I mentioned earlier in this set of posts that one of the things I due to occupy my time is bar trivia. It’s one of those activities about which I’m rather ambivalent, since I’ve actually ended up meeting some really cool people, but I also have a definite carrying capacity for the whole bar trivia thing itself. I like trivia. My mind is a veritable font of trivia. I’m also not really all that competitive. My main goal is to go, hang out, have some fun, drink a couple of beers, and occupy myself for an evening.
This can be a problem. There are some really hyper-competitive assholes who do bar trivia. It’s weird, too, since I cannot fathom why anyone would get that worked up about the whole thing. Sure, it’s fun to win. Sure, it sucks to lose. In the end, though, everyone’s playing for bragging rights and a token gift card to come back to the bar. It’s not that big of a deal, really.
Back when I first started I was on a team with a few really cool people and this one guy who was a total dick. All he cared about was winning. All he talked about was winning. If he wasn’t winning he was pissed. He also seemed to think he knew everything about everything. The unfortunate thing about the team was that we did win on a fairly regular basis, which just created an even greater expectation of further winning. At first it was fun, but then the weight of expectations plus my general lack of desire to deal with the bullshit started to weigh heavily.
Eventually I’d reached the end of my ability to deal with the guy and I realized I had two choices: I could stop doing bar trivia or I could find a way to make it fun. I left the team. At the same time I talked to a couple other people on the team who were also tired of the guy and it basically ripped the team apart, which was a really good thing. I never really offered an official explanation as to why I’d left, though. So when a new team coalesced around a bunch of people I actually did like hanging out with it probably seemed pretty organic.
Still, from that point on my former teammate made it a point to single me out for trash talk and general verbal abuse. I mostly ignored it because I couldn’t stand him but it also didn’t matter because I didn’t have to deal with him outside of a couple hours on a few Tuesdays a month. There’s something to be said for selective deafness, really. Not every battle has to be fought, especially when the high road is the path of least resistance. And, really, trash talking about getting some dumb question at bar trivia is the lowest form of self-esteem builder.
A few weeks ago he sent me an email. The email was an attempt to recruit me. It fit the standard template of manipulation. He attempted to flatter my intellect in order to make it a point to say that I would be the key piece to creating a dominant winning team and I should totally join. I read it in the spirit which it was intended: someone who took something I find disposable fun but way too seriously and who wanted me to help feed his ego. This was also someone who had done everything in his power (probably at least partially unintentionally) to alienate and annoy me for months.
I ignored it. I also made it a point to tell some other friends with whom I play bar trivia about it and we all had a good laugh. It was pretty pathetic, after all.
A couple weeks later he and another guy on his team, who’s hyper-competitive in an antsy, no off switch sort of way, but who generally means well cornered me in the bathroom and asked why I hadn’t decided to take them up on their offer. I honestly and clearly told them that I did the bar trivia thing for fun, not to win, and I just liked goofing off. I hoped that would mean they would leave well enough alone and went back to my team. It should surprise no one that this did not, in fact, end the exchange.
A few questions into the second half he decided to trash talk me, specifically referencing things I’d just said a few minutes before.[1] I’d finally had just about enough, so I walked over and said, “You know why I’m not on your team? Because you annoy me.” Then I walked away.
A couple minutes after that he showed up at my table, leaned in, and said, “I wanted you on my team because I respect your intelligence. But you can be a real asshole sometimes.” Then he walked away. I, meanwhile, went selectively deaf in my left ear.
When he walked away I felt myself start to shake. I realized that I’d just been bullied and, more importantly, that he’d actually been bullying me ever since I’d switched bar trivia teams. Considering that this was right after I started this particular series that was kind of a big deal.
The thing that stopped the shaking, though, was the simple fact that everyone who witnessed the event and the other people I told about it afterwards thought that his actions were completely and totally uncalled for. Everyone who knew the guy was aware of the fact that he was a dick. They knew he was annoying. More importantly, either they didn’t think I was an asshole or they thought that anything I did that could be construed as assholeish was a measured response to a long-term annoyance from a guy who really deserved to be hit with something much harder than the word “annoying.”
Thus we reach the end of the road.
-----------------------
The thing that’s missing from all of the stories I’ve been telling myself over the years is the bit at the end. It was always me against the world in my own head. It was always someone trying to push me around. It was always me desperately trying to find a way to figure out how to get that one person to turn around and, for lack of a better term, justify my existence and give me a reason to go on into tomorrow.
That’s never been the case, not even once. I have always, as we used to say in the church, been surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. I’ve had friends and family who stuck around and tried to help me through the worst of it.
Sometimes, too, it’s just been a random witness who saw something and said, “Wow, that dude’s an asshole. What’s up with him?”
-----------------------
This part is hard to discuss. It risks devolving into victim blaming, survivor’s guilt, or the zealous new convert turning to those behind and saying, “Why aren’t you as smart and determined as I was?” This is not my goal. My goal is never to heap burning coals atop the head of another.
That said, this is my story. I offer it up as a cautionary tale or, maybe, to someone else who is in an analogous situation or who knows someone who is and needs to hear this from a different voice. It’s always much simpler when it’s over or when it’s happening to someone else, after all.
----------------------
I realize now that I had my priorities all messed up and backwards. I constantly searched for affirmation from people who had no shits to give. At the same time I held the people who did care about me in a sort of contempt. My explanation for this is both simple and complex.
The primary problem is that I didn’t much like myself and I was afraid of what would happen if I fixed that and still ended up having trouble or not being accepted. I chose, whether intentionally or unintentionally, targets for acceptance that were close enough to make sense but far enough removed to make the chase a certainty and the catch a remote possibility.
I realized a while after Amy and I finally stopped talking to each other that she was, in fact, the prototypical example of this phenomenon. Everything went really well at first even though she expressed a certain level of reservation. At about the four-month mark she started to pull away and set up barriers but never actually formally broke anything off. Any speculation as to why that was is outside of the scope of this particular story, for the record.
I maintained the chase for something on the level of a year to a year and a half, however. At first I thought I had a chance. After a while, though, I started to seriously ask when I should quit. I knew that she really didn’t like me much anymore. I was starting to resent her. It was an awful situation for everyone involved but I wasn’t willing to give up and she lacked either the ability, the willingness, or the force of will to cut me off.
Then after it ended I still tried to figure out how to go about getting it to be not over anymore. It wasn’t because I thought that was a good idea. It wasn’t because I thought it would work. It was because at some point over the previous couple years I had gotten it into my head that if I could just figure out how to get Amy to love me I would be validated as a person.
-------------------
The equal and opposite alternative was to convince myself I didn’t need anyone, anywhere, anyway, no-how. This one always had a certain level of appeal for me simply because I really do like being left to my own devices. It was easier, in some ways, to place myself in splendid isolation and hang out with my own self-loathing than to do anything to fix it.
The cycle fed on itself. I convinced myself that the world was full of people who didn’t like me. So I stayed alone and didn’t risk proving myself right (or, for that matter, wrong). That also gave me license to push other people away and, in doing so, create a self-fulfilling prophecy about the world at large.
--------------------
The solution to that, of course, is to stop. It’s slightly harder than that, though. The trick is to make sure I realign my priorities. I’ve got to say, “Eh, haters gonna hate,” to the haters. I’ve got to say, “Too bad, you’re missing out,” to the people who don’t care. Then I’ve got to find a way to appreciate the people who do care.
I’ve managed to get that exactly backwards. I’ve tried to make the haters not hate. I’ve tried to make the indifferent care. I’ve tried to push the people who do care away. It’s easier to maintain my small, walled-off world that way.
Something’s gotta give, though. It’s time to make sure that the correct thing falls away.
--------------------
[1]The funniest thing about this – to me – is something I didn’t know at the time, but he was trash talking me in spite of the fact that my team was significantly ahead of his at the time. I’d scored somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-75% of my team’s points, too, which meant that I’d been single-handedly outscoring his team brain trust.
This can be a problem. There are some really hyper-competitive assholes who do bar trivia. It’s weird, too, since I cannot fathom why anyone would get that worked up about the whole thing. Sure, it’s fun to win. Sure, it sucks to lose. In the end, though, everyone’s playing for bragging rights and a token gift card to come back to the bar. It’s not that big of a deal, really.
Back when I first started I was on a team with a few really cool people and this one guy who was a total dick. All he cared about was winning. All he talked about was winning. If he wasn’t winning he was pissed. He also seemed to think he knew everything about everything. The unfortunate thing about the team was that we did win on a fairly regular basis, which just created an even greater expectation of further winning. At first it was fun, but then the weight of expectations plus my general lack of desire to deal with the bullshit started to weigh heavily.
Eventually I’d reached the end of my ability to deal with the guy and I realized I had two choices: I could stop doing bar trivia or I could find a way to make it fun. I left the team. At the same time I talked to a couple other people on the team who were also tired of the guy and it basically ripped the team apart, which was a really good thing. I never really offered an official explanation as to why I’d left, though. So when a new team coalesced around a bunch of people I actually did like hanging out with it probably seemed pretty organic.
Still, from that point on my former teammate made it a point to single me out for trash talk and general verbal abuse. I mostly ignored it because I couldn’t stand him but it also didn’t matter because I didn’t have to deal with him outside of a couple hours on a few Tuesdays a month. There’s something to be said for selective deafness, really. Not every battle has to be fought, especially when the high road is the path of least resistance. And, really, trash talking about getting some dumb question at bar trivia is the lowest form of self-esteem builder.
A few weeks ago he sent me an email. The email was an attempt to recruit me. It fit the standard template of manipulation. He attempted to flatter my intellect in order to make it a point to say that I would be the key piece to creating a dominant winning team and I should totally join. I read it in the spirit which it was intended: someone who took something I find disposable fun but way too seriously and who wanted me to help feed his ego. This was also someone who had done everything in his power (probably at least partially unintentionally) to alienate and annoy me for months.
I ignored it. I also made it a point to tell some other friends with whom I play bar trivia about it and we all had a good laugh. It was pretty pathetic, after all.
A couple weeks later he and another guy on his team, who’s hyper-competitive in an antsy, no off switch sort of way, but who generally means well cornered me in the bathroom and asked why I hadn’t decided to take them up on their offer. I honestly and clearly told them that I did the bar trivia thing for fun, not to win, and I just liked goofing off. I hoped that would mean they would leave well enough alone and went back to my team. It should surprise no one that this did not, in fact, end the exchange.
A few questions into the second half he decided to trash talk me, specifically referencing things I’d just said a few minutes before.[1] I’d finally had just about enough, so I walked over and said, “You know why I’m not on your team? Because you annoy me.” Then I walked away.
A couple minutes after that he showed up at my table, leaned in, and said, “I wanted you on my team because I respect your intelligence. But you can be a real asshole sometimes.” Then he walked away. I, meanwhile, went selectively deaf in my left ear.
When he walked away I felt myself start to shake. I realized that I’d just been bullied and, more importantly, that he’d actually been bullying me ever since I’d switched bar trivia teams. Considering that this was right after I started this particular series that was kind of a big deal.
The thing that stopped the shaking, though, was the simple fact that everyone who witnessed the event and the other people I told about it afterwards thought that his actions were completely and totally uncalled for. Everyone who knew the guy was aware of the fact that he was a dick. They knew he was annoying. More importantly, either they didn’t think I was an asshole or they thought that anything I did that could be construed as assholeish was a measured response to a long-term annoyance from a guy who really deserved to be hit with something much harder than the word “annoying.”
Thus we reach the end of the road.
-----------------------
The thing that’s missing from all of the stories I’ve been telling myself over the years is the bit at the end. It was always me against the world in my own head. It was always someone trying to push me around. It was always me desperately trying to find a way to figure out how to get that one person to turn around and, for lack of a better term, justify my existence and give me a reason to go on into tomorrow.
That’s never been the case, not even once. I have always, as we used to say in the church, been surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. I’ve had friends and family who stuck around and tried to help me through the worst of it.
Sometimes, too, it’s just been a random witness who saw something and said, “Wow, that dude’s an asshole. What’s up with him?”
-----------------------
This part is hard to discuss. It risks devolving into victim blaming, survivor’s guilt, or the zealous new convert turning to those behind and saying, “Why aren’t you as smart and determined as I was?” This is not my goal. My goal is never to heap burning coals atop the head of another.
That said, this is my story. I offer it up as a cautionary tale or, maybe, to someone else who is in an analogous situation or who knows someone who is and needs to hear this from a different voice. It’s always much simpler when it’s over or when it’s happening to someone else, after all.
----------------------
I realize now that I had my priorities all messed up and backwards. I constantly searched for affirmation from people who had no shits to give. At the same time I held the people who did care about me in a sort of contempt. My explanation for this is both simple and complex.
The primary problem is that I didn’t much like myself and I was afraid of what would happen if I fixed that and still ended up having trouble or not being accepted. I chose, whether intentionally or unintentionally, targets for acceptance that were close enough to make sense but far enough removed to make the chase a certainty and the catch a remote possibility.
I realized a while after Amy and I finally stopped talking to each other that she was, in fact, the prototypical example of this phenomenon. Everything went really well at first even though she expressed a certain level of reservation. At about the four-month mark she started to pull away and set up barriers but never actually formally broke anything off. Any speculation as to why that was is outside of the scope of this particular story, for the record.
I maintained the chase for something on the level of a year to a year and a half, however. At first I thought I had a chance. After a while, though, I started to seriously ask when I should quit. I knew that she really didn’t like me much anymore. I was starting to resent her. It was an awful situation for everyone involved but I wasn’t willing to give up and she lacked either the ability, the willingness, or the force of will to cut me off.
Then after it ended I still tried to figure out how to go about getting it to be not over anymore. It wasn’t because I thought that was a good idea. It wasn’t because I thought it would work. It was because at some point over the previous couple years I had gotten it into my head that if I could just figure out how to get Amy to love me I would be validated as a person.
-------------------
The equal and opposite alternative was to convince myself I didn’t need anyone, anywhere, anyway, no-how. This one always had a certain level of appeal for me simply because I really do like being left to my own devices. It was easier, in some ways, to place myself in splendid isolation and hang out with my own self-loathing than to do anything to fix it.
The cycle fed on itself. I convinced myself that the world was full of people who didn’t like me. So I stayed alone and didn’t risk proving myself right (or, for that matter, wrong). That also gave me license to push other people away and, in doing so, create a self-fulfilling prophecy about the world at large.
--------------------
The solution to that, of course, is to stop. It’s slightly harder than that, though. The trick is to make sure I realign my priorities. I’ve got to say, “Eh, haters gonna hate,” to the haters. I’ve got to say, “Too bad, you’re missing out,” to the people who don’t care. Then I’ve got to find a way to appreciate the people who do care.
I’ve managed to get that exactly backwards. I’ve tried to make the haters not hate. I’ve tried to make the indifferent care. I’ve tried to push the people who do care away. It’s easier to maintain my small, walled-off world that way.
Something’s gotta give, though. It’s time to make sure that the correct thing falls away.
--------------------
[1]The funniest thing about this – to me – is something I didn’t know at the time, but he was trash talking me in spite of the fact that my team was significantly ahead of his at the time. I’d scored somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-75% of my team’s points, too, which meant that I’d been single-handedly outscoring his team brain trust.
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