So often we hear about people misunderstanding one another. My wife and I are perfect examples. I say the house is clean she say’s it is filthy, I see no dust she see’s every microbial particle…
At work, I say the human impact on the climate is going down an uncertain road. Other’s say the earth will repair itself!
I say po-tate-oh you say po-tah-toe…
How mush of your reality do you think closly matches the people you hang around with? Are you that much different?
Do you tend to stick with the norm of what people are doing? Or do you stay in your own fray?
I see we have bills to pay and savings to build, and a future to plan for, so controlling our daily expenses is a good idea.
What my wife hears: “Darling, I have brought you into a life of abject poverty.”
Another instance of same planet, different worlds: “I guess we’re poor people now, when we have to think about things like insurance.” Everything I said in followup, along the lines of how genuinely poor people would love to have insurance, was processed in her brain like “mu-mwhaa mu-mhwaa mu-mwhaa” in a Charlie Brown cartoon.
oh, wow. I live in a totally different reality from the people in my house.
It probably stems from the fact that the other adult is mentally ill and her perception of reality isn’t always accurate (i.e., I make a declaritive statement: “I’m going to bed now.” and that’s picking a fight; one or two of my chest hairs dropped onto the bathroom sink and missed my efforts to wipe them off because my contacts are out, and suddenly "the entire bathroom is covered in hair!)
And the kids are typical (?) pre-teen children of divorce with active imaginations.
I’m not saying that my perceptions are always 100 percent objective, though. But I don’t expect any realities to blend in the near future.
Well, I think you’re a witty and clever man, filled with charm and dazzlingly attractive!
I often get lost in my own imagination–listening to music, reading a good book, watching a DVD–to the extent that someone trying to get my attention will have to yank away the headphones / turn off the screen / make various aggravated noises / detonate a small nuclear bomb / and so on. My mind wanders off a lot.
Also, my parents constantly believe I’m late for things, which is of course an absolute and utter lie.
From my lips: “we have $10 in the bank account and need to get gas. Do not spend money.”
To his ears: “sure, go ahead and buy yourself a soda, some junk food and cigarettes, I will figure out how to cover the NSF fees.”
I’m not even going to go into his inability to answer a yes/no question in less than 45 words. Or his penchant for answering a question which requires descriptive words with yes/no. Seriously – WTF? We once had the following exchanges on the same day:
him: “we need toilet paper”
me (because we were very low on funds and he is a guy, so he thinks that having less than 6 rolls of TP in the house is a mortal sin): “do we have any toilet paper?”
him: “well, the last time I was in the bathroom, there was some in the holder…blah blah blah blah blah”
me (to myself): “so, that’s a yes…ok”
later the same day…
me: “how many rolls of toilet paper do we have?”
him: “no”
me: :dubious: “huh?”
him: “I said, ‘no’”
me: “uh, yeh, but I asked ‘how many rolls of toilet paper do we have?’ ‘no’ is not a number to which I have been introduced.”
him: “oh, I thought you asked if we had any other rolls than the one on the dispenser”
me: "kill me now, please?’
Of course I’m correct about everything, and others aren’t. Isn’t that what we’re all like on the inside? It’s the face and actions we project to the outside world that matters.
My reality is just fine between my ears. But I’m not about to tell you your’s isn’t any more real between your ears.
I love the brain stimulus that comes from debate, I often argue just for the sake of it…usually I pick the side I don’t agree with. My mate doesn’t play though.
I work in a nursing home. My reality rarely matches theirs (why just last week one of them demanded to know WHERE’S YOUR NOSE??!! and I can assure you I have a perfectly normal and reasonably obvious nose right there between my eyes and mouth) but I often wish that I could step right into their alternate reality and never leave.
My explanation that I missed the last train because on a station with at least twenty platforms they only managed to post on the board WHICH platform thirty seconds before the train pulled away must have got garbled as I spoke because the answer that I got was.
“oh picked up another woman last night did we?”
“No actually Ive just told you …”
“No no Im happy for you !are you going to spend the rest of your lives together or was she just a floozy?”
Me ,hungover and exasperated by now “Yes your right I did ,she was gorgeous and terrific in bed aswell,I might ring her later”
As soon as the words came out I knew that my irritation had sealed my fate .
Unwise I know but where the hell did adultery arise from missing a train.
And before you ask I genuinly did miss the train and spent the night sleeping on the floor of an armed services club.
Nice play on Adam Savage from Myth Busters. “I reject your reality and substitue my own”. I knew the game was up when the wife said “get me the ummm from the umm, next to the ummmm.” And I knew the wanted me to get the mop that was in the basement next to the freezer. Scary.
I will say I hate it when she cannot answer a simple question. I can ask if she has her watch on, She responds it is 5:45. I did not ask what time it was , I asked if she had her watch with her. (We were at the county fair and were going seperate directions to pursue our interests, I was trying to establish we could meet back at a certain place at a certain time, it was essential she had a way to know the time.) Quite literally, I did not care what time it was, I wanted to know if she had her watch. That was a few years ago. today it is even worse, If I want to know if she has a time piece on her, I have to ask “Do you have your cell phone?” And she will say “No Messages”. This is a fight I cannot win.
Oh my gawds! Is your wife my husband’s long-lost twin? I swear, I do not understand how that works. I will ask him what time he has to be at drill and he will answer “I need to take my extra tshirts” W. T. F? It’s like he has this whole other conversation going on in his head that he thinks we can hear, but we don’t. I am not kidding.
One of my best friends, someone I’ve know for 30 years, has developed a self-obsession best illutrated by Larson’s “What a dog hears” cartoon. In her case, the internal dialog would be “Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me”. It’s ironic how someone with such a “heart of gold” never fails put their own interests first.
We did this last night. I told my husband that my boss had asked me to come in early today, and continued with, “She asked me what time I wanted to come in, and I said,‘11:30’” (Regular start time is 10:00.) Then I told him I had said I’d be there at nine.
A couple hours later, in bed, he said, “So you have to be there at 8:30?” And then he got offended when I said I hadn’t mentioned 8:30 at any point. He’d heard me say it.
Judging from several of these instances, I really think he hears what he thinks I’m going to say. He hears part of the sentence and wanders off mentally into somewhere else.
