I disagree. He is not relationship material, at least for an adult woman. He’s demonstrating the emotional maturity of a six-year-old.
And again, I don’t consider lying and blame-shifting to be mistakes. They are deliberate choices. I’m guessing he would only think it’s a mistake because he got caught.
For the rest of his life? No. For right now? Yes.
A mistake and deliberate choice are not mutually exclusive. Where on earth did you get the idea that they were? Presumably from your mature lovers.
I’m deeply amused that you had to go back to edit an insult in.
To me, sending the text to the wrong person was a mistake. It wasn’t what he meant to do.
Implicating his girlfriend was precisely what he meant to do. He didn’t mistakenly implicate her. It wasn’t an accident or a slip of the tongue. He didn’t mistype or mistext or otherwise goof.
He just lied and got caught.
I’m not really interested in playing the personal insult game, but whatever works for you in an argument. I’m not sure where I’m being dishonest.
You said the guy can’t make a single mistake (even if it’s big) without everyone saying he’s not relationship material.
I said it’s not one mistake, and that two of them are important. One is a demonstration of poor decision making, and the other is a demonstration of a serious lack of maturity. I think both are factors I’d use in determining whether that person is someone capable of handling a serious relationship.
You said "I honestly do not think that every person who does something on par with accidentally sending an insulting text to his superior should have his s/o question whether that person is “‘relationship material.’” I guess if you take that incident in isolation, without the surrounding events, I might agree with you. But of course, that isn’t the reality of the situation put forth in the OP. I’m saying that all of the mistakes (and we can disagree on the number of them) together are fair game for evaluating someone’s ability to handle a serious relationship.
I hear cow tippers make great lovers.
Allow me to preface by saying I agree with the dumping of B.
However, allow me also to point out a significant error on the part of Miss So-and-So:
In the corporate world, Miss So-and-So contacting a co-worker (S) who is not her supervisor and not involved in the case to vent about this would be seen as a code of conduct violation, and would probably have got her called on the carpet as well.
The mature ones, sure.
I took issue with the implication that I was saying “nothing your SO does, no matter how foolish, rates with you unless it has some direct and material impact on you.” To imply so was either dishonest (cause it’s not what I said) or dumb (cause it’s obviously not what I said). It was also unreasonable, hyperbole. I am willing to accept that it was a mistake.
I work in the corporate world. That’s simply not a rule at all. May be so were you work, but is is not universal.
Glad I could amuse you by editing my post (I did it again here to give you another thrill); though, I don’t share your sense of humour.
Your defintion of mistake is at odds with common usage. Intentional acts are often later described as mistakes.* The decision to lie was the mistake. How many other words do you keep your own definition for? Does it often result in poor communication?
*For example, M might break up with B because someone on a message board told her to. Years later, she might determine that her intentional decision to break up with B was a mistake.
The mistake was that the text went to the wrong phone number. The decision to air his feelings about the supervisor in that manner AND to not bother to be careful about where it was going was, in my opinion, foolish. Hence my analogy about making other foolish choices.
Since you don’t seem to think his decisions regarding the text were foolish, the analogy isn’t apt in your eyes. That doesn’t make me dishonest or dumb, but looking over your other posts in this thread, I don’t really expect to change your mind about that. Regardless, I’m still not sure how either the foolishness or the mistake isn’t pertinent to the OP’s feelings about this guy’s maturity, and, consequently, his ability to maintain a relationship.
Or you two are using different meanings of the word “mistake” - unintentional act, and error in judgment. B has done both, taking the story at face value. Texting to the wrong person was an unintentional act (whole bean’s suggestion to the contrary notwithstanding). Telling a lie about who did the texting was an intentional act that probably will turn out to be an error in judgment.
Roddy
This is the only incident we have any knowledge of. The OP says she is(was) crazy about this guy. Assuming we give her some credit – that this guys hasn’t been pushing over old ladies and stepping on cats’ tails and she just hasn’t noticed - then based on the first “mistake” (the text), no I think he gets a bit of a pass. Now, the attempt to shift blame is troublesome, but the only person participatign in this thread who knows anything more than this is the OP, yet people who are unqualified to make conclusions about B are not letting that stop them.
I have never suggested to the contrary.
Ah, sorry, I mis-read your post the first time.
No worries, as you seem to understand the point – still I am not using a different definiton. I recognized that a mistake can be unintentional. jsgodddess, however, uses the term to the exclusion of intentional acts. This is at odds with usage.
Golly. There’s a shocker.
To clarify –
B, Miss So-and-So, and S all work in the same fire company. B is outranked by Miss So-and-So, who is in turn outranked by S. S is one of the most senior members and is greatly respected. Aside from that, S is also a close, personal friend of mine and its known that I stayed at his home for several months. Both S and Miss So-and-So also know that I dated B.
So after speaking to B and hearing from him that I had texted her, Miss So-and-So calls up S. He doesn’t believe that I would do what B claimed, so calls me to find out the truth.
When B lied, he either didn’t think about or didn’t care that it would eventually get back to S, and that it might make me look bad to him. As I’ve said before, I value my relationship with S. That B would try to shift blame to me to escape punishment and possibly jeopardize my friendship with S infuriates me. Do I hate B? No. I didn’t hate him even immediately after finding out what had happened. Am I saddened and disappointed and hurt? Yes. I don’t think he’s mature enough for a relationship, at least not a relationship with me.
Whoo, I’m glad there’s only one person with whom I exchange texts regularly, so I’m less likely than soon-to-be unemployed firefighter to send the wrong text to the wrong person.
OTOH, I’ve been known to get a bit snarky about co-workers in ways that could be traced back to me if one really wanted to, but all that is in the far distant past. I want to state for the record that I love everyone unreservedly. Especially my bosses.
See?
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