August 17th, 2008

Peevish

A peevish post is inappropriate in a blog called Rose-coloured, I know, but there’s always the optimistic hope that by putting these negative theories out there, I’ll inspire someone to talk me out of them. Or, if not, I’ll try to keep the negativity to a minimum.

I hate it when people don’t listen to others when they talk, in all the myriad forms that takes. One form is someone offering, as if as a startling revelation of self, something that turns out to true of nearly everybody. Not only is this annoying because it’s hard to think of follow-up questions for such obvious positions (“So, is a pain thing for you at the dentist, or more of a gag-reflex thing?”) but because it is obvious that if the speaker had ever paid attention to what other people say, they would know their revelation is nearly universal. Some examples:

1) I am a wuss about the dentist.
2) I’m actually really shy at parties.
3) I have a weakness for chocolate.
4) Hospitals make me nervous.
5) I hate liars/phonies/rude people.
6) I sometimes forget people’s names and then feel bad about it.
7) I can’t really remember any of the math I learned in high school.

It’s not that there aren’t tonnes of exceptions to these (except maybe number 5–though I’m dying to meet one); it’s just that the exceptions are the interesting ones. I definitely want to know what there is to dislike about chocolate, how to have total recall of acquaintance names and trigonometry, and how to buck up at the dentist. And really, everybody is an exception about *somethings*; that’s what makes people interesting (I love hospitals). When people don’t don’t bother to be interesting, it is very annoying to me. I guess that is something of a universal truism, also. It is hard not to be hypocritical when being hypercritical!!

If you can’t talk me out of this polemic, at least tell me what general rule you are the exception to and/or add some more to my list. I think *you* being interesting would cheer me up, also!

Workin’ for the church
RR