I Saw Your Face (both of them!) and Now I'm A Believer....

There is a quote, attributed to Maya Angelou that goes a little something like this:

 

 

When People Show You Who They Are, Believe The First Time

I didn’t use quotations, because I have seen the quote worded slightly differently.  You know, because on the internet ‘fact’ is a relative term. 

 It is so true, though.  I firmly believe that most of the drama, heartache, disappointment, and therapy invoices could be avoided by people actually following that advice.

I’m not just referring to boy/girl relationships, though.  Just-plain-friends, family, and anyone else we choose to interact with can have that applied to them.

I have not taken that advice, and I can tell you that it has brought me a more than my fair share of heartache.  It has only happened once in my personal life, a couple of times with friends, and about 700,000 times with family.  Ah, yes, family—the original F word….I could go on and on here, but I am limited, so I will save that morsel for another day.

Ahem.

Anyway, I have a former friend that liked to cause havoc wherever he went.  Was rude, crude, offensive, and a total asshole.  And he reveled in it!!  After his blowups, a few of which he could/should have been jailed for, he would be like, “Well, I am an asshole, everyone should just deal with it.  Like it was something to be proud of.

But my buddy never pulled that shit with me.  We could talk about anything for hours, and even though I frequently had to berate him for his actions, I never really thought of him as an asshole.  I justified his behavior as him being too sensitive, not being able to express himself properly, etc., etc., ad---BARF!

But he was never an "asshole" in my books.  Abrasive, yes.  Obnoxious, sure.  But he wasn’t brought up right.  He had a rescuing complex where he wanted to save everyone. He meant well, but…..*someone travel back in time and slap the SHIT out of me, please*

Guess what? 

He is an asshole. 

And that sucks.  Because we WERE buddies.  Once.  Not anything more, mind, just shit-talking pals.  But he is an asshole, and I am a dunce for not dick-punching him years ago.  And I can honestly say that I do not care if I ever set eyes on him again.  And I don’t even blame him, you know?  He was an asshole.  Not ALL the time, but a lot.  And he even told me, and everyone else, that he WAS an asshole.  So who is responsible there?

I guess what I am saying is, if you have to excuse and justify someone’s mortifying behavior all the time, if you have to talk yourself and others into believing someone is good, because people can’t possibly be that bad, slap yourself in the face.  Life is too short to waste waiting for people to change.  Because they don’t.

But you already knew that, didn’t you? 

I thought so.