Why am I so judgemental of others? I'm so quick to look at people as unworthy or unattractive or not worth the time? I have no business judging anyone, and yet, there it is. I'm trying very hard not to be, but I'm becoming more aware of this aspect of my personality, and I don't like it. Not one bit.
If I expect people to accept me and be tolerant of my weaknesses and foibles, I'd damn well better be tolerant of theirs. I can't understand how insecurity and always expecting the sky to fall on my head could possibly go hand in hand with being a prick who sometimes looks down his nose at people.
Then again, maybe I can understand it.
For the longest time, I was picked on and verbally abused by total strangers. I mean, I had girls in high school come up to me and call me ugly. I had strangers, when I was in college, make fun of me, tell me I was too skinny and ugly, make fun of me for even _going_ to college.
I'm honestly not surprised people started calling me an Uncle Tom. I never got real acceptance from other black people. I felt more of an outcast among black people than most white people. It isn't that white people are any easier to talk to, or that white women were any more likely to find me attractive. Quite the contrary. My hit and miss record was the same, or worse. And black women, at least tended to push me aside pretty quickly. The white girls I met in my college years tended to play the "let's just be friends" jazz. I was depressed and lonely. I didn't want female friends. I wanted a sex partner or a mate, but not a friend. Friendship was something that never entered my mind. But I was dishonest and played the friend card, to no avail. Not a smart move, not something any guy should ever do.
I think I started to look down on other people as a knee-jerk preemptive strike. They were going to judge me, so why not judge them first. What other people saw as a chip on my shoulder, I saw as my protection from the rest of the world. And since I'd spent the majority of my life among other black people, well....
But even less depressed, my old habits stay with me. It is oh so easy, so tantalizingly seductive, to slip into the patterns, like a cozy moth-riddled sweater.
I have to fight it, though, because it's not going to help me. Not in my personal life, or my job.
Ah, well. Time for sleep.
If I expect people to accept me and be tolerant of my weaknesses and foibles, I'd damn well better be tolerant of theirs. I can't understand how insecurity and always expecting the sky to fall on my head could possibly go hand in hand with being a prick who sometimes looks down his nose at people.
Then again, maybe I can understand it.
For the longest time, I was picked on and verbally abused by total strangers. I mean, I had girls in high school come up to me and call me ugly. I had strangers, when I was in college, make fun of me, tell me I was too skinny and ugly, make fun of me for even _going_ to college.
I'm honestly not surprised people started calling me an Uncle Tom. I never got real acceptance from other black people. I felt more of an outcast among black people than most white people. It isn't that white people are any easier to talk to, or that white women were any more likely to find me attractive. Quite the contrary. My hit and miss record was the same, or worse. And black women, at least tended to push me aside pretty quickly. The white girls I met in my college years tended to play the "let's just be friends" jazz. I was depressed and lonely. I didn't want female friends. I wanted a sex partner or a mate, but not a friend. Friendship was something that never entered my mind. But I was dishonest and played the friend card, to no avail. Not a smart move, not something any guy should ever do.
I think I started to look down on other people as a knee-jerk preemptive strike. They were going to judge me, so why not judge them first. What other people saw as a chip on my shoulder, I saw as my protection from the rest of the world. And since I'd spent the majority of my life among other black people, well....
But even less depressed, my old habits stay with me. It is oh so easy, so tantalizingly seductive, to slip into the patterns, like a cozy moth-riddled sweater.
I have to fight it, though, because it's not going to help me. Not in my personal life, or my job.
Ah, well. Time for sleep.