You’re with a group of people and one woman, Queen Bee, starts to talk about her moral dilemma “blah blah blah” problem. She wants everyone in the group to tell her what to do, that’s how distraught she claims to be.
You remain politely reserved saying nothing, thinking to yourself this isn’t a problem you crowdsource for a solution,while everyone else [oh. my. to. the. goodness. gracious.] tells Queen Bee what is wrong with her. And what she should do. And how she should do it.
Eventually all eyes fall on you so you go all Glinda the Good Witch. You say something like you don’t need any help because you’ve always had the power within you to solve this problem. Just put on your magic slippers, click your heels together, Dorothy Queen Bee, and you’ll find your way home solution.
Well a short time later you run into Queen Bee who tells you that she has no intention of following any of the advice from the group. In fact she says that she only talked about her moral dilemma “blah blah blah” problem because she was testing everyone to see who was on her side.
Oh dear.
In a nanosecond you realize that Queen Bee now considers you a supportive friend. You find yourself wondering how it is that being polite got you into this situation? And how in the future you’ll be politely distancing yourself from Queen Bee?
Feeling the blues? Click on image above to go elsewhere to see and hear Little Milton & Bonnie Raitt sing Grits Ain’t Groceries.
A glimpse into my daily life demonstrating that random people talk to me– sometimes making me laugh out loud and to myself.
I’m in the floral department of the grocery store on Wednesday, late afternoon.
I’m shopping for a bouquet of flowers as one does when Valentine’s Day is on the horizon.
A random person, Observant Dude, a 40-something man walks into the floral department where I’m pushing my cart. He looks at the displays and spies something I hadn’t noticed, being focused as I was on the price of mixed flower bouquets more than anything else.
• • •
Observant Dude stops in his tracks, looks amazed, then forsaking all other shoppers in the floral department he says to me: There’s cabbage in the floral department. Cabbage doesn’t belong with the flowers.
I look across the way to where he is pointing and see, nestled amongst the red roses, what appears to be bouquets of purple cabbage leaves wrapped in brown paper in a cone shape.
I start smiling because Observant Dude is correct. It looks like there’s cabbage in the Valentine’s Day flower display in the floral department in the grocery store.
Kind of quirky, but fun. On the surface of it.
• • •
At which point Observant Dude looks at me, totally baffled, and says in the most earnest voice I’ve heard in years: Who would get their loved ones a bouquet of cabbage? That wouldn’t be right.
I started laughing at Observant Dude’s sincere observation because you have to admit he had an excellent point. Unless you’re a rabbit, bouquets of cabbage don’t generally express everlasting love.
True dat.
But here’s the thing, the kicker: what Observant Dude was looking at wasn’t cabbage at all. Nope, it was a bouquet of hydrangeas, dark purple ones that he’d mistaken for cabbage, and while I could see what they really were, I didn’t feel it was my place to correct him.
Having just met and all.
So I nodded my head at Observant Dude and went on my way, smiling, because when you get down to it, who doesn’t like to hear an unsolicited heart-felt Valentine’s Day rant about something as mundane as cabbage, that wasn’t cabbage?
I NEVER INTENDED TO write about this person, she’s someone I knew a long time ago. I’d guess that I haven’t been in touch with her for over a decade, maybe longer.
I got thinking of her because I found one of her business cards wedged in the back of my desk drawer. I’m surprised I kept it, to be honest– but there it was and memories of her flooded into my brain.
So here’s a story, a character study if you will, of a pleasant someone who had her own unique way of rationalizing that which she said and felt no shame about telling, what were ostensibly, falsehoods.
• • •
ONCE UPON A TIME I knew a lovely woman who introduced me to a college acquaintance of hers; I shall call this acquaintance Nedra. The lovely women moved away but out of respect for her, Nedra and I still got together for coffee every few months.
Our relationship was superficial, but delightful at first. Nedra and I had interests in common, reading and healthy eating. She was dating at the time and had funny stories about her experiences. I was remodeling the kitchen and had ridiculous stories about my experiences.
All would’ve been well IF I hadn’t come to realize that Nedra was making up stories about her love life. And her career. Stories that she told me, doing what I’d describe as, a tango with the truth.
• • •
I STUMBLED OVER THIS dance with reality while we were having coffee one day. I hadn’t seen her in a while and I asked her about a guy she’d been on a date with, a date that she’d described in detail months before.
Well, she looked confused, baffled by my question– and told me I must be wrong about her, that she’d never been on a date like that. Clearly I was mistaken.
Except I wasn’t. I’m not that addled-brained. I remembered quite specifically her conversation and joyfulness vis-à-vis this date. That hadn’t happened, but she said it had. Uh huh.
• • •
AS YOU CAN IMAGINE after that conversation I became more disinclined to believe what Nedra said to me, but I was intrigued because I’m a curious person who pays attention to people– and here was a character for me to watch.
Up close and in action, so to speak.
Time passed, like a year or so, and I was to a point where I didn’t want to meet Nedra for coffee anymore. Beyond her propensity to make up stories, I no longer needed to be in her part of town on a regular basis so getting together with her was a chore. On many levels.
Still, I wanted to know more about her reasoning for making up stories: why she did it and, you know, if she experienced any remorse about deviating from the truth. So I asked her, politely, tactfully, why she made up stories about her life and this is where it got really interesting.
• • •
NEDRA BELIEVED THAT BY making up stories about her life she was showing people how to make themselves whole. She was, she felt, merely using her fictional tales to guide people to make better decisions about themselves.
She justified this by saying that when you think about it, scripted TV shows and movies were often fabricated stories that we accept as having a real impact on our minds, hearts, psyches. We believe the stories and accept the messages contained within.
Therefore she was doing the same thing with her stories on a smaller, more personal, scale so that she could help people become more self-aware and feel empowered to do better. And as such she felt no guilt for what some of us might call lying.
• • •
Have you met anyone like Nedra who does a tango with the truth?
Do you think she has a point about scripted TV & movies being basically lies so why not do it too?
Was she naive or manipulative?
Have you found a business card from someone you lost touch with and got thinking about them, for better or for worse?
Micheal Miller works for the dry cleaner/laundry service that we use. He drives the van to pick up then return Z-D’s dress shirts once they are clean and pressed with light starch. Nice guy, very reliable.
It’s my habit at the holidays to give a monetary tip to our laundry driver guy, who this year happens to be Micheal Miller. Thus I did that two weeks ago.
• • •
Growing up I was the child of older conservative parents and was taught that one must always send a written thank you note to the gift giver upon receipt of a gift. This concept of proper behavior was ingrained in me to such a degree that for a few decades I judged people harshly who didn’t send a written thank you note.
It seemed like a slap in the face to me. Disrespectful, even.
Of course over the years society has morphed away from Emily Post expectations plus I’ve grown more forgiving. I don’t hold myself or other people to the high standards of my childhood. In fact, I’ve come to reevaluate what matters to me when I give a gift to anyone for whatever reason.
I’ve decided that I like the giving part more than the being thanked part. I do what I do because I think it’s important to do so, not so I will receive a written thank you note.
• • •
Still, when I found a written thank you note pinned to an empty laundry bag hanging from the hook by the door on our front stoop, I was pleased to see it and said out loud to myself: “Micheal Miller has good manners.”
It was a sincere spontaneous remark. A blessing even.
One that put me in a happy place for the rest of the day as I mused on what seemed to me to be a random act of kindness, a throwback to a different era when a written thank you note was the done thing.
Such as this handwritten message of gratitude scribbled on a piece of paper by an almost stranger.
A marble in a martini glass because, I ask you, why not?
Everyone plays up.
An acquaintance said that after going to a party for the parents of middle school boys who play basketball. She was making an observation about the group as a whole.
I got what she meant, having been to a few social events myself wherein people missed no opportunity to #humblebrag about their blessed lives, posing as someone more important than they might really be.
Acquaintance, who like me is an introvert with an extroverted personality when necessary, admitted that she’d played up in her own way. That is, she’d bought a new dress for this party, but one that she’d be wearing to other events.
I’m not sure I’d say that is playing up per se, but I got her point. She’d done something to make herself look better in the eyes of other people.
The conversation was short & lighthearted, but got me contemplating the ways in which we all play up depending on, I suppose, your need for external validation in a particular situation.
In my observation, and perhaps yours too, some people seem to need to belong to a group, any group, and will say or do anything to remain a part of it, fearing, I guess, the possibility of being alone.
I’m reminded of the old adage that there are makers, takers, and fakers. If I’m entirely honest, in various situations and at different points in my life, I’ve been each of these to some degree and that seems normal to me.
Anyhoo, getting to something that resembles a point here, all of the foregoing got me thinking about this idea of playing up. Here are my questions:
Does everyone play up? Is that a fact of human nature?
And if so, does that mean you’re a maker, making something of yourself by playing up? OR are you a faker by playing up? I can see both sides to this. What say ye?
I was in Costco on Friday afternoon. I ducked into the women’s restroom and while in there saw a cute little girl, about three years old, with her mother.
The little girl was wearing black leggings, a bright blue t-shirt, sturdy white sneakers embellished with cartoon characters, and a sparkly pink tutu. She was a vision of free-spirited sartorial confidence that made me smile.
Oh, to be so sure of yourself!
The duo was standing by the sink in the restroom and the mother was starting to turn on the water at the sink in order for the little girl to wash her hands. However, as we all know, toddlers like to do for themselves that which they believe they are capable of doing by themselves.
And they are often loud and dramatic in the process.
This little girl was no different than her independently-minded peers, thus she said for all to hear the following phrase that I think, as an example of positive self-talk, might be the perfect succinct mantra for anyone who momentarily loses their confidence while negotiating the ups and downs of life:
“I. CAN. ME.”
~ ~ • ~ ~
This is the brainchild of Linda G. Hill. Click on the badge to learn more & to connect with other bloggers who are doing #1LinerWeds this week.
A FEW WEEKS AGO I asked you to answer two poll questions. I did this because a friend in real life who is a social media virgin asked me these questions. She was curious about the terminology bloggers use when talking about blogging and I had no definitive answers for her.
The clear winner to the question “Blogs Are Found In…” was The Blogosphere. 78% preferred that term, with another 10% opting for Blogland which I think is a charming word.
The answers to the question “People Who Read Your Blog Are…” showed an interesting bell curve of preferred terms. 40% preferred the term Readers, while 23% chose Friends and 21% chose Followers.
I often refer to y’all as my gentle readers, so the top answer based on literal thinking makes sense to me, but that’s not where I see the story here.
Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Friend?
WHAT SURPRISED ME WAS THE relatively even distribution between the second and third answers, Friends and Followers. Both are great terms but to my way of thinking these terms presuppose two different types of relationships that create different expectations about how someone will behave.
And as we all know, when expectations are not met disappointment ensues.
Friends implies connections based on equal power that are made on an even playing field. I take an interest in you, I support you– and you do the same things for me. When it comes to blogging this means I read + comment on your blog while you read + comment on my blog.
In a word, reciprocity. [Kindness?]
Followers, on the other hand, is a term that implies there is a leader with more power, who proceeds ahead while the less dominate people come after him or her. This is not an even playing field from the git-go.
In blogging terms this means that as the leader I may or may not take the time to read + comment on what my followers write in their blogs. By virtue of the way in which I envision our relationship, I’ll think I have no obligation to comment on other people’s blogs because I’m in charge here.
In a word, purpose. [Control?]
And Here Is Where The Misunderstandings Begin
TO WIT, IF I THINK you’re my Friend who will take an equal interest in me as I have taken in you, but you view me as a Follower who doesn’t necessarily deserve your time and attention, then we have a situation wherein feelings get hurt, confusion begins.
I’m expecting you, my friend, to care about what I write. You’re baffled about why you would take any interest in me, your follower. There is ambivalence, there is tension, there is cognitive dissonance. No one is happy.
I’ve no marvelous insights into why certain bloggers prefer the terms that they do for the people who pay attention to them; I just see how bloggers do what they do.
In fact, I’m only writing about this today because I found it interesting that I discerned this subtle yet significant divide in attitudes about blogging as a result of your answers to two simple questions I never thought to ask before.
Remarks, regrets, reconsiderations, anyone? The comment section is yours.
