Sans Fig Leaf
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"(Mis)understanding"
3 August, 2006
One time we spent an entire convention trying to figure out why this guy, we'll call him Roy, had latched onto our group.
Roy wasn't a stranger, but absolutely none of us thought of him as a friend. Several of us had been involved in certain fannish activities which Roy had also been involved with, but none of us had ever been much more the minimally polite. The reason was because Roy was seldom polite.
That description doesn't do him justice. Roy was frequently mean, rude, thoughtless, domineering, and openly contemptuous of other people's opinions. On several occasions Roy had bad-mouthed my friends to my face. I had stood up for said friends. I had asked him not to do it any more. I had even spelled out what should have been a no-brainer: If you say bad or mean things about my friends, don't expect me to be your friend.
But there he was. Not just following us around the convention, showing up at our hotel room, inserting himself into our conversations, and so on, Roy was also acting as if he was the bestest of friends with one of my friends that he had bad mouthed in the past.
His conversation was polite all weekend. I must confess that, due to my past bad experiences with him, I was barely civil. The first time I told this story to another friend who hadn't been there that weekend, they suggested that Roy was so starved for companionship that he took that bare civility for friendliness.
Except that while I and a couple other members of the group were being minimally civil, the person most of his attention was focused on was not. He was actively trying to drive Roy away. No matter how many rude, dismissive, and insulting comments were directed at him, Roy just laughed them off.
We never quite figured it out.
It was a sharp contrast to Duane. He was another person I shared several activities with, but saw infrequently. I don't recall any conversations with him which I didn't enjoy. He was personable and friendly. He seemed to listen to other people as intently as he hoped they would listen to him. I always genuinely enjoyed running into him.
So I was a little surprised, one day, to overhear Duane telling someone else one day that I hated him. I didn't say anything right then, because I was, however unintentionally, eavesdropping. But I did attempt to talk to him about it later. I tried to do it in as unthreatening a way as possible. "Maybe I misunderstood, but something you said gave me the impression you thought I dislike you or have some kind of grudge against you. I'm really sorry about whatever I said or did that gave that impression, because nothing could be further from the truth."
Duane responded politely and tried to explain why he had concluded that I disliked him. The explanation didn't quite make sense. Not only did he describe an incident that I didn't remember, but even if the incident had happened, I couldn't figure out why someone would infer annoyance, let alone hatred, from that reaction.
Still, I apologized for any miscommunication, and tried to assure him that I didn't dislike him.
Duane wouldn't accept the apology--at least not the way I'd given it. He wanted an unequivocal statement from me that the incident (which I didn't recall) had been entirely my fault, and that I understood that the reaction had been inappropriate and rude. That was a bit of a sticking point for me, because I didn't think that the reaction, as he described it, was either inappropriate or rude. Nor did I think that it was reasonable to infer an intense dislike from the reaction (if it had ever happened).
Relationships are not rational. Sometimes we won't understand why one person despises us, and another thinks we're the next big thing. Similarly, there will be people who never understand us. It's hard to accept that no matter what we say or do, no matter how many times we try to explain ourselves, we can never make another person understand something the way we do. Just as we can never have an understanding forced on us.
It can be a depressing thought. I prefer to focus on those happy moments when a meeting of the minds seems to occur. So rather than worry about friendships that never quite gelled, I try to appreciate and treasure the ones that have.
What I said never changed anyone. What they understood did.
--Unknown
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