I somehow made it this far assuming that I am decent to good company for most people and its come as a mild surprise to me in the past 6 months that this is not an opinion shared unanimously by the world. Somehow, along the way, every last person I’ve stayed with has not loved our communal experiences as much as I have. At first I couldn’t grasp this. But its sunken in. And I think I understand it now. I had grown accustomed to the notion that people all hate the same negative characteristics; ergo, people hate selfishness, temper tantrums, dishonesty and all that. And of course people love honesty, humour, generosity. I figured if you followed these guidelines, you were covered. And these may hold true but underneath it all, deep down, people are more complicated than that and by complicated I mean much more simple than that. People like people who do as they do. That is all. If somebody recycles, they want you to recycle. If they don’t, they don’t want to listen to your grand tales of recycling bottles. Sure, a person may recognize your positive qualities as good but if it’s something they don’t do, and it could even be something so small that it’s negligible to you – it could annoy them. And so I’ve deduced that the important factor in live-in relationships is not to do the right thing as a rule, but to do the right thing for that specific situation. I had not noticed this before because I tend to just worry about steering the mighty SS Siddharth through these choppy waters. Perhaps all the while, I should have checked the waters instead of the vessel. Down periscope!
Now, I’m not a Yes Man by any means and I would welcome any dialogue about what’s important in a domicile but the fact is that some minds (landowners among them usually) are done changing. They have their settings on lock and you don’t know the password. You may even somehow change them one day! Yay! But alas, they’ll revert back to their true form like a dog-eared page in a damp old novel. Creatures of habit. And our habits make up our daily lives while our principles remain invisible. All this is to say that leaving the toilet seat up two nights in a row may find the returning war hero sleepless on the old couch. Internal values and morals are just that, internal. Although they can be admired or argued, they’re not presented and displayed visually each day as external qualities are time and again. Cleanliness, helpfulness, eagerness. These are the pitfalls that befall me!
I stand there aglow, secure in the fact that I steadfastly try to do the right thing. I reach for the fridge door and begin to absent mindedly rummage for food – all the while ignoring and navigating the sour stench of chinese noodles from last Tuesday.
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