(No, it's not about my back, which is still bad, but no worse than the last couple days and absolute nirvana compared to Monday.)
THREE SITUATIONS I HATE TO BE IN
1) A situation in which I've inadvertently pissed off someone I didn't want to piss off. I don't mind pissing off people I intended to piss off (in those situations that's kind of the point), but it always bothers me when I screw up and offend someone I didn't want to. on the upside, at least this scenario gives me an opportunity to clear the air and, if necessary, apologize to the PO'd party.
2) A situation in which a third party informs me that I've inadvertently pissed off a second party I didn't intend to piss off. This is worse, because it creates a situation where I know someone's mad at me, but that person hasn't told me they're mad at me. Which makes apologizing for making them made tricky and potentially damaging to the third party they did confide in.
3) Receiving information from a third party that causes me to strongly suspect, but not actually know, that I've inadvertently pissed off a second party I didn't want to piss off. This is worst of all. It's vortex of self-doubt time. Is Person B pissed off? If Person B is pissed off, why would they tell Person C instead of me? Is Person C even referring to me, or am I leaping to the wrong conclusion and there's another guy with back pain and mostly white hair who had a birthday this week who made a mistake? What does Person C know that they aren't telling me? Why won't Person C just come out and tell me Person B is pissed?
It's nightmarish, thinking you might have accidentally done someone wrong, but not being able to deal with it because A) You might not have done anything wrong after all, and B) You aren't supposed to know the person you may have wronged is upset that you may have wronged them to begin with.
All I want to do is: apologize, or decide I'm actually not going to apologize (yeah, right); gauge whether things are OK, not OK, or not OK but possible to make OK; accept whichever is the case with as much grace as possible, and; get on with my life.
And people wonder why my life goal is to become a hermit...
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1 comment:
Haha, dealing with people sucks! I think a preemptive apology is ok, like, "It just occured to me that when I did THAT THING, it might have offended you which wasn't my intent." Yeah, that sounds like something you would say.
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