Rain on their Parade

Call me simple but most of the time I don’t get pettiness. It looks like a waste of energy to me and it’s so projective. I’ve often wondered what’s in it for the person that behaves like that and I’m left rather nonplus as to the reason why they’d pursue that line of behaviour for so long and for so little return.

I think pettiness is like a malaise; it clouds our thoughts and from time to time, there are some among us who allow such thoughts to invoke a deluge of torrential rain that often leaves them perplexed as to why it’s always raining on their parade. Ahem! Hullo!

I don’t mean to sound hard-nosed in saying that, it’s just that I don’t understand that kind of thinking. To me it’s wonky and needs a readjustment, some fine tuning or just a mate, who’ll get along side of them and say, “It’s difficult to be around you because of the way you’re behaving right now. I feel bad when you talk like that about someone I also know and have a friendship with”. That said, it’s usually enough to bring the person up short and I have to say, it takes courage to say those things to a friend. It takes even more courage to say it to an acquaintance.

An acquaintance? Sure. I’ve met people I’ve only met for 5 minutes who believe they have a license to speak from a place of pettiness about someone else in the room. Personally, I find that kind of brazenness off-putting. It’s an “I feel slimed” moment that I‘d prefer to stay apart from. Ridiculous response on my part? Maybe, I guess you had to be there to understand it or maybe if you’re reading this and you’ve experienced it, you’ll just know what I mean. It’s not a nice situation.

So what is it that people who go down this path of pettiness get from it? Is it about ego? Does it feel good? What possible good could come from such a miserable act of parsimonious spite? I guess that’s why I prefer people who are direct. At least you never feel like you’ve been blind-sided. They’re always pretty straight-up about where they’re coming from and I can appreciate that quality on a person.

Have I ever been petty? Never intentionally. What could I ever hope to gain from it? But I will say I can and do get peeved by another person’s small-minded behaviour but never enough to want to say things about them behind their back. If it was important enough, I would say it to them and definitely out of ear-shot of a crowd. I would at least show that amount of respect for them as a fellow human being. It’s complex life isn’t it. And we’re complex creatures too. Such an understatement.