I've always told people "...if you want to be seen as nice, be nice." I still believe that and I follow my own advice -- mostly. I don't worry about what people think of me because I'm nice (almost all the time). Saves me explanations and worrying about what people say and think about me. After all. I write about what I think and say ... just not worried about what people think.
Then again, when I stop worrying about what people think, someone will pop up to remind me how I acted and what I did wrong. Oh, well, that's life.
Good thing I learned to listen without jumping in to explain myself and mend my fences.
Mostly.
Just when I think I've been polite and nice, I get slapped in the face with my own shortcomings. Oh, well, that's life. C'est la vie.
I wonder if that happens to you. Probably. Happens all the time.
It happened to me and I kept my mouth and my fingers silent. I listened.
That is the real problem -- staying silent and really listening. Same for reading -- I stay silent and read what has been put before me. Good plan.
I don't think people really listen and keep their mouths shut. Not only their mouths but their thoughts. If your thoughts are tumbling all over each other, you can't listen. Really listen ... and be nice.
I have worked hard to be pleasant so I don't have to explain myself.
Then again, sometimes I get waked up and struggle to remain polite, a fact that was the heart of the dressing down I endured when a friend tongue lashed me because I was ungracious and not as polite as I think I am (or was)
I have news for you. You are not seen as nice as you think you are. Maybe you were awakened unceremoniously and thrown into the midst of a difficult situation. You don't have the same excuse, especially if you are out in the world in the middle of the day. You have no excuse. You are at that point who you always are -- an ungracious, rude, terse asshole. You have always appeared so to me, but I thought you probably watched your Ps and Qs among others. Guess not.
A new man came to fill the spot left by the maintenance man who left for a job with the state of Ohio, a better paycheck, and a future that he had gone to college (technical school) to obtain. We all wish him well, but I like this new maintenance man as well. The surprise for me was that he knew you and had had dealings with you. I didn't gloat and I did not do the Snoopy Happy Dance. Clint told me he knew you and that his opinion of you was exactly the same as mine. He could deal with you and knew you from his own dealings with you -- an uppity snob who looks down on everyone else.
That is my experience of you and I have sixty-two years of experience. He isn't adopted and he isn't trying to fit in. He is a man and has had to deal with you in various circumstances so he knows you very well and he is not impressed. Like me (or rather not like me) he has learned to keep his head down, maintain a neutral attitude so as not to startle you or awaken your negative attitudes or snobbishness and get away from the encounter intact and unharmed.
Unlike me, he is not related to you as I am and he does not have to deal with you with any frequency. He just wants to get out of the way and not awaken the snobbish dragon. I don't care. I am who and what I have always been and I don't worry about arousing the snobbish dragon. Clint has to get away intact and unscathed. I don't care. I have been disowned and you have never worried much about how I see you. You know I see you as you are. So does Clint. He sees you as you are and have always been. After all, you don't want to sleep with him and don't worry about how he sees you. You don't. You never have and never will worry.
C'est la vie.
I am no longer friends with my tongue lashing one-time friend. She has severed our relationship when I called her in the hospital to see how she is -- or was. I have made and lost friends over the years and she is another one, born of ruminating and polishing the worry stone that she had cast at me while I listened with my full attention.
Yes, I actually did listen -- really listen -- and I paid heed. Does not make a difference. She had been polishing that worry stone for a very long time. Nothing I did or said could or would have any effect. I have to let it go, just like I let go the empty promise of being taken to Stow, Ohio. It happens, especially when empty promises take effect in the snobbish dragon. I don't worry about how it will turn out because what I worried about has happened and will not come again or be rectified. That time is past (has already passed by) and nothing will change because you will not change. You will be as you have always been and will always be; nothing will change because you cannot or will not change. I have been kicked out and nothing will be the same because the authors of this particular issue are long dead.
C'est la vie.
That is all. Disperse.
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