the supine muse
When your mind is of a kind that isn't easily phased by many things at all, it can only come as a point of significant irritation to note how easily one is moved by the trivial. You come to expect certain things from the people around you, at least, from those that you count among your friends, and then they act in ways that make you wonder at how it was you came to think of them as dependable in the first place.
It is one thing to assert ones good intentions, but another entirely to act upon them. It hardly seems fair that someone should be dearly prized as reliable among his friends when that same dependability is only reciprocated by some. Or rather, when the offending minority expect consideration equivalent to that of the people who don't repeatedly disappoint you.
It can ultimately be simplified to a matter of tit-for-tat; utterly trivial, but very much the common mechanism by which people interact, whatever the degree to which it plays its part. It can be as minor as someone always turning up late, regular as clockwork, agreeing to things when they haven't even heard, or understood, what you've said, closing a door on you when they think the conversation is over and it isn't; general disregard. My pride is the only thing that you can really fuck with, and mark me, it isn't readily forgotten.
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Hear hear!
Do you feel that one of your mates has let you down? That's how I understand this.
I'm a firm believer in this view: that we all ultimately do what's in our own best interests at all times. As we don't tend to be hermits, we have to live in a society with other beings, each with their own agenda. Therefore we have to learn negotiating skills, which most "normal" people pick up gradually from an early age, partly from their own trial and error, and partly from observing other people's experiences. We've probably got the basics by the time we reach the critical age of around 15-16, and we're aware of what kind of behaviour gets the best results between different people in different contexts in our own communities, and we tend to transfer these skills as well as we can to new situations that we encounter in adulthood. (We're not always successful, hence the feeling of being like a fish out of water, especially, but not exclusively, if you move to another country which has different "rules" of behaviour for certain contexts, developed through the passing of time, which it can take you a while to get your head around!)
I think that the cause of many problems can be in the balancing act of knowing what ratio is appropriate in a number of situations: that being the ratio between how much we need to fulfil our own desires, and how much we are willing to allow others to get their way. Often, of course, more than one of the parties can be accommodated, but we don't notice such occurrences - we tend to focus mainly on friction rather than harmony.
Within any group of people you're likely to find some who have the same take on most aspects in life, some who never seem to see things from the same perspective or with similar expectations and assumptions, and then, of course, there's every shade of grey in between.
It's easy from a distance to advise people not to take things personally when you see things in this way, as it seems so obvious that people just have different experiences in life which account for their expectations of any given situation, and so on. There need be no blame or anger; nor need there be any sense of surprise or bewilderment at people's behaviour - people are just different, and they don't give and take in equal amounts. That doesn't mean that one person is "better" than another, though. It just shows "the diversity of mankind, man!". (Feel free to keel over.)
Erm, is this the sort of thing your posting was about, or have I got totally the wrong end of the stick?
Sorry, that comment was far too long!
No, not at all; spot on, and don't worry about the length - succinctness is overrated in many contexts. I share your view, naturally, being more bothered by my actually being bothered in the first place. That makes more sense than I think it does - just fell out of bed and still in fresh-out-of-hibernation-hamster mode.
I've been trying to decide if I should add further comment or not, and clearly I've come to a decision. So here it is!
Although I know nothing of neuroscience, I suspect that we have something I'm calling "the happy zone" (although that sounds naff!), when we have some kind of balance within our neurotransmission. I think that if you suffer a loss of face, such as from a face threat, you're sent out of the happy zone - how far and for how long depends on the size and type of the face threat. You experience a "fall" in certain neurotransmitters. I think we must be addicted to being in the balanced happy zone, though, so our instant reaction is to get back there. The best way is probably to allow it to happen naturally, by accepting that the face threatening act occurred, and then moving on. All too often, though, I think we attempt to redress the balance by retaliating and threatening someone else's face in return. (I visualise it as being a line with two people's face loss extending in opposite directions, and their momentarily overlapping happy zones being in the middle.) Such an enforced attempt to return to the happy zone, and even "jump over it" while threatening someone else's face in return, is too much too soon, and we find ourselves jumping straight back to the place where we started from. Take for instance someone who feels bad, goes out on the scene and momenarily feels "good" by being bitchy to other people, and then returns home to feel bad again.
Basically, I think that acceptance of a loss of face puts you into a strong position, and the recognition that you'll return to your happy zone a lot faster if you don't get angry and try to redress the balance with the offender. "Time" is the key here, and we have to let time take its own time in all cases of face loss, be they small and reasonably insignificant, or large and seemingly overpowering (and here I include great sorrow, etc).
This might all sound like mumbo-jumbo, but it makes sense to me! How well I've explained it, though, is another matter. And I have no idea of what a neuroscientist would make of it...