How can someone tell if someone’s action was spontaneous or calculated?
I hear people label others’ actions as calculated, all the time. But, somehow I cannot tell at all. I almost always assume what people do is spontaneous. Maybe it’s because I’m a spontaneous person myself.
Sometimes you can’t tell. You have to consider the totality of the circumstances, and whether there’s circumstantial evidence to support your conclusion. I also think about what I know about that person, and whether he is the type to be spontaneous or not. (My brother, for example, is the epitome of spontaneous. I’m always shocked when he does something that demonstrates forethought. He is more the type to show up for Christmas and ask if there’s any wrapping paper he can have so he can wrap the presents he bought on the way over.)
But, truthfully, you also have to decide why (or if) you care. There have been times when someone’s done something, and since I haven’t cared why they did it, just that they did it, I haven’t tried to figure out whether it was spontaneous or planned.
There might be a situation where someone said something hurtful, and I might forgive them if they’d blurted it out without thinking, but be more angry if I thought it was something they’d been stewing on for a while.
Or if someone gave me a gift, I would consider it more thoughtful if they’d planned it for a while, rather than if they realized on the way to my house, “Oh crap, it’s Podkayne’s birthday! Gotta get something!”
As for being able to figure out which is which, I’m a bit socially tonedeaf, so I don’t have any advice. I guess you could just ask, and then assess whether you thought they were telling the truth.
Oh, but if it’s not your birthday, then it is mega extra thoughtful. “Hey, saw this, thought of you.”
My SIL doesn’t pee without calculating the trajectory first. The few times she blurts something out you can tell simply because she immediately goes beetlejuice red, whether it was an appropiate thing to say or not. She’ll see a kid, say “what a cute baby!” and paf, blush the color of the rising sun.
I have made very few actions in any aspect of my life that were’nt calculated. That’s the way I am. My husband has compared me to a Russian missle sub driver—he don’t take a dump without a plan.( Hunt fot Red October)
I don’t think anyone who doesn’t know me well would call me calculating and I do take responsibility for my actions. Even those who do know me well say I am a planner and the little GirlScout of the group—always prepared. This makes me very nice to travel with—I have wetwipes!
Most of the time, when I hear someone’s actions described as “calculated” or someone described as “calculating” it means that the person has ulterior motives – I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used to mean simply “planned” or “deliberate” (or the opposite of “spontaneous”).