You know how there are some people you just feel kind of greasy being near them? You are kind of OK being acquainted with them, you have some common interests, but you're not sure if you want them in your inner circle?
Most of us know people like that. It's not a matter of trust...if you don't trust someone, you tend not to have anything to do with them, not even acquaintanceship. Sometimes, you're pretty good at predicting how a person will respond in a situation, and you dread it, specifically because you DO expect it. It's one thing if they do something that you despise, it's a very different thing if they do it, and you realize you knew they were "the sort of person who'd do that". It's just that there's some part of the way they conduct themselves that is highly distasteful. You might trust a person as a work colleague, but you know they have a not-very-practical joker side, and you worry about what manner of apparitions might start appearing on your lawn if you ever let them know your street address.
One that I've noticed more frequently of late is this idea of doing things explicitly for the purpose of irritating someone. Heck, humans have enough ways to accidentally create friction WITHOUT intending to do so, how could an otherwise reasonable human do it for the exclusive purpose of irritating someone? That just feels so "third grade" to me, maybe mixed in with a bit of ego ("I have power over this person - I am capable of upsetting them!"). But it seems, it is only my awareness of this that has recently grown.
The ridiculous (hey, it's my blog, I'm supposed to utter opinins) tactic has been about for a while. It seems to have appeared in Hollywood's movies from the 1930s, and perhaps, just like the vicious insult-based humor of American sitcoms, otherwise reasonable people mistook it for something that is worth incorporating into daily life. When you see a married couple who "know how to push each other's buttons", then you've encountered a pair of people who put a lot of effort into non-value-added activities; sabotaging someone else's happiness when it doesn't help your own is simply a mild form of evil.
An old college pal goes to the "College Engineering Magazine editors convention" every year. He brings home a large bar bill and a conference proceedings notebook, but for the rest of the year, he never mentions the conference. As far as his wife knows, he was an editor of his college's student engineering magazine for one semester and doesn't speak all that highly about it. Frankly, he's not really the "conference" type. So why does he spend money on airfare, hotels, rental cars, and just who is he buying all that booze for? When his wife asks, he makes some vague statement about it being the only part of his college years that he still celebrates in any fashion and he wants to continue to cling to that one thing. That answer doesn't sound much like my very non-nostalgic pal. One day, when his wife was not in earshot, I asked him again, and this time the answer was different. "I do it to piss off my wife. I just couldn't say that before because she was in the room. Her parents' anniversary is always the weekend of the conference, so I know I can piss her off by putting the conference at higher priority than her parents' anniversary. I'm also showing her who's boss." So, he spends money (a thousand dollars including airfare), and uses up precious vacation days, doing something that he's not really interested in, and the only objective is to upset his wife. In a word, creepy.
I've started to realize that I've seen dribs and drabs of this behavior at various places I've worked, too. It's particularly irritating in the work environment as we're all so focused on making every minute count, so why spend a minute of company time intentionally causing a work stoppage? Fortunately, in the work environment, most people who participate in this behavior end up with other problems. They're so focused on irritating others that they don't get their own work done, or it is observed that their personal characteristics prevent others from being able to work well with them. Sadly, they don't tend to get fired, but they don't get promotions or decent raises, either...they just hang around, impairing everybody's productivity.
There are plenty of things that most of us do that our spouses or family members don't like. I'm sure my spouse would rather that I not stay up late at night, because my bumping around doing projects sometimes interrupts her sleep. My purpose in staying up late, however, is not to disturb her, but to get projects done. I find my productivity higher when the family and dogs are in bed, the phone has ceased ringing, and I get time to focus. And there is a benefit in it for her as well: because I'm up so late, I am also the last one to let the dogs out. The later "her" dogs go out at night, the longer she gets to sleep in the morning before they wake her up. While this behavior of mine does irritate her, the primary intent is not irritation, so it's not the subject matter of this missive.
I'm starting to sense that people either have it or they don't - a genuine love and respect for their fellow human beings. As I look at my chosen set of friends, the vast majority do. And people who genuinely love their fellow humans, do not do things, ever, with the express purpose of upsetting anybody. These people are also harder to upset - because, since it's not "in them" to intentionally upset someone, they never interpret anybody else's actions as intentionally upsetting.
The desire to exact revenge, or to intentionally upset someone, I believe is a form of evil. It may be inherent in some people, and an intentionally-added trait in others. The former are incurable, the latter can evolve. For those who have this miscreant behavior as a natural part of who they are, they might be able to cease it, but only because they intellectually know it's the wrong thing to do - but the desire is still in them and they might lapse. For those who intentionally added the behavior, once they are confronted with the sheer lunacy of this type of behavior, are relieved to eliminate it from their personal world.
Perhaps there is an explanation for this behavior. In the wonderful book, "Learned Optimism", Dr. Martin Seligman produces an excellent evidentiary-based theory that optimism is strongly correlated to an individual's belief that he or she has control, or at least influence, over his or her local environment. Experiments show that one can create an optimistic or pessimistic dog or even fish, by giving the organism control over things that are important to it. If the fish can bump a button and get food 100% of the time, it's more optimistic about the prospect than if it works only 90% of the time. And, that less optimistic fish falls victim to fish diseases, and won't live as long as the optimistic fish. In mammals, direct measurements of the health of the immune system demonstrate the direct correlation between mind and body. The optimist lives longer, suffers fewer diseases, can perform in the absence of water and food better, than the pessimist.
Viewed with that backdrop, it is possible that these seemingly evil behaviors, wherein people take actions with no apparent goal other than to irritate another person (sadly, often someone they claim they care deeply about), might actually be a desperation plea for regaining control - to somehow become more optimistic.
So, that's the "Stupid Human Trick" of the week in my book - doing anything for the express purpose of irritating someone. Mildly evil, majorly dumb, definitely not a value-added activity, for anybody.
So, gaze about at your behaviors - are you doing anything whose sole purpose is to get someone else upset? Is it really improving the lives of everybody concerned, or is it just a power trip? How do you feel about power trips that nobody else thinks give you power?
Just a thought....
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