Entry tags:
Request to people who I interact with regularly
I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with. I'm frequently abrasive and downright antisocial. Nevertheless, there is this thing called 'society' which decrees that in order to have a fulfilling life I must participate in it every now and then. And to do so requires these so-called 'social' 'skills'. So anyway, I would like to point the following things out:
1) I am aware that I am socially not the most able of people
2) I would like to fix this because making other people unhappy doesn't make me happy, especially when said other people are my friends
3) I do not possess telepathy. Therefore, it follows that often when I do something that others are unhappy with I will not always realise that I have done so
4) It really upsets/frustrates me to realise later that all this time I've been continually engaging in behaviour X that other people don't like, and I could potentially have fixed it
5) I can't fix behaviour X if I don't realise that I'm doing it or that it's causing upset to other people
So anyway, this is a request to everyone who I speak to on a regular basis - If I'm being a jerk, don't just write it off as "Jen is just being Jen", or even worse, go away and sulk about it for a while and then act as though there's nothing wrong, or bitch about it to everyone but me. Tell me that I'm being a jerk, and how. I can't guarantee I won't get sulky at the time. But I can guarantee that I'll give it serious thought once I cool off, and probably come to some decision that will hopefully come through in future interactions.
Want an example? In high school I was socially non-existent, I had no one I would consider a friend. So when I got to uni all the interacting with people was something new I had to deal with, and a little overwhelming. One of the ways I dealt (or didn't deal as the case may be) with it was by getting really pissed off when anyone did something that annoyed me. Finally one of my friends had had enough and called me out on it, saying that it was difficult to be friends with someone who just got pissed off all the time. It was a figurative bucket of cold water to me and really pulled me up short. Since that day I don't think I've ever gotten so stupidly angry as I did back then. I realised that people aren't going to stop doing things that I find annoying, so either I need to stop finding it as annoying, or find a way to cope that doesn't involve getting pissed off and then taking it out on everyone around me. And I wouldn't have if that friend hadn't taken the trouble to explain to me what it was that I was doing wrong. They didn't have to. Instead they could have taken the typical route of just putting distance between themselves and me, and left me alone and wondering what it was I had done that they no longer wanted to spend time around me.
So yeh. I'm not psychic, and I won't magically get better by myself. I am firmly in the camp that believes that a real friend is the person who will tell you that yes, you really do look fat in those pants, your boyfriend left you because you were being an idiot and not because he's an asshole, and that people would be a lot nicer to you if you didn't go around being so pissed off at them all the time. Tell me.
1) I am aware that I am socially not the most able of people
2) I would like to fix this because making other people unhappy doesn't make me happy, especially when said other people are my friends
3) I do not possess telepathy. Therefore, it follows that often when I do something that others are unhappy with I will not always realise that I have done so
4) It really upsets/frustrates me to realise later that all this time I've been continually engaging in behaviour X that other people don't like, and I could potentially have fixed it
5) I can't fix behaviour X if I don't realise that I'm doing it or that it's causing upset to other people
So anyway, this is a request to everyone who I speak to on a regular basis - If I'm being a jerk, don't just write it off as "Jen is just being Jen", or even worse, go away and sulk about it for a while and then act as though there's nothing wrong, or bitch about it to everyone but me. Tell me that I'm being a jerk, and how. I can't guarantee I won't get sulky at the time. But I can guarantee that I'll give it serious thought once I cool off, and probably come to some decision that will hopefully come through in future interactions.
Want an example? In high school I was socially non-existent, I had no one I would consider a friend. So when I got to uni all the interacting with people was something new I had to deal with, and a little overwhelming. One of the ways I dealt (or didn't deal as the case may be) with it was by getting really pissed off when anyone did something that annoyed me. Finally one of my friends had had enough and called me out on it, saying that it was difficult to be friends with someone who just got pissed off all the time. It was a figurative bucket of cold water to me and really pulled me up short. Since that day I don't think I've ever gotten so stupidly angry as I did back then. I realised that people aren't going to stop doing things that I find annoying, so either I need to stop finding it as annoying, or find a way to cope that doesn't involve getting pissed off and then taking it out on everyone around me. And I wouldn't have if that friend hadn't taken the trouble to explain to me what it was that I was doing wrong. They didn't have to. Instead they could have taken the typical route of just putting distance between themselves and me, and left me alone and wondering what it was I had done that they no longer wanted to spend time around me.
So yeh. I'm not psychic, and I won't magically get better by myself. I am firmly in the camp that believes that a real friend is the person who will tell you that yes, you really do look fat in those pants, your boyfriend left you because you were being an idiot and not because he's an asshole, and that people would be a lot nicer to you if you didn't go around being so pissed off at them all the time. Tell me.