What People Really Think

It's always interesting to find out what people really think of you. Most of the time, we only find out what people really think of us during an argument with that person, or through the gossip of a mutual friend or family member. People very rarely tell you what they really think of you right to your face. And if they are telling you what they "think" of you, and not what they really think of you, they are probably only telling you the nice, positive things.

Most of the time, we express our negative thoughts or opinions about someone because we want to hurt them, or because we are responding to some negative thought or opinion they directed at us. Very rarely do these negative thoughts or opinions come out in a productive, calm discussion, which is aimed at bettering your relationship. It reminds me of a time when I was in a very nasty argument with my friend Tom.

The argument started at our weekly Bible study, of all places. It began with a disagreement about whose responsibility it was to bring desert that day. Rediculous, right? It’s important to note here that Tom and I already had a pretty rocky “friendship”. We mostly tolerated each other because he was dating my roommate and we hung out with all the same people. As the argument escalated, Tom and I started taking shots at each other.

It turned into a back and forth. Each of us trying to find something more hurtful to say than the other person. We knew each other well and knew which buttons to push and how to prey on the other person’s weaknesses. We might as well have had swords or light sabers in our hands. It was a fight to the death and Tom won. I will never forget the last stab that Tom made. I will never forget the words he spoke. I will never forget how I felt physical pain when his words hit me.

A disagreement about whose turn it was to bring cheesecake ended with screaming and yelling, lots of profanity, slamming doors, and me speeding away from the gathering in a seething, tearful rage.

I remember feeling so amazed after Tom and I’s argument at the things he had said. It baffled me that someone who appeared to be my friend had so many awful, hateful things to say about me. Did he really think and feel all those things? What about the things I'd said about him? Were they true? Some were and some weren’t. We think a lot of things about people that we wouldn’t, under normal circumstances, say to their faces.

Arguments like this are so damaging, because they make you question everything that person has ever said to you or about you and vice versa. Apologies can be made later, in which you say things like, “I didn’t really mean what I said.” But if someone said that to me, my response would be, “You didn’t? Then why did you say it?” You have to question whether or not there’s a small grain of truth behind what was said. And even though you probably respond with, “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it,” it’s a lie. It’s not okay. I don’t know if you meant it or not.

I was never able to trust Tom again. We tried to be friends several times after that and it never worked. I haven’t spoken to him in almost a year. It would have been longer if I hadn’t seen him at a mutual friend’s wedding last summer.

“Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”
Proverbs 12:18

“They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their words like deadly arrows.”
Psalm 64:3

Cruel words are like arrows. Once you shoot out an arrow, you can never get it back. Just as encouraging words can give confidence to a man his entire life, discouraging words can beat a man down his entire life. Words can bring life or death. A sharp tongue is indeed a deadly weapon, capable of killing a person’s, confidence, self-worth, and even killing relationships themselves.

It's amazing to see how arguments can escalate. You start out telling your husband he's irresponsible for not cleaning up after himself, and ten minutes later you're screaming at him that you haven't trusted him since you caught him flirting with one of your friends at a dinner party last summer. How does it get from A to Q? Maybe it’s because whenever someone says something unpleasant about us, our response is to counter it with something unpleasant about them. This is really just a ploy to get the focus off of our flaws and failings and onto theirs. It works something like this:

"Oh, well you think I'm *insert unpleasant adjective or descriptive phrase here*, well I think you're *insert more unpleasant adjective or descriptive phrase here*!"

(Also related to "Oh, well I *insert something unpleasant you did here*, well don't forget about when you *insert something more unpleasant they did here*!")

I think the problem is that, instead of discussing things with our friends and family, we let them build up. Small offenses or slights get pushed below the surface. We tell ourselves it’s not that big of a deal or it’s not worth causing an argument. You may tell yourself you’re overreacting or just being silly. But then all these built up emotions, thoughts, and feelings explode at the most inconvenient times.

Whenever situations like this have happened to me, the one thing I wonder most often is, “Why didn’t you tell me you felt this way? If what I said about this or that made you feel that way, why didn’t you say something?”

It all just makes me wish people were braver. More honest. If you have a problem with someone, and it isn’t something petty, you should talk to them about it. Instead of waiting for an argument to throw it in their face.