If one more person accuses me of being a jackass in a situation that they have only heard one side of (and have not bothered to ask for my side) I might just lose it.
I am really gettin tired of this shit. Does it occur to you that maybe I might have a different perspective on the events in question? or perhaps that maybe you don't have all the necessary information? No - and you didn't take the time to find out either.
People make their judgements based on less than half of the information, and then they go after the person who they believe to be at fault. They use their words to put me on the defensive, attacking and stabbing at me. Guilt trips are fair game as well, so are, of course, exaggerated ideas.
Believe it or not, I don’t go around trying to hurt people. In fact, in this situation, I was puzzling for weeks (literally, weeks) trying to figure out how to resolve this situation with the least amount of hurt for someone else. The situation was resolved for me in a very unexpected way, and it turns out I was the one getting hurt as well. Still, there was a relatively small amount of hurt for the other person (relative to what could have happened - there were about two hundred ways that it could have gone horribly wrong), so I call it a win.
But here is an inside look into my mind for you. Before I make any decision, I do my best to consider all of the possible choices, all of their possible outcomes based on what I know of the other people in the situation, and all of the consequences for my and other’s lives. I spend a lot of time on it (three weeks in this case) and I usually cover all of my bases - all of the likely outcomes of a particular choice. Some of you have noticed how it is difficult to surprise me or make me angry with a choice. The reason for that is because it is likely I have considered that outcome already, and I already knew what I was going to do - I just had to wait for someone else to put me in that place. But, being human, I am not perfect, and sometimes I mess up. In this situation, of all the possible outcomes from all of the possible ways to approach this problem, what actually happened was not even close to on the list. I was genuinely surprised, and I was not ready for what I heard.
I do not like surprises, and when I am faced with one that holds the gravity of social situations (not like a present or a jack-in-the-box, those are different kinds of surprises) I have to think about it - the same as I would have done before I made a choice if that situation had been on the list of probable outcomes. The only difference between the before thinking and the after thinking is that you are aware of the after thinking. You can see it, you know how long I am taking. That makes it harder, because once someone is aware of my thinking, it makes it much harder to think. This is the reason why I ask for space. I ask to be left alone, completely and utterly, by all involved in the given situation - to let me stop time in that circle to allow myself to rethink what is going on so that I may approach the situation like a calm, mature adult - so that I can me Rational Boy once more. Surprises make me impulsive, and I tell people “let me disappear for a week, because I am impulsive right now, and I will make bad choices.” Somehow this gets construed as me running away from a situation and being unfair. Some people need to talk through their problems with those involved in the situation. From my experience, when you talk to people with emotions running as high as you, you get really bad, irrational choices. I take one of two paths: talk to myself, alone, or talk to people who are nowhere near the situation emotionally, until I figure it out. Then I can come back with an understanding of myself within the situation, and make good choices again.
So, I guess that’s the end of my rant, but before you get caught up in how my mind works, don’t forget the reason for writing this. If you think I have done something horribly wrong, whether it be based on first hand account, or something someone else told you, or whatever, please do me and yourself a favor. Come talk to me. And I don’t mean come up to me and say “HEY! I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WHAT YOU JUST DID, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE! HOW COULD YOU TREAT HER LIKE THAT?” That is no good. I need you to come up to me and say, “hey, so this is what I heard from my friend, and based on that, what you did was not OK with me. Why don’t you tell me what you think happened, and maybe somewhere between the two sides we can figure out what really happened.” Cuz folks, most of the time, if someone had bothered to talk to both sides at the same time (in a calm, non-accusing manner), about 75% of the huge problems I have experienced in my life - never would’a happened.
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