Romantic glare? Really

I remember being told that the person you are at 25 is the person you are forever. This is obviously not true, and I’m not just referring to biology.

But I do acknowledge some truth to the idea of a more fixed identity after 25. Really, at 25, you can start controlling your surroundings. For 20 years, you have been forced into places with people you didn’t identify with, or even really like. They, however, kept you elastic and mutable to change. You learned to deal with aggravations, annoyances, and differences in character. After high school, college, and entry-level jobs, though, you start to settle into your rut. You find a company to work for, you get comfortable with your job, you don’t meet as many new people, and you are less likely to go on adventures, knowing full well that you usually just end up damp, tired, and missing a sock. For the most part, you are right, those adventures aren’t usually a good idea, but you acknowledge that you are starting to close yourself off to new experiences. You know what you like, so why mess with a good thing, right?

Your circle of friends becomes smaller and watertight. These people don’t challenge you and if you argue, you are on the same side. You lose the ability to tolerate dissent. You hear less criticism, so you are less prepared to handle it. Changes start to…upset you. You become fixed, petrified. You stop learning from your mistakes. Growth is based on feedback, and as you get older, you tend to fortify yourself against feedback; you avoid the mirrors. I know I have, and it worries me. How do we keep growing and bettering ourselves if we don’t look at ourselves?

There is also a saying that we hate the people that remind us the most of ourselves, or that we hate the traits that remind us of our own bad behaviors. Before I turned 25, I only believed this in the abstract; it didn’t apply to me, because I was perfect. Now, I’m starting to realize this is how I will get most of my feedback from now on – the people in my watertight friend ship (gag).

So, without further ado, lessons I am learning about myself through other people.

1) People don’t respect your boundaries. They apply their boundaries to you. This goes for personal space, intimacy, feelings, etc. Don’t expect people to guess your boundaries. You will have to tell them.
2) Subtlety rarely works. You may hint, gesture, glare, whatever, but if you don’t tell people what you want, that is all the out that many people need. You may feel like you are being rude or condescending, but it is the only option with some people. And you won’t hurt their feelings because everyone has to treat them this way.
3) Passive-aggression is easy, but wrong.
4) Not having an opinion doesn’t always make you easy-going. Sometimes people will think you are dispassionate or lazy. I am slowly learning that “it doesn’t matter to me” doesn’t tell someone I’m a team player. It tells them I’m happy on the bench.
5) Only your significant other should have to fake an interest in your interests. Don’t ask your friends to do it; they won’t care. (Note to self: stop buying books as presents unless I’ve actually seen someone in the throes of novel reading).
6) If you are the only person bringing up a subject, no one else is interested. For me, this happens when I am trying to get something done that other people don’t care about. You can bring a subject up twice. If all you get is a “yeah” or “that’s interesting” no one else cares.
7) If you are a type A person who feels compelled to plan things, do not think that others will “just” reciprocate. If you always put things together, it doesn’t inspire others to work; it just enables them to not work. They will not change unless you let an event fall totally on its face (passive-aggression) or if you actually tell them that you feel burdened and would like help (see number 2). Otherwise, embrace the cliché that a good deed is its own reward.
8) If you tell people things are fine when they aren’t, but complain, people won’t understand your emotional shift and they may chalk it up as whining. Make your case as clear as possible. This realization comes from my business class about attribution error as well, not just the people I know. We assume things happen to people for internal reasons, rather than external. If you don’t let people know what the external stuff is, humans (by nature) will assume you just can’t get your shit together.
9) Change is rare. Situations will often repeat themselves. It is pointless to waste energy railing against fundamentally broken things. I am still learning to choose good battles.
10) Politeness can be misconstrued.
11) Assertiveness is the most important thing a woman can master.
12) There is a fine line between confidence and self-aggrandizement.

This list is not exhaustive. I may continue on, but this has been weighing on me for a while, and I needed to get this out.