I’ve been working through some issues with a coworker. He doesn’t know me and has been reading my emails such that he believes I think don’t respect him, or “think he is stupid.” It has been a frustrating experience, but I’ve been learning from it; particular how to deal with people who tend to get angry easily.

On the commute home the other night it got me thinking about experiences with people I’ve dated where they got angry and directed it at me for small things.

In Chapter 10 of We are Become Pals, by the A Softer World folks, one of the main characters says something rude to someone and “The hurt on her face was so sudden and so unexpected.” I seem to always remember Z getting upset with me when we ran a ride light on bicycles together once because I didn’t leave enough room for her to avoid riding over a man-hole cover. In other circumstances, it could have been slick. If we had stopped to check for traffic, it would have been a slower situation. Under the circumstances, it was fine, but her anger hurt. I really loved her and that hurt. This wasn’t an isolated incident. Mostly, I opened up, then was severed, and what had been cautiously advanced began flailing widely.

I had similar experiences with M; such a period of feeling hurt in retrospect.

My cousin Sierra had lunch with me today as she passed through Seattle. We spent some time discussing the fallacy that life is simple and that everyone is just making the wrong choices because they’re stupid. I give much room for everyone being different and having lived their own individual lives. Still, I don’t pretend to understand it, and I’ll only postulate so far as to their reasoning. Even then, for only so far. I feel incredibly fortunate to have finally fallen in love with someone who is openly and willingly emotionally introspective and available. To some degree it is finally being in the same place as well. Some activities, like tracking down people who have checked out from the reality that I live in, remind me how lucky I am to have that.