An Ancient Riff

And since I'm riffing on expectations . . . 

There is no better way to see how twisted my expectations are than to examine my relationships with other people.  The book uses phrases like "total inability to form a healthy relationship with another person" and suggests that my relationships with other people cause me practically all of the problems that there are.  I'm paraphrasing here but you get the point: we SUCK at relationships.  We take and we don't give.  We show no understanding for the defects of others while expecting that they bend over backwards to forgive us when we make a mistake.  We think they should read our minds but we can't be bothered to consider their circumstances at all.

Man, I'm difficult.

I received a message yesterday from a woman I knew from The Old City.  She's a difficult person, too, and this isn't just my opinion.  But that's OK, I like difficult people, generally - they're more interesting than bland, white bread people.  God knows I'm difficult and god also knows I married someone who can be difficult.  (See how I popped in the qualifier "can be?"  It allowed me to soften the insult - that's a hallmark of a difficult person: seeming to be nice while simultaneously being bitchy.)  

Anyway, it was a shitty message.  I'm not sure if she was trying to be funny and it came out wrong or if she was really irritated with me and spoke without applying any kind of filter, which is not uncommon for her.  Normally, I would just laugh this off.  As I've made abundantly clear I don't get too caught up in what other people think of me.  But I read this note late last night and it really frosted my ass.  I did the electronic version of taking a pair of scissors and cutting out her face from all of my pictures.  This may seem childish, probably because it isn't mature.  I considered several responses on the very difficult side but decided to cease communication.  It's not like we ever communicate so this isn't that big a deal.  I think part of the reason is that we never communicate which made a shitty message really pop.  No "Hey, how's it going?" as a prelim.