My problem with...people

I'll come right out and say it: people are crap. There, I've said it.
The classic interview question: "what do you see as your greatest weakness?" How are you supposed to answer this one without giving the interviewer a reason not to hire you or coming across as arrogant. Thankfully, one of my friends gave me the reply "I sometimes expect too much from other people". Brilliant - it makes it seem like you always give 100% and are held back by the failures of other people - essentially shifting your weakness to them. But the more I thought about this, the more I realised that it actually applies to me. Whether it be some analysis departments at work making analysis of our compounds far harder than it should be or someone saying they'll do something that they have no intention of doing.

This was one of my pet-peaves a few years ago. Friends would come out with statements like "We'll have a barbeque soon" or "We'll go out tonight" and then nothing would ever happen. It got to the point where I simply started showing no enthusiasm to anything as I simply knew that suggestions just wouldn't result in anything. And it continues to this day; "we'll organise a meal out", "we'll meet up again" - all things that I know just won't happen. Now my time at university is nearly up it's become all the more acute - plans people come to me with that sound fantastic, but never come to fruition. Maybe it's cos I spend so much time by myself, so I do still get pissed at these things. It's an important realisation that people are useless. I know I certainly used to - especially at home when I was asked to do such simple things as hang out the washing. Once I came to this realisation it became a lot easier to deal with people: simply expect nothing.

I remember when I first came to Trevs. It was amazingly overawing and after just a few weeks I felt like I had known my new friends forever. And this happens to everyone - you live together, go to meals together, go out together, go to the bar together - far more contact than you'll have had with most school friends. But of course, you don't know them that well. Everyone's so eager to make a good impression when they arrive that it's hard to get an acurate view of people in such a short time. It's the trap I've always fallen into and I've been burnt by it several times before. What I still haven't fathomed is what to do when people who you don't want to let you down do so. Hmm, does that make sense? Maybe. It's possibly the final fronteer I have to cross before I can fully accept that people are all flawed. Unfortunately, I've no idea how to do it. If anyone knows, please let me in on the secret.

It does sadden me that to think that I've become so untrusting, but maybe I still get caught out because deep down I know that not trusting anyone would make me too cold and distant. For my part, I'm sure I'm still crap too. I try my hardest to do things I say I'll do, but I probably still owe a few people sets of Scrubs discs or other such things.

In my first year, my roomate in 2nd term appeared to be an almost polar opposite to me. We were neighbours in the first term and got on pretty well. He smoked, went out on alcohol or drug binges and hardly ever got up for lectures. At the end of the term he told me that I'd inspired him because I always got up for my 9am lectures no matter how battered I'd been the night before and I always tried to help him out. I didn't understand at the time cos I thought "I inspired you so much, you didn't even try to get out of bed or remember to take your room key out with you". After that term I saw a lot less of him which I'm sad about now as he was a very interesting character. But I realised that we were more alike than most people perhaps realised. The was a time when he pulled me to one side and said "mate, do you think I'm a dick?" He went on to explain that every now and again he suddenly got the feeling that all his friends didn't like him at all and that he needed reassuring that it wasn't the case. Several years later I realised that I get those same feelings - maybe not that all my friends don't like me, but things along those lines. I guess all I can conclude is that every decision I've ever made - from deciding how much work to do to deciding what to have for dinner - has made up who I am. My decisions have shaped my personality and how I act and I have to trust that people will like me because of who I am and I should stop looking for people to validate my choices.