I am a hypocrite. I have stood by silently while someone spouted some of the most ignorant, bigoted and misogynistic comments. Oh, I made feeble attempts to counter the attacks. I joke that "at least you're an equal opportunity hater - you think everyone is inferior but yourself." I have excused the hatred because the people it was directed at weren't there to hear it, so who is really getting hurt?
You know what? I am getting hurt because I've become numb to it.
Admittedly, I am a terrible judge of character. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt long after they've crossed the line where they should have been written off. In fact, as I sit here, I can only think of two people that I genuinely dislike. I am a bit of a doormat. I want people to like me, so I don't rock the boat. Even though my job requires me to be an advocate for others, I don't stick up for myself. I might get riled up easily, but my anger deflates just as quickly. I just don't see much point in wasting energy in being mad at someone, and frankly I don't usually even care enough about other people to put for that kind of effort for more than a day. The result is that I forgive people for some pretty awful actions. Sometimes I convince myself that I misunderstood a conversation or I just "forget" that someone has been mean.
It's not like I have "kicked puppy" syndrome, it's more of a type of ADD when it comes to others' faults. I know that I am not perfect and would want to be forgiven for my mistakes, so I am eager to give others the same courtesy.
This is not always a bad trait. There is a lot of unpleasantness in life that I just can't do anything about, so it is sometimes a blessing to be able to quickly get over the slings and arrows that pass my way.
But at some point, the constant negative energy gets through even *my* thick skull and I want to rip someone out of my life like a band-aid. In some cases, this is an easy decision - like the "friend" who only invited me to visit when she needed work done around her house that her perpetual grad student husband was incapable of doing. That was one of the easiest decisions I've ever made.
Other times, it isn't so clear-cut. You might have a crappy boss, but once you've had more than one job under your belt, you realize that great bosses are hard to come by. You might jump out of the proverbial frying pan and into a firestorm of biblical proportions. I learned that lesson the hard way when I quit one job only to end up with a new boss that bragged about making his employees cry.
Things get even dicier when someone mixes their asshattery with being nice. It's easier to excuse their bad behavior when you have examples of their generosity. I tell myself that if someone is a dick, their behavior only reflects on themselves, not on me. But that is not true.
I would like to say that I came to this conclusion through some great epiphany, but that isn't exactly true. It wasn't until I opened my eyes and realized that I was treated like one of "them" that I realized how anesthetized I'd become through the constant exposure to this bigotry. I am losing my credibility, my integrity, my self by putting up with this. I was a coward, but I'm done.
No comments:
Post a Comment