This is the hardest thing to do for me. And though I am trying not to pass judgments, I really need to say it is the hardest thing for both of us. Being superior, that is.
The need to be superior sometimes is very obvious to the casual viewer, expressing itself in arguments, such as "Oh, yeah, well I'm not the one who broke the cable box because the remote wasn't working." That generally leads to something like "Oh, really! Well, maybe the remote would have worked if you hadn't thrown it because you couldn't figure out how to work it." And so on.
Usually, though, our superiority shows up in more subtle ways, as it has in our back and forth correspondence, which we leave for each other because we don't want to talk face to face. Not yet, at least. It could be an opening statement such as "I could go on about all the things that I am upset about, but I won't because it won't help" or "I wanted to express all my feelings in this letter but I decided not to because I know how much the written word hurts." Both of these translate to this "There are a lot of things about you that piss me off, and I'm not going to say them here because I am superior to you. But I am going to think them and tell all my friends and anyone else who will listen."
Don't get me wrong. Finding a way to release my anger in a way that doesn't hurt the other person is healthy. I know that. But I also have been in this game long enough to know that we both are using these "I'm better than that" statements as a way of verbally pushing the other person down, and with one foot holding down our opponent, lifting our heads and claiming "I am superior!"
It's nasty, it's mean and, well, let's face it, its human nature. It's not a nice thing to do, but it is, I guess, a part of survival. I can't say I won't ever do it. I can only say that I will try to be aware of when I am doing it, and work harder not to take the superior stance in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment