Today has been hard for me in a couple of different ways. The day started out so well. Angela showed up and made breakfast and that was awesome. Then we were all highly productive for a couple of hours. Then stuff started going down hill triggering a lot of trust issues for me. Punctuality issues. Frustration with people. I spent a lot of the later part of today being alternately very angry and very sad. Couple of times I started crying and couldn’t sit down for a good long cry for various reasons. I’m sure it was partially hormonal, but it really wasn’t all about being pregnant. It was about disconnect between how I see the world and obligations and how other people see the world and obligations.
Noah said something today that is making me think: “You treat manners/etiquette as a second rate way of enforcing boundaries.” He’s right. I treat things as being about basic manners when they are really about my personal boundaries. I did something risky for me this weekend and it went really badly in general. I’m not going to take that risk again anytime soon. The potential payoff isn’t worth the consequences of things not going well. Not 100% badly, but bad enough that I am going to remember this for a long time.
I guess learning is an important part of living and all.
I’m sorry–we didn’t communicate especially effectively. If I’d known you had afternoon obligations then I wouldn’t have volunteered, because I knew we had market day.
Yesterday turned into a clusterfuck. We didn’t communicate very well. I didn’t ask clearly for what I needed and I take responsibility for that. You weren’t the only person yesterday who was in approximately the same position.
Part of the problem is that I completely forgot about the afternoon commitment. I wouldn’t have scheduled work yesterday if I had remembered the class. That is entirely on my head and I don’t hold you responsible for that in the slightest.
Things just got messy because there were several people involved, all of whom I communicated with poorly and as a result I ended up upset and disappointed. The vast majority of the situation is my fault. It doesn’t change the fact that it really bothers me.
I have been thinking about this for hours and I wanted to state again: I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself for how crappily I handled yesterday because I set myself up for disappointment.
I’m sorry.
It sounds like it was very frustrating for you. I don’t feel attacked or insulted, and I also learned more about working with you. I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to help you, because I wanted to and it sounds like it might have done you some good to.
I still think you’re pretty keen. Thank you for reassuring me.
And this is one of the reasons I like you very much. You own your shit, good, bad, and in between.
Learning being an important part of living – it sucks. But it’s true. 🙁
Isn’t the whole point of manners to show respect for boundaries? Maybe the manners defined by society respect boundaries defined by society, but saying “excuse me” when you bump into someone respects physical boundaries, being punctual respects personal time and space boundaries, and so on.
Or maybe I’m just old fashioned and out of touch, as usual.
The problem is that “manners” are regional. Things that are perfectly polite in one part of the world are incredibly rude in other places. A lot of the things that I treat as mannerly are not overly consistent with what the generic manners seem to be for where I live. I am much more hands-off and distant than most Californians. I am also much more worried about formality and punctuality. These just aren’t normal parts of the California culture. It’s weird.
Manners, in addition to being regional, can’t easily vary person-to-person. You can say, usually after the fact, “I’d prefer you not stand so close to me.” But there’s no one guideline on that that works for everybody, so the preference of your region or social group will necessarily be some flavor of compromise.
When I say using manners as a second-rate way of enforcing boundaries, I mean (approximately) saying, “you shouldn’t stand so close to people” when what is meant is “I’d prefer you not stand so close to me,” especially if the boundary (how close they’re standing) would be acceptable to some people or in some cultures, or especially by local culture.
However, saying, “you shouldn’t stand so close to people” allows you to say “don’t stand so close to me” without admitting that it’s your personal preference, not the local/regional/national preference.