Today: Give People a Chance

Debriefing from Eat Poorly: It's always good to have an occasional cop-out resolution - to resolve to do something bad, so that your intentions are clear and honest from the start, and you don't feel like you betrayed yourself or violated any principles. Yes, I occasionally eat poorly, but I won't feel bad about it if I intended to eat poorly for this one day. Someday, we will make it our resolution to eat healthily, and on that day, I will stick to that resolution as I did this one! (Hopefully.)

Today I'm going to Give People a Chance.

Those who know me well all have independently come to the same two conclusions, with no prompting from me or anyone else:

1) I start out hating everyone I meet. Everyone is in the doghouse until they prove worthwhile.

and 2) The more I like a person, the worse I treat them.

Now, I don't particularly like or support either of these conclusions, personally, but each has been identified independently by so many people I can't really ignore the evidence.

And it's not that I treat people that I like badly, I just am able to maintain a fake-ish facade of politeness for people I don't intend to see often. Don't you do that? So it turns out that I seem nice to people I can't stand, because I just want to be out of their presence without anyone getting choked, and I seem mean (by comparison!) to the people I like, because I intend to see them again, and hell if they're going to continue that nonsense. So, it's like that. Makes sense to me, anyway.

Today I'm going to give new people a fairer shake. Usually when I really get to know someone, I find out a few positive things about them, and can finally stop hating them quite so much. If I gave people a chance from the outset, maybe we can shorten this process up, and have it involve a little less choking.