For around twenty years or so, I have been attending the Henri Davd Ball. Some of the costumes there are magnificent and incorporate materials that easily cost several thousand dollars.
Unfortunately, my Tomorrow Knight costume (which I revised and updated several times) was before I had a digital camera of any kind. Being broke and a miser, I had to take public transportation to the ball. Some parts of my costume were too large, or obscured my vision too much to wear on public transportation. So, I while I was wearing parts of the costume, I put the rest of it on in the lobby. Some people did have digital or other cameras. At least a dozen separate people stopped and asked if they could take my picture- before I had even put on the entire costume!
The third and final time I wore my Tomorrow Knight costume, I narrowly lost in the Most Spectacularly Amazing category to somebody in a praying mantis costume. I was consoled when after the contest was finished, a stranger came over to me and said “You were robbed!”
When dogs really like me. And someone says, ‘Gee, he’s not usually like this with strangers!’ Or when others notice, “dogs seem to really like you!” It’s true, they do. It happens to me often. I can think of no higher compliment, it makes my whole day!
When someone acknowledges one of my replies on a SDMB thread, and it’s not to tell me I’m wrong.
So many times I read a reply further down from mine, saying what I’ve said, with no mention that I’ve said it. Or I’m quoted just to tell me I’m wrong or left something out of what I hoped would be a succinct reply.
It’s nice to know people are actually consuming thought by and acknowledging each other on this board. I make a point to read and reply directly if warranted, and if a thread is too long for me to bother to read all the replies, I don’t even bother.
I’m not talking about anything @P-man said. I’m talking about the question @The_wind_of_my_soul asked. They asked if a teacher really feels special for being liked by kids, given that the kids probably like a lot of teachers. I was clarifying for the poster that a person can feel special because they are liked and that they don’t need to be quantitively better liked than all those other loser teachers before it’s okay to feel special.
And yes, I will stand by the statement that it’s not a good thing to need to be liked more than other people in order to feel special or important. The only way to make that happen is to undercut or damage other relationships, or to make it clear to those that like you that if they are hurting you if you aren’t their #1.
This behavior puts weird and distorting pressure on other people. And it’s especially awful when children are put in a position where they realize that one grandma needs to be the favorite grandma, or that one of their friends is resentful that they also have another friend, or that their math teacher needs to hear not just that he’s cool, but that all the other teachers are lame compared to him and he’s the only one that keeps it real.
This dynamic does happen, and it hurts kids. It’s something anyone who works with kids needs to guard against. If you get a thrill that this year’s group seems to like you better than they like that other lady, the feeling isn’t wrong, but it needs to be examined and processed and rejected, not treasured.
Frankly, it boggles my mind that anyone would think a teacher getting a thrill that they are the most popular teacher is an okay thing. Sure, yes, that emotional reaction may occur, but it should be a signal to the teacher that they need to do some work on themselves, not an endorphin high to be chased. It hurts kids.
ETA: And to be clear, @P-man didn’t say anything like this. He just said that he likes it that kids in all grades say hi to him. It was the other posted who asked if a person could really feel special if they weren’t better liked by more kids than other teachers.
I’m not an expert in anything, but I’ve learned a few things over the years, especially in my profession. I don’t think I have an inflated ego, but it does make me feel good when someone asks me for advice.
And I was. I apologize for giving you, @MandaJo, a hard time. In fact, I could not make any sense out of @The_wind_of_my_soul 's post to @P-man, especially since they had no response to the people talking about pets, which seems like the same kind of thing (my pets love me, but everyone’s pets love them). I’m still not sure your interpretation of what @The_wind_of_my_soul was saying is actually what they meant, but it hangs together, which is better than anything I came up with. So never mind, if possible.
You’re right, the pets thing wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. What I was looking for was situations where someone loving you or wanting to be around you is not inherently part of the relationship. To be fair, not all spouses or children or pets are happy to see you when you get home, but that usually indicates an unhealthy relationship or larger problem. On the other hand, when you look at a relationship such as classmates or fellow church members or people you run into at a gym, there is no expectation that these people ought to appreciate your company, so it feels “special” when you see signs that they do.
I think P-man’s answer fits the spirit of my question. I questioned it because, not being a teacher, I wasn’t sure how much a child’s reaction to seeing a teacher expressed a typical “healthy” relationship with a teacher as opposed to showing affection where none is expected. But I imagine a child is only expected to show respect to a teacher, and running over to give a hug would, indeed, cross over into the realm of special.
ETA: Someone else’s pet liking you is the sort of thing I’m looking for, though. Just not your own.
I remember a comedian (maybe Paula Poundstone? I know she had cats…) talking about that special feeling when your cat walks up to you and rubs their face on you, like they’re saying “I love youuu…” Then they walk over to the kitchen table and rub their face on a table leg. “I love youuu…”
When I have been over to someone else’s house enough times that I know the layout of their house. If I can walk into their kitchen and help myself to a glass of water because I know where they keep their glasses of water and their water filter, and I can find a second bathroom to use if the first one is occupied, that means the person likes and trusts me enough to invite me over to their house repeatedly.
I run races, and when you run enough, you become part of a whole community of friends. But there’s one in particular I’m close with, to the point where other people will ask me where that friend is if she’s not at a race. When a whole group of people can recognize that you’re the one who’s most likely to know every detail of another person’s life and routine, that feels special.
I remember one time I went rock climbing with a group of friends who had all known each other for years. We went out to lunch together afterwards, and were sharing funny memories and anecdotes. I noticed that for one couple in particular, when they shared a story, my boyfriend and I had often been there at the time. In the cases where we weren’t, we already knew the story from the couple telling it to us previously. It was a nice feeling, because we were all friends there, but I definitely got the sense of an extra-special connection or friendship between me, my boyfriend, and this one other couple since we were such an integral part of one another’s lives.
What I was trying to say is that to a teacher, kids are not a monolithic mass. They are individuals. So maybe when Ms. Smith walks by, the students in her debate team wave and say “Ms. Smith kicks ass!”. And maybe when Mr. Jones walks by, the nerdy kids he talks DnD with between classes say “Hey”. And when Ms. Brown walks by, the moody, girls with no friends who she’s been trying to reach makes eye contact. All of those might make the teacher feel special. But if Mr. Jones’s pleasure at the DnD kids calling out to him is reduced or tainted because he sees the Debate kids are more engaged with Ms. Smith, he needs to get over himself.
One of the most impactful things I ever read growing up was a scene in Irene Hunt’s Up a Road Slowly (an otherwise unremarkable novel) when the protagonist pours out her heart to a random stranger because she feels marginalized by a new younger sibling, and rather than be sympathetic, she gets told that she needs to grow up and learn that you don’t have to be the most important person to someone in order to be important to someone. I think that did more to help my interpersonal relationships than almost any other single lesson.
My son died at the age of 30 from cancer 10 years ago. A few of his best friends text me every year on his birthday and on the anniversary of his death.
It makes my heart feel good that they haven’t forgotten him and that they are still thinking of me.
Oh man. That’s a tragic example but also a good one.
More generally speaking, I feel like in the age of social media, an awful lot of socializing consists of people reporting on themselves and their own experiences and accomplishments and expecting accolades. As a result, I’m rather impressed when I get together with someone and they remember details from my life and ask me about it, like “Did you pass that test you were studying for?” or something.
Even more impressive is when someone remembers something significant going on in my life and actually calls or texts me about it at the time, rather than waiting until the next time they see me, like wishing me luck on the first day of a new job or checking in on me to see how I’m doing after surgery. Or, as you mentioned, remembering the death of a family member and checking in with you.
My dog Jax makes me feel special. He just wants to be with me. When I was taking care of my mothers estate, I had a single size blow up bed. But my 65 lb dog wanted to sleep with me. On the bed. I weigh in at 225. It was… interesting. Got it to work. For short periods.
Lol my house is the opposite! I like to sleep alone so that I can move all over the bed, and my dog knows if she sleeps on the bed with me she’s likely to get kicked, and if she lies on the floor by my bed she’s liable to get hit by a pillow that falls off the bed when I kick it. So in our house my boyfriend, my dog, and I all sleep in separate rooms.
I don’t know if “special” is the right word for it, but it makes me feel something good that I finally get to sleep alone. My ex-husband and previous boyfriends all took it personally if I tried to do that.
Both my wife or I will leave the bedroom and sleep on the couch, maybe once a month.
If you can’t sleep, a change sometimes gets it to work. Helps if you have a very comfy couch.
If my wife does it, she will be joined by our other dog.
Anyway, we are kind of odd, in bed by 9pm up at 3am. Work allows us to adjust our hours quite a bit. I often take 2 hour lunches to run errands. Everything became much more relaxed after COVID.