Human Nature

A few years ago some random guys helped out a girl I was dating when she was moving some stuff into her place from her car. (I wasn't there. Where was I? Not being a good boyfriend, I guess. I don't remember...) I asked her if she thought I would do that type of thing for a stranger. They didn't seem to have an ulterior motive because they didn't really try and get to know her, or get her number or anything - they were just being really nice. Then, as delicately and nicely as she could, she told me that she didn't think that I was the type to yell out from across the street and just help out a random person. That bothered me.

Since that time I have tried to be more conscious of those kinds of things, help out where I can, even with people I don't know. I've still got a lot of work to do in that regard, but I think I'm better than I was.

It's kind of interesting to me the idea of reactance - where you tell a person to do one thing, and then they do something different or even the complete opposite thing just because he/she is reacting against your declaration. This shows up in a lot of ways, and for me, it popped up in a big way earlier this week when I was bowling.

If there is anything I just can't tolerate, it's people being bad sports. I hate sore losers, and sore winners are just as bad, if not worse. We were about 40 pins ahead of the team we were playing against and for them to win their last guy had to hit four strikes in a row. The guy hit three (and it might have even started before then) when one of our guys started yelling out for him to get a gutterball. It just boiled my blood. I looked straight at him with daggers in my eyes and told him, "that's not cool, man, you don't do that." I think I'm too competitive to want to beat someone when he's not playing at his best. When I win, I don't want that other person to have any excuse as to why I beat him. I also kept thinking that if my kids ever ended up being poor sports that I would beat them mercilessly. That is just such low class behavior. I can't stand it.

(The guy hit the fourth strike. It was actually quite the spectacle. I was very impressed.)

It's funny how there are those little incidents that occur that just make me want to do anything but be the person that I'm reacting against. I don't want to be the person who just stands by and does nothing while watching someone in need. I don't want to be the person who is so low class that he would try and win by being a moron to the people whom I'm playing against. Sometimes those kinds of things really just make you sit up and take notice.

Never be uncaring about people. Never be a poor sport. Still working on both, but at least I have some direction about how I'd like to handle things.

This is just for your listening pleasure. I'd love to see John Mayer live. The guy is so talented.


Have a great weekend, dearhearts!