Difficult People

I have been reading and came upon some articles regarding difficult people and dealing with them. Quite an interesting source of information. The book is called Dealing with Difficult People by Roy Lilley.

I have not read the entire thing as the link I came across was only a sample of a few pages from the entire book. Read those few sentences was already enough for me to agree with him.

I will see if I can remember what I wrote. Roy wrote, that there are not many people in the world that truly care about you. How we treat people is merely a product about how we feel about each other. Difficult people do not care about you at all. They only care about themselves in a big way. Roy also gave a strong and compelling statement that difficult people are predictable people. This is the part which caught my full attention and I have to tend to agree. I would like to especially focus on the predictable part.

Some people get pissed off when it is indicated of how predictable they are. I can understand that they do not like it when people come up to them claiming that their actions can be read as if they are some sort of programmed robot with no free will. As if their lives' events are all known by you. That is perfectly understandable. However my inquiries on this; why do they feel offended if in fact it was true that they are so set in their ways, refusing to change, not caring about others? If they did not care about others why would they be affected by how people perceive them? Could it be that they just hate the fact that their actions have been figured out by people? Another thing to point out, I am talking about when you see a person who indubitably repeats his/her actions and reacts the same way everytime certain events happen. I am not talking about people you hardly know and then labeling them predictable.

There are some who will use the 'reason' that humans are creatures of habit. Personally I think it is a cop out. I see it as 'effective' as people who say 'I cannot change my [enter trait here]. I am born that way.' Is that not in itself ironic? That the person hates it when other people say they are predictable as if their life's course has been figured out and predetermined, when their defense is that they are created that way implying the inability to change?

Well you may have predicted as to why I brought this subject up. Obviously I encountered this experience today where somebody got irritated that when I said it was to be expected while waiting for that person's answer regarding his decision. I got a few statements back which consisted of

1. that person did not like being read like a piece of literature
2. that humans are creatures of habit
3. that people of the similar mindset would do the same to me

Hence the reason why my first few paragraphs above. What I chose not to bring up to that person in my form of response was that I put up with that person's behavior as well, only that I do not have a pole stuck up me and choose to let it slide. Which in turn brings back to the case where being nice does not really prevail. People will just step all over you.

If a girl got stood up by a guy after a few times, the girl would surely wise up and expect/predict the guy not to show up in the future arrangements to meet up. Is she wrong for predicting the person to not show up? Is she wrong for expecting the person not to show up? I think she should just not bother to arrangements of meeting up with the guy anymore to save time and energy. Some may say the girl is foolish to keep making arrangements to meet up with the guy despite the repetition of events.

Those of you who are so set in your ways, I hope you are happy where you are.