“You’re emotional!
You’re too sensitive!
You’re too distant!
You’re too different, why can’t you be like all people?
What, darling, do you think you’re special?
You’re too conceptual!
You’re too demanding!
You’re too complicated! Too difficult!”
Here are some of the statements I’ve heard over and over. I’m sure we’ve all heard all sorts of these statements. We probably need to tag others so that we can then understand them, so that they make sense to us. We don’t understand them, of course, we just put a label on them to make it easier for us to navigate our existence.
It’s like when we were in elementary school and put labels on notebooks so we could find them easily. Or how grandmothers used to put colored labels on jars of jam so they’d be easy to spot in the winter in the cold, dark pantry.
But people are more complex than jars of jam or those notebooks. Quite often first impressions are not necessarily the best. In English there is an expression: ‘jumping to conclusion’, which seems to me to be very close to ‘jumping to confusion’.
People take satisfaction in finding our vulnerability or looking for one, making it up. Then they throw words in our faces, sometimes as if they are deliberately trying to hurt us. It’s as if, if they hurt us, they get up on themselves.
It’s only the nerve, the meanness that makes us decide we’re above others. Superficiality, weakness, make us behave maliciously towards others.
Here are some other “labels” that many of us have put on ourselves or heard:
If you’re young, you don’t know much;
If you’re over 40, you’re outdated, obsolete;
If you’re an Eastern European woman, you’re only interested in how to attract men;
If you are a single woman, you definitely have some “bugs in your head”, otherwise it doesn’t explain why you’re not married / in a relationship.
It’s hard to ignore the labels others put on us, but it’s essential to strive to put them aside and take every opportunity to learn.
Sometimes we are lucky enough to have a friend who is honest with us or even supportive when we are not around.
But it is sad when we have no one around us to protect us.
It doesn’t matter how many friends you have, but how they are. Sincere friends defend you when you’re not around, they care about you. If you don’t have them, it’s like being alone.
Finally, I’d like to sound an alarm:
Let’s be careful not to put labels on ourselves, not to be our own enemies! There will always be “do-gooders” around to fill that role.