My husband surprised me for my birthday, we just got back from vacation, I got a new job, I got these boots on sale, my family is doing fine, God spoke to me in a dream last night, I'm cooking a 4 course meal for my family tonight, I ran 2 miles yesterday, I lost 3lbs, yada, yada, yada!!! And for whatever reasons your girlfriend or your boy, I'm talkin' about your "good" friend seems to try to one-up-you at every turn. My husband use to try to refute me on this back in the day(s) but he more often than not would wind up saying, "babe, go with your first mind, if you think it's happening it probably is". Now this quote of his comes from me expressing to him when 'something just aint right' (lol, excuse my english) with somebody. I dont know ladies/men if this situation has ever happend to you and maybe not, maybe it's just me but I wanted to discuss this in a little more detail with some of you. So yes, I put this topic on fb and got some very interesting responses. Instead of people sayinig, "ouh yes, that's happend to me" I got alot of what to do about it. Now, I didnt really pose the topic to get suggestions on how handle it (although I appreciate the suggestions) however I wanted to just see if anyone has experienced this type of behavior with a girlfriend or for you men, with one of your boys. Or better yet, maybe you've been the one on the otherside of the "jealous" stick and maybe you were the one doing a little bit of the "one-upping". Okay, dont get upset with me, let's just be transparent for a moment, how many of you have, at one point in your saved, sanctified and never done anything to "ever" offend or hurt anybody lives, ever tried to out-do your friend, sister, mother-in-law, co-worker, neighbor......come on, any real folks out there;-)!? Well, I will be the first to say "YES, I have", but not the way you're thinking. I would be a straight up hypocrite to pose this topic and try to pretened that I have never done this to someone myself, I guess that's why game recognizes game, right.
Anywho, my experience was quite different. I can honestly say that I have always had a certain "genesequa" (lol, i'm kidding, I dont even really know what that means or if I spelled it right, it just sounded good to put right there-Lol) about myself. Or to yall regular folks, I've always been somewhat very confident in who I am, well not in my teen years but you know, as a grown woman. I've never really felt the need or desire to "one-up" anybody.....well, except in the case where I "knew" that that's what they were doing to me. It made me feel really stupid to "do unto others" in that instance but I couldnt contain it, the more this person one-up'd me, the more I fell into 'one-upping' them. It was one of the most ridiculous things I had ever done and I felt really stupid afterwards. Well, because of that incident I swore that I would never befriend much less hang around (not even for social purposes) anyone like that, it's just a weird feeling when someone is not genuinely happy for you and they feel they gotta either "put you down" or either "lift themselves up incredibly high" in order to make their lives seem more fascinating than it truly is. I think I genuinley "LOVE" my people, meaning anyone that I have had the pleasure of allowing in my circle and me in theirs and I cant, for 1 second, even think of playing them to the left when they tell me that their kid got all A's for the 5th straight year since he's been in school or that their husband surprised them with a wonderful vacation for their birthday and on and on and on. Why would someone want to steal someone else's thunder!?!? For example, people think I'm "crazy" because I dont talk about my kids at all at work or at the social mingle get-together or anywhere where my kids are not the usual topic of conversation. I ask folks about their kids and I can let you go on for hours and hours about them and I may interject once or twice and say something like, "yeah, bryce does that too" or "yeah, asia dosent really care for those either" but that's it, unless you're my "FAMILY" (in that case you can forget about it-Lol) but I dont feel the need to discuss my kids and how superbly great, exellent, beautiful and good they are when we "WEREN'T" talking about my kids. If someone asks me directly about them, I talk about them and if anything because I know how "SUPER-FANTABULOUS" (Lol, yeah right!) they really are, I down play anything that they do or are doing well. I dont know why, it's just not about me or my kids at that time. Now come to my parnets home or any of my family members houses and all you will hear is bryce and asia this and bryce and asia that but I do this with my "family" and very close friends of my family and not with folks I dont know like that. We were discussing "your" kids, "your" family, "your" trip, "your" shoes (you got on sale), "your" new home, "your" new job.....NOT ANYTHING ABOUT ME!
So I say all of that to ask this probably century old question, why the heck cant we just be "Happy" for one another!? Well I think I've figured out why, researches say that it has absolutely nothing to do with us (the folk who are "getting" one-uped) but it has everything to do with that person, big surprise there right!? We'll they state that the person who seems to always be subltly informing you of off-the-wall, random events in their lives are usually walking around with low self-esteem and in some ways they are threatned by you. Wow! And I put that bit of "education" in there for all of us to know because I know many of our first responses are to "dip", get the heck away from that person and not be their friend anymore but I dont really think thats the solution. I mean if you "unfriend" them and never let them know why you're not comfortable being their friend anymore (whether they get upset or not) then they never "get it"! They never learn or realize that they have some issues that they maybe need to deal with.
Now of course, this is the "problem-solver" in me talking, I know alot of times people wont stand around and allow you to accuse them of being 'jealous' of you, yeah, I get that part but I say this, if you were "not" gonna be their friend anyways, who cares if they get mad with you and never speak to you again. In my opinon, that's a sure fire sign of guilt and they cant seem to face you anymore. The trade off in this case is that they realize what they were doing (after they cool off from being upset with you for calling them out), apologize to you and yall keep it movin'.
So anywho, I end this mild rant with this, if there is no one you feel you can share your dreams, accomplishments, heck even your failures with, feel free to share them with me; your great stories of success, how great you handle your finances, the fact that your student loan is almost paid off (lol!), how well behaved your kids are in public, the business you're about to start or just thinking about starting, tell me and I promise I will be soooo unbeliveably "Happy" for you, you know why, because I am soooo unbeliveably "Happy" with me!
Always remember that what God has for you is only and expliciably for "you"!
Be "Unbelievably" Blessed yall and I promise, I wont one-up you and tell that God has been "Just as Good" to me than he has been to you (lol!),
April
Really good article. I have to say I had to unfriend my friend. I didn't tell her why I just ended the friendship. She didn't one-up me on the same topic. It would be something that was negative in my life that was really great in hers. And me being the one always looking for solutions to all my problems we would stay on my negative topic a lot. And it was one that was really out of my control. I don't think she would have ever let it go. So I had to move on.
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