“I’ve supported you all these years, and you go out onto that field and play like THAT?!!”
“I voted for you, but then you went and cheated on your wife?!!”
“Dude, we came out together and now I’m having a drink and you don’t want to buy one and drink one too?!!”
…….HOW DARE YOU?!!!”
Seems to be that the common denominator is that Bob (my name for the first-person speaker) is complaining about something that is none of their own business, yet as if it were all about him.
Sportsmen play how they play; it’s not a personal affront to you if their team (NOTE: not YOUR team) loses. Why would you think it is?
Politicians marry their loved ones, and do as they wish; it is not a personal affront to you if they cheat on their (NOTE AGAIN: not YOUR) partner. Why would you think it is?
And it’s his body, his wallet, his endocrine system, and NOT a personal affront to you if he doesn’t want to be sick the next morning and not afford lunch (especially on behalf of someone who cares so little for them as to think they should) without a reason. Ditto from above.
Why, I ask. Seems to me Bob thinks about himself so much - especially on an emotional level that leads to unjustified feelings of betrayal and then propensity for spite - that he fails to understand how the other person could.possibly.NOT.be.thinking.of.him.aswell, even though the other person is likely instead thinking of themself too. Some kind of ego-centricity has led Bob to believe that he deserves unjustified rights (for lack of a better word) to be met by others, very often at the other’s expense, and yet Bob fails to realise that the other person does have justified rights to not have to meet Bob’s delusions (I found a better word!), at least on behalf of Bob.
But Bob gets offended. It’s funny; the more offended Bob gets – the more ego-centric he essentially is – the less likely he is to afford the other people those rights either in return, or even when they have some other justification for them. Am I right? Know anyone like this? Like a beggar, who would never think to donate to charity, even should they get the chance later. I’ve come across plenty of beggars who get offended because I didn’t give them money I didn’t have – not that I’d want to give money to someone who would be offended by that, or that they had any reasonable claim to my money (I mean, it’s mine; not ours).
The point I’m making is that when I say something like, “It’s mine; not ours,” your feeling slightly on edge by this comment means YOU’RE BOB. It is mine, and you know it, but somehow it’s normal for people to be offended when others have the audacity to exclude them – even when they have no real claim to anything but exclusion. But… to respond with animosity? It seems the other is the only one who has a right to that righteous fury that Bob deludes himself into thinking he is driven by.
Why should someone take into account Bob’s interests, and who is Bob to be offended should they not?
Are you Bob?
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