Pride

So there is this guy in my Perspectives class who I dislike very much. He is so annoying and unnecessarily dickish to me. Like all just be talking and he’ll have some obnoxious retort and yell over my voice trying to be funny. It’s not, and he just makes a fool of himself. Now I am fairly certain that this all because my freshmen year he somehow got my friend to date him. They broke up as all high school couples do, and then he started trying to get with me. Now obnoxious, dickish people are not my type, I cannot date myself, so I just brushed him off, which kind of angered him. Now that was freshmen year. I haven’t talked to him since. This is the only occurrence we have shared, so I can think of no other reason why he would hate me so much. You think he would be over that right?

Anyway every time he does one of his childish little responses to something I say, I must respond in an equally childish manner. Why? I don’t know, I’m immature I suppose. But its really annoying. Its not like what he says is any real insult, a third grader could produce a better burn. So I am not sure what about it sparks a response. I could just as easily sit there and look at him like what the fuck are you talking about, but I think that would only result in another childish ‘insult’.

After this incident, I began to pick up on even more immature events.

Scenario:

My friend got mad at our environmental teacher and so he threw away his paper instead of recycling it. Really? I got it out of the garbage and put it in the recycling bin. He saw this, so he dug through his papers to find one he could discard of, after which he proceeded to crinkle it up and throw it away. Both times our teacher didn’t even notice it, so its not like it was a direct hit towards him. The only people who noticed were the ones whose attention he caught by calling out their names. He called out their names so they could watch him throw away the paper. Cool.

Scenario:

This chick was on her phone trying to drive. I have no qualms about people being on their phone while driving as long as they can handle it, but clearly she could not. Suddenly she had to drive on the shoulder to get back onto a lane because she didn’t realize that the lane had ended. At this point I decided to pass her because I knew her poor driving would just piss me off. As I watched her from my review mirror I saw her swerve off onto the shoulder once again. Really? Like five minuted later she speeds up to pass me but I’m already going off the exit, and so when she realizes this, she drives on the shoulder of the exit to get in front of me. She then drives in front of me at like 2 miles per hour, in both lanes. When she knows what lane I am trying to get in, she pulls in front of me. Its a red light, so were waiting, but when it turns, she does not move. I honk my horn and she sits there for a bit until she speeds off onto the on ramp and back on the interstate. Bitch didn’t even need to get off.

These are all cases of immaturity at its best. So what motivated me and these two other people to do what they did, to be little babies. My guess would be pride. We are all creatures of pride. Our pride must remain intact to retain our position among our peers. Damage to our pride will affect how people view us, they will see us as weak, as unworthy. So when our pride is challenged, we must defend it. So we retaliate to stupid offenses in much the same stupid manner.

I guess what I would suggest is to try and recognize the things that should offend you from the trivial ones that are intended to but shouldn't, because they are two very different things.

Pride makes fools of us all.

Peace.