I used to hate it when my mother or my sister would tell me certain things relating to my hygiene. If either of them would tell me that I needed to have a bath, of to use deodorant, or to brush my teeth, I'd be particularly offended. It didn't help that they didn't try to be subtle in how they said it; in fact, they could be so direct it would just hurt. But at the end of it, mommy would ask, "Nuh betta me tell yuh dan yuh fren' outta street?"
It was years after that I came to terms with what she was saying. Sure, it may hurt to hear these negative things about yourself, but who better to tell you than your own family? You can correct the problem and then nobody else will ever know there was a problem to begin with.
As you go out into the world, you find that the philosophy applies just the same, but more with friends than with family. Many of us choose to play the hypocrite- think up a warranted criticism, but say nothing about it, or say it to a third party. I specifically use the word 'choose' because, regardless of our reason, non-disclosure is non-disclosure, no matter how you look at it. You may not want to hurt the person's feelings, or you may want to avoid an argument, but it's still non-disclosure.
I guess that makes me a hypocrite. I have a few problems to that effect regarding friends of mine, and I can't get myself to say something, despite the faact that I'm generally very upfront about my feelings. I have a friend with a terrible body odour (at the end of the day, at least), but I've never been able to bring myself to say something. I have another friend who, quite frankly, talks too much sometimes. Still, I remain silent. But then I ask myself, if I had a bad odour, or was a little to talkative/abrasive, wouldn't I want to know that people think that way? If my driving sucked, wouldn't I wanna know before the accident? If I shouted a lot, wouldn't I wanna know before my friends started going deaf? And the answer is 'yes'. I would.
Truth be told, not everybody cares, but I do, and I'm sure most of my friends do as well. So if there's a problem, why hold back? I mean, who better to tell you than your own friends?
4 comments:
My family is very open with sharing those comments so I was/am used to it. Better them than those a road is what I surmised. But now I don't have a prob with those a road commenting. Of course preference is for friends not strangers and in a nice way not insultive. Surprising?!
MMM, interesting one. Send my comments via email please ;)
Hmmm, true, true, but it's kinda hard sometimes. Years ago was working at this place where this girl had a little odour problem. Everyone was chatting her and I was quite annoyed with them cuz I thought they should have said something. Anyway, decided that I will and thought that the fact that I truly didn't detect anything, I would be the best person to tell her cuz I could genuinely say "I don't smell anything but...." Well, told her and the girl bawled down the place and then I looked like the bad guy(girl). All the other hypocrites who were chatting and didn't tell her came down on me, asking why I went and made her cry by telling her. Since then, I've been kinda hesitant about that sort of thing. Dam if you do, dam if you don't.
I had a few incidents where trying to help people backfired. Been slightly hesitant since, but I realise I may feel much worse if I don't say something and the resulting reality is less than pleasant( to whatever degree).
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