shouldn't it?) end in some kind of self- deprecating joke just to reinforce the idea that I wasn't blowing anybody any shit and I'm as big a bozo as anybody else here and what started out as a gag ought to end as one so hahaha have another drink.
Or - for the love of God - am I doing that wrong too?
Come to think of it this isn't the first time it's happened with this combination. Once, in the middle of a Christmas holiday get together I was asked about the group I hung with on Sundays* and tried to explain it as best I could, only to be given a long list of reasons why I had it all wrong and, in the end, was actually told - in these exactly words - "that's exactly how Charles Manson got started." And I know they knew what they were saying because the next morning at breakfast they came over very subdued and were wondering if I was pissed off. Which, because I'm the next thing to a follower of Charles Manson I'm not supposed to be. So this isn't the first time I've been seemingly ambushed where no matter what I do the set-up is I'm just wrong. About whatever.
And all this even though in the last ten years or so I have made a concerted effort to - a willful, obvious, determined effort - to let everybody "in" who wanted "in" and go out of my way to communicate and exchange with people I had little in common with over the years. As we wind down I figured it would be really a good idea if I was just, you know, FRIENDLY?
There are reasons I find it very easy to stay out of social settings and go along quite happily with things just like that. There are reasons a quiet YEAR OR TWO at home without mingling with any friends or my extended family does not seem like a sad hardship whatsoever. There are reasons why I used to hold everybody at arm's length and never - if ever - let anybody into that last mile.
This kind of thing is one of those reasons.
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* I'm a recorded member of the Religious Society of Friends
posted by RW @ 7:06 AM
8 Comments
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8 Comments:
Passive-aggressive people put you in a position where you can't win, no matter what you do or say. It's their toxic way of keeping you in check. 40 years?? I'd say the other person seriously needs to find out why they've been carrying that cross for so long. It's their problem, not yours, not to mention the purposeful humiliation tactic of bringing it up before a group of friends. Let it go, and them too if it's at all possible.
That's just it... I still can't tell what the heck it was. Maybe just somebody had too much to drink. I just tried to keep it light. And the more I did that the more it seemed to be not funny. Yet if, later, I apologized or something I'm sure somebody would have said I was taking it too seriously.
I dunno!
I cannot stand when someone says something completely hostile but it comes out in a lighthearted way, so that maybe you're the only one who will "get" it. That's when I tend to give them a really shitty look with a smile on my face and make some kind of shitty remark myself. I usually take the tactic of making them look overly defensive. Two can play that game, but I can win it, hands down. That is, assuming they're even worth the effort. Most of the time, I'm like, "Eh - screw 'em".
I try to keep it light. I honestly thought it was just meant to be funny. And it isn't like it was all that big a deal. But I guess it was. Or not.
See what I mean!?!? :-)
geez, well, i'm intrigued, since i know some of the shit you did and the people you hung with 40 years ago. but aside from that, what happened was certainly all about them and not about you. being ambushed is tough, and you (meaning, any of us) can't always count on your (our) wits and experience to come through an ambush unscathed. i have been in a couple of those situations, and, the times that i kept myself together and came through it all right was when i didn't respond at all, no more than a "hmm", and really didn't say another word, stared at the knife thrower, right through the increasingly awkward silence, until the knife thrower or someone else moved the conversation to another subject.
sorry, man, but it sounds like it was just fucking weird for you. sadly, while all of us will hold on to a few things all of our lives, many people cling to incidents decades after they should have shed them like dead skin cells.
To be honest I couldn't figure out why anybody would have been upset by it. I thought it was kind of funny. IN FACT I'm pretty sure we all laughed about it before. Which is even stranger.
I think Kiefer and/or Emo may have written that first sentence.
I have a difficult time reading people sometimes as well. Especially in those kind of setting and especially with certain people who are on the fringe of my life somewhere between friends, family and acquaintances. It's the gray areas that get kinda...gray.
And it was a Kiefer and Emo moment too, believe me.
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