Disappointment

One can handle only so much disappointment from another. At some point, the well of forgiveness will have run dry.

Forever running

There are so many ways to communicate now that are not face to face. So many ways not to face your fears. It has made us weaker people.

Why?

It is such a simple question, yet seemingly the most difficult one of all to answer for most people: “Why?”

Maybe if people examined their motives more carefully, and took fewer decisions they know in their heart are utterly selfish, they wouldn't be so scared to admit the reasons for their actions. Except when a lack of introspection is the perpetrator, it is shame that governs the reluctance to answer. People know they do wrong, but they shrug and do so anyway. When confronted, they run and hide. But you can't run from your own shame. 

Cowardice and betrayal

Why are there so many cowards in the world? In my experience, it happens too often that someone is too cowardly to just speak his mind. They prefer running, and shunning you, to saying why they are mad at you. And I think it is very sad.

Perhaps it is in part due to the fact that we are living in an Information Age. It is increasingly easy to just block someone online if you live somewhere else, to just cut him off. Suppose you lived in some tiny village in 1000 AD and you were angry with a friend from that village (the villagers being just about the only people you ever saw), you had better just talk to him about it and work it out. But these days, people find it easier to just cut off and block all communications, so they won't have to explain their feelings. I think it would be a sad thing indeed for the human race if these people don't feel any guilt about this cowardly behaviour. But of course, you can't ask them, as they'll just ignore you. I hope they do, though, as it is what they deserve.

I continue to be surprised at the kind of people who pull these stunts, and I still don't see it coming, despite it having happened a number of times. People I trusted, people I called (very) good friends, have cut off all communications with me out of the blue without ever giving me a reason. Asking for one, even demanding one, doesn't help, and I have even once received a reply I would just have to accept not getting a reason for the 'betrayal' (which is what it feels like). This person actually replied to say he refused to tell me! To me this is as cowardly as being a soldier who is too scared to fight and instead lays down in a trench somewhere crying, sucking his thumb and calling for his momma.

I recently had a friend who couldn't stand such practices either, who was as stunned as I was that this happened, that people could display such cowardly behaviour, to show this little loyalty to someone they used to call a good friend and shared many good times with. We talked about this a lot, and I thought she was the last person on earth who would ever do such a thing. But as it happens, she did, and I am flabbergasted by it. If such an outspoken opponent of such things does this, is somehow too afraid to tell me what the hell is up and leaves me wondering what on earth it was that I have done to her without realising it, then just about anyone can do this.

So I have been betrayed by good friends and by someone professing to hate people who do what she did herself. They either started ignoring me outright and pretended I no longer existed, refused to give me a reason for it or did give me a reason (happened only once - does this make this person slightly less pathetic, I wonder?) but never gave me a chance to reply or to defend myself (reminds me of stabbing someone in the back), instead saying that she would block me on all websites and that it would be the last I ever heard of her. And it leaves me wondering if I am somehow a person who is not to be trusted, who does the most horrible of things, who should be hated for all the terrible things he does to people, who deserved all this. But you know, that is simply not true. The people who are too cowardly to speak their minds over some (minor) grievance are to blame, and I rank them among the most pathetic of human beings.

But what to do, then? Should I just not make friends, never trust people, expecting to be betrayed? Of course not. I will have to learn to shrug off these betrayals, as they will continue to occur, I am sure. But it is a difficult thing to do, and at the moment I have great difficulty imagining not caring when this happens. Maybe expecting it will happen anyway will make it hurt less when it does. Or perhaps it is supposed to hurt every time to remind you never to become naïve and trust people too easily.

And these cowards? I hope they will burn in hell.

Communicating

We've been doing it since we were monkeys. First by grunting to each other, then developing languages, writing...and then it kind of stood still for a while. The basics were there though, and people managed and all. But when phones were invented, communicating became a lot easier. Recently, even mobile phones and the Internet were added. Communicating couldn't get any easier, right?

Wrong. It seems to me that although some people become addicted to communicating (*cough* tweeps *cough*), many others somehow don't seem able to handle all these incoming communications, and disregard an X percentage of them, X being.....high ;).

It also seems to me that more and more people do not contact friends by themselves, but wait. And when they are invited to something, they don't reply. So what they seem to be waiting for, I have no idea. But taking initiatives doesn't appear to really bear fruit these days. Thinking of and organising something fun to do with a group of friends takes some time and effort, but it doesn't seem to pay off anymore.

Let me illustrate this with an example: when I invited over 10 people for a fun outing that wasn't that expensive and which I offered well in advance so people would actually be able to come, only three people replied, of which two said they couldn't make it for some reason or other. Now, if people don't want to - or can't - go and give me a reason, I get it. Maybe I should have planned it differently or something. But what I cannot get my head around is 50-80% of people generally not replying at all. And these are not strangers disregarding some newsletter they're not interested in, but friends who are invited to do something fun. I don't even know if they even read the message, but I'm assuming they do, since people may often be lazy, irresponsible and rude, but they are curious. It's human nature. So assuming they read the invitation, they must think it too much of an effort or too hard somehow (may I please sigh?) to reply in one or two sentences explaining why they can't come.

This strikes me as a degradation of human communications and extremely off-putting to organisors. Me being someone who likes and feels the need to organise things (as hardly anyone else seems to), I've been wondering a lot if I should continue to try. On occasion enough people respond to actually do something together, albeit with a smaller group than I had in mind, so it's not as if every attempt is in vain, but when you organise something, you want it to be rewarding, with the ultimate reward naturally being a amazing outing with a group of great people, producing memories to cherish, the culmination of your efforts.

Obviously it does not feel very rewarding to me, hence my dilemma: should I keep trying and probably fail more often than not, or should I give up and hope that maybe someone else gives it a shot (probably also feeling that (s)he will have to do it because no one else will)?

Something else I've been wondering about is: then what is it that these people do?? Since they never appear to have time. Do they have some secret club of friends I don't know about? Or (more likely) do they just spend time with a select few people who are easiest to meet with (living close by, etc.) so it can be done with minimal effort?

This seems to be the key phrase here: minimal effort. It seems that modern communications are making people lazier than ever. Almost daily I am stunned by how passive and inert people have become. Would it be different without modern communications? I don't know. Walking places for a lack of phones or an Internet connection as opposed to chatting on MSN seems quite active to me, but then again, I use modern communications all day long and I do always reply to invitations (even to say no) and make an effort to keep in touch with people. So maybe it's just natural for most people to be lax, and not bound to these modern times, as I've been suggesting, but if that's so, I think it's amazing humans have ever accomplished anything.