This entry reads more like an actual journal than an FR, whatever.
One of the girls I met early on into the community is leaving the country in a couple days, and she invited me to her going away BBQ. She's somebody I always had fun with, but never had a vibe with and never sexually escalated with.
The BBQ was fun, when I came in, I just took over the room and had everybody laughing within a few seconds (like 5 or so people), and then just slowed down and chilled while more people filtered in and out. It was good to see her again, got some fun pictures together and met one of her very hot friends. Perhaps I'll see her out on the town. I'll miss this girl a little bit.
After that I went over to a friend's birthday party. Decided to do a little drinking and just make loud commentary to the olympic opening ceremony that we were all watching. We made a pseudo drinking game out of it, and it's the hardest core drinking game imaginable because you only get to play it every four years. Pretty hilarious stuff.
Some more people showed up and I just did the social butterfly thing, flitting around and just having fun. The cutest girl at the party, still not that cute, shows up and we start talking, blah blah blah, she says something about her fiance, almost in the same breath as telling me she's "almost 19" and I just stood up and said "good night" and walked away. I'm very opinionated when it comes to people getting married so young, but I have to realize that it is what it is, and my next action with this girl was certainly not one that came from a core value of loving acceptance. I had already pissed her off a little, but I ended up sitting a couple feet away from her talking to a friend of mine, and I don't know how it came up but I said something like "at least I'm not getting married at 19" and she just flipped the fuck out. Rightly so. Wrong move, me. This is not the person I want to be, or the person I am. However in my somewhat drunk state I wasn't monitoring my communication and holding myself to my values and standards. There is no reason to be spreading a negative vibe and to just be a dick because somebody is making a decision I don't agree with.
I left shortly thereafter and went home to play Wii with my housemates.
This next part isn't "the field" in the traditional sense, it's at work. When I work, I'm a very compliant, upbeat, positive guy. I believe I'm there to get the job done, and I don't care who you are or what you ask me to do, as long as you're polite, I have no problem doing it. Unfortunately, some people like to mistake this "get the job done compliance" for me being a bitch. And unfortunately, until yesterday, I let them treat me like one. At my last job there was a higher standard for the people who worked there and the kind of behavior that is acceptable, as such I was treated as one of the top guys in my department with this same kind of behavior. At my present job, the mentality is to do as little work as possible without getting in trouble, so if there's something to be done (and since I'm so willing to get the job done) it's like "hey, lets get Dasani to do it while we sit on our thumbs." This was not a problem until a couple weeks ago. These guys I work with, N and A, are addicted to anger and have no idea where their states come from or how affected they are by it. When they're angry, there is nothing I can do right.
Actually I'm going to save most of this for my actual journal, here is the meat. Suffice it so say I had been treated like a bitch for a couple weeks by this point, and when I'm trying to be upbeat and positive, these kinds of things really tear at me because I've done nothing to deserve it.
A was gone, it was me, N, and the older guys in the shop. I'm doing one job and N is bringing me the material to do it, kinda like a bucket line. He is not getting me the material fast enough, and had previously bitched at me for not doing the same (they had a huge surplus so I stood for a moment and fiddeled with my ipod "Dasani, too much standing, get us more" in a tone of "jesus you always do this, I'm trying so hard to be nice but you're just so difficult" when this was my first "offense" of the day.
Everybody is standing around, he is texting, and he says "Dasani, go get some more bricks." For once I am not listening to music and I'm not in a negative state (at work), I respond calmy, from a state of understanding what is going on, "Ok I will, but what are you going to do while I'm doing that?" he says something to the effect of "it doesn't matter, do what I tell you, go get some bricks." I say, calmly, I'll get back to work when he does. He starts getting pissed off and I started feeling his anger and letting it take over me. This guy had been walking over me for weeks, and I was about to show him I had fangs too.
He starts going off, so I treated him like a roudy bitch in a set. I turned away from him and started teasing one of the older guys, "J! What did you do to N! Is he always like this or did you say something mean to set him off!" With a playful tone and smile. J starts laughing, as does the rest of the group, except N of course. He tries to say something, I cut him off, theres a few lines of dialog I don't remember, and then I say something like "you've got such a great attitude N, you know what, we should hang out. Lets go sing Karaoke, I like that!" everybody is confused by this nonsensical response and starts laughing, N is tooled. I get back to work and allow myself to smile, hell I had even tooled him through my value of loving acceptance. If he wanted to go sing I gladly would have! I had a lot of adrenaline going, and it took conscious effort to keep from shaking. I knew N would retort, I was just waiting.
He comes back by insulting the way I work, telling me I don't do anything right, and how I just sit around and do nothing. I could have explained to him that he and A make a conscious effort to exclude me from jobs a lot of the time so that they can feed their anger addiction by getting upset at me for not working, but he was emotional and I really felt no need to justify myself to anybody there. They all know I work hard. I admit, sometimes I'm like a car without a driver and I need direction or orders, but tell me what to do and I get the fucking job done, and well.
He continues insulting, I shoot some jabs back but never sink to that level. I just let him fume and get pissed off. Mostly I just talked to the other guys and got them laughing and having a good time, one of the older guys directly complimented me in front of N, "dude, I just dig your sense of humor." Next time, I'll immediately frame his behavior as insecure, so that if he continues it, he is only adding strength to my position. Not sure how to do this exactly, maybe something like "I read somewhere that deeply insecure and unhappy people have a propensity toward anger and emotional outbursts." Of course I don't usually speak that articulately, but something to that effect. First thing out of his mouth will be "I'm not even angry, I just don't like you" or something like that, so I'll cut him off with "cool man." and get back to work. God being unreactive in a situation like this, where somebody is attempting to cut you down in front of your superiors (on the job) and is actively trying to damage you, when you're not in a club or a bar already having a good time, is so hard!!
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