August 26, 2007
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Three (or Four) of a Kind
I just don’t know…. That’s why I’m writing this. I write because it’s cheaper than therapy.
This is about me, not the three people I’m writing about. They challenge me. My feelings for them bother me because of their jarring contrast to the way I feel about everyone I know. Maybe if I spent more time with these people, I could learn to love them, too. I just don’t know. Possibly, if I were to spend more time with these people, my intention to transcend fear and practice unconditional love would break down completely and I’d commit mayhem.
I encounter these people only rarely, and tend not to think of them very much otherwise. One of them — Greyfox calls her the librarian from Hell — came up in conversation a few days ago. Our local library, where she usually works, is closed for renovation. She showed up working at another library, the one where Greyfox usually goes to use the computers. He was ranting about her shrill voice and intrusive ways. A few days later, he reported that she wasn’t there and that he had overheard other librarians talking about her. Obviously, Greyfox and I are not the only people irritated by her behavior.
The second of these unfortunate people came up in that same conversation when we were talking about the librarian. Greyfox has to deal with her each week at the farmer’s market, and sometimes in between, but I am fortunate enough to see her only once or twice a year — and that’s too much for me. Both these women affect me the same way: grate on my nerves so that all I want is to avoid them. I suppose that’s a sign that I have made some progress. I don’t want to slap their nasty faces, wring their chicken necks, tell them to shut up, mind their own business, get lost. I just want them to leave me alone, but that is not in their natures and so I do what I can to avoid being targeted by them.
I hadn’t really thought about the similarities between those women, and in my feelings for each of them, until that recent conversation with Greyfox. They could be sisters. Both are grandiose and exploitative, demand attention and have a sense of entitlement, take offense easily, display anger or apparently submerge their anger in favor of appeasement and ingratiation, as it suits them. Neither of them appears to have any scruples over insulting others to their faces with sly digs, or badmouthing them behind their backs.
Such blatant cases of narcissistic personality disorder don’t, all by themselves, arouse my antipathy. I don’t know what it is with these women, but there is one other person who has that same effect on me. He’s also someone I see only rarely. He is the main reason that Greyfox stopped going to AA meetings. This man also shows signs of NPD, only in many ways his behavior is more blatant and more troublesome than that of the two women. He brings his camera to AA meetings and violates everyone’s anonymity. He thinks he’s doing twelfth step service when he approaches people at their work or buttonholes them in the supermarket to ask why he hasn’t seen them at AA for a while.
He volunteered to paint the exterior of the Alano Club. He used a sprayer and didn’t mask all the windows. In addition to painting over windows that others had to scrape clean, he left splashes of paint all over the lawn, shrubbery, driveway, trash cans, and lawn furniture. Maybe it was a windy day, or maybe he got into a conversation with a passerby and gestured with the paint sprayer. When the deed was done, he boasted about it for months, apparently thinking he’d earned himself all sorts of adulation and appreciation, determined to get it one way or another.
One trait evident to anyone who spends much time around any of these three is their unhappiness. Any smile on any of their faces has a snide or sarcastic twist to it. They trudge dejectedly or dart nervously from place to place, frequently looking over a shoulder, and they twitch when they are sitting in one place. Defensiveness characterizes their interactions with others. None of that is unique to them among my acquaintances. NPD is not so uncommon, and it’s manifestations are not necessarily impediments to love for me. I know many other people with similar traits, but none of those others gets to me as these three do.
In a detached and impersonal way, I can feel some pity for these irritating, unpleasant and unhappy people, and if I’m not actually in their irritating presence I can, in an abstract and impersonal way, feel some love for them as part of All That Is, but every time I have to interact with any of them, I tense up and get out of there as fast as I can. Now that I come to think about it, that’s the same reaction I get when I read the pretentious comments left by one particular Xangan who blocked me from commenting on her site, then “friended” me. I don’t get it… still working on it.
Comments (6)
I don’t value temperance, for precisely this reason. It is tact and calm that prevent people from telling others when they are being insufferably idiotic. I know similar folk. Unlike you, I hate them with a fervour.
It’s difficult to love people who appear to be unlovable.
some people read these for entertainment value. I read to learn about others and their lives
Thank You for sharing yours
It sounds like they don’t like themselves. They sound like liars (to selves, others…). Lying drives me nuts. Why bother? The things people lie about blow my mind. NPD or possibly borderline personality disorder? I’m going to go look at the npd descriptions and case studies, curious…
People like that also infest my part of the world!
I am working on not letting their negativity clutter up my precious headspace.
In Reverse Order:
The three people you mention are the creations of God (Whoever you imagine him or her to be) and are therefore worthy of respect and patience. Perhaps you are just as annoying to them as they are to you. It is difficult, but you must remember that everything is perspective and nobody’s perspective is the same. That is the beauty and the curse of being human…we are all trapped within this prison of flesh without the ability to truely know another. Be patient, be kind, and be the example of what you believe others should be.
As to the birds and their nest. Tolerance of the problem is acceptance of the problem as not a problem but simply another wrinkle in the span of your existance. It is what it is. Choosing to allow the birds to continue in their present habits is one choice. There are others, but you all (the coop) have chosen one path as the correct one. Either rethink the situation or accept it for what it is.
As to the Time Slip:
Now this is interesting. Dreams are so indicative of the subconscious desires. Perhaps a desire to find a simpler time, a less complicated life. I often dream about the 1960′s, when life was much easier and no one had to deal with computers or cell phones or 5000 channels on the television. No excessive violence in the movies, nobody running up and down proclaiming their gender affiliation or preferences. The list goes on and on, but the fact of the matter is that we exist in a state of entropy and will continue to become more diverse, more complex, and more unmanageable for as long as we exist.
As to outer wear, I prefer the 1940′s myself. Great clothing and hats that matched the suits.