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See what happened? Poster #2 never had to respond to any good points and poster #1 gets spattered with the mud poster #1 threw. If we look at it as boxing match, poster #1 won rounds 1-14, but in the fifteenth round Poster #2 knocked him/her out.

Moderators might get to this before it gets out of hand, but it is irrelevant IF POSTER TWO REPLIES he “wins”.

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You are a blooming idiot.

That is an insult. There is no ay to tell about that person's body language, etc. Fortunately their is something we can do about that. They are not perfect, but help.

You are a blooming idiot.

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ORIGINAL: pixieunleashed

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I cannot "make" someone mad at me or insult them,

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To say that you aren't responsible for the damage you do by what you say or do is naive at best.

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You tell someone to their face in a totally honest way all the things that you dislike about them.. you aren't responsible for their hurt feelings?

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Your attitude mirrors my spouse's uncle's. He is one of the most self-centered individuals I have ever known

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It's her fault she allowed his greedy, self-absorbed actions to upset her. How silly of her.

Wow, thanks for responding back directly to me I didn't realize you did, otherwise I would've posted sooner. I think it is nice when people read what you write and respond back to you specifically. It gives a kind of validating feeling, even if someone disagrees with you, that what you wrote moved them enough to become pro-active and respond to you. And while given the emotional undertones of your posting, I don't think you were looking to elicit happy feelings from me, I chose to take you just posting back to me in a positive manner. You are not responsible for my happy mood. It is mine, my doing, however, since you are responsible for posting to me, and the posting flattered me, I say thank you for the posting anyway.

I agree with you, I am self-centered, according to me, I am the most important person in my life, and my world revolves around me. I hope that you are self-centered as well, and I hope everyone I know is.

Doormat personalities live their lives revolving around other people's happiness, never achieving their own, always waiting for someone else to make tlhem happy. The problem with this ideal is, that nobody can know what makes someone else happy. I cannot know what makes anybody happy or sad, or whatever, as I am not them, everything that comes to me, runs through my filters, and my own emotoinal responses. I can project what I see could make them happy, but I dont truley know. Even if I could step inside the other person and feel their emotions I still wouldn't know, because I would still be me.

Let's look at the traffic incident. Let's say, I am the person being cut off.

Someone cuts me off, I have a choice, first, to allow it. I can choose if I want to end this whole matter, and hit them, or I can choose to be defensive in my driving and swerve off the road. Lets say, because I value my life, I choose to swerve off the road. After the initial feeling of panic subsides, I have other choices. I can now choose to get angry at the rudeness of that person, "how dare they cut me off!!...etc.." and go into a cursing jag. ( just thought, that is some pretty self absorbed behavior right there as well, who am I to expect to not be cut off in traffic?) Anyway, I can also choose to revel in my awesome driving abilities, that I was aware enough to not be involved in an accident and I can be grateful to the person cutting me off for the wonderful opportunity to show off my surperb reflexes. No matter how I take this internally, the person that cut me off is still just thinking of getting to their destination and they don't care a whit about how I am feeling, they probably are unaware they cut me off in the first place.

Funny thing you should mention about telling people how you honestly feel about them, as I have just started doing that and am finding it very liberating. I have over this last summer, started telling people how I feel about them regardless of if it is positive or negative. I am compassionate about it and I do not use accusatory language that "blames" them. I have been thanked more than I have had negative responses since I started this. People that hear me openly critique them, or their performance, are grateful to me because I leave them a stepping stone, in which they can improve themselves.

Looking at you labeling your husband's uncle, reminds me of a saying, not sure if I made it up or if someone else did...Instead of calling someone something, you would have a truer statement if you say I am that something. People are just mirrors to ourselves. If you see your husband's uncle as greedy and self-absorbed, chances are, you see yourself that way also, maybe you have some feelings on that issue you have not quite finished with.

thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a great day,

pixie