Endurance
by phill
photo credit: mohammadali
I’ll get the
good news out of the way first: I’ve moved into a new place and it’s pretty great. It’s got a dishwasher, roomy kitchen, decent alarm system, seemingly nice neighbours, close to university, and more importantly closer to just about everyone else I know. No more being stuck out in the sticks. Not that I don’t like being out of the city, but at this stage of my life being close to my friends and conveniences is more important. The biggest issue now is that the internet won’t be getting turned on for another few weeks, so I guess I’ll be staying at uni a bit longer each night. Can’t be a bad thing, especially since the event of…
The bad news. Which was my Sydney trip being totally fail. If there were a more epic fail in the history of neutron diffraction I’d like to read about it. I won’t go into too much detail, but suffice to say that the lesson to be learned here is to always make sure that the sample you believe you made is actually the sample you made. Doesn’t matter how you made it, or if you’ve been assured that the way you’ve made it can’t have resulted in anything else, just do it. It’ll save tears and embarrassment later.
Thankfully, the whole trip wasn’t a complete disaster. The wonderful Mr. Max, my beam line scientist, spoke to me at length on my problems with the X-ray data and we worked through a lot of my nervousness over my data. Worked out a direction for me to go with that. So I still got something out of it. And he’s offered to give some other methods a go to see if it conjures up any more results. So overall it’s a downer that my experiment didn’t launch, but I got something out of it. Silver lining and all that.
Continuing my recent theme of self-analysis, I’ve clicked to another weakness of mine. Confrontation. My close friends know that I have a tendency towards avoiding confrontation, but I spent some time over the weekend thinking about it and came to the realisation that I really just don’t handle it well. Every time I get into a major confrontation I try and put as much distance, both physical and mental, between myself and the issue at hand. And anyone who knows basic psychology knows that avoiding something is the worst thing to do. So, what to do? Well, my answer so far has been to start playing poker in earnest again. Stop rolling your eyes, Louise. You too Cian, I’m serious. Poker forces you to confront people. No matter the friendliness of the game, if you choose to play it seriously you’re still at war with everyone on the table. And it forces you to think about how other people are thinking, and to remain calm while you figure out how to deal with what they are representing. Sure, it misses out on a lot of the complexitites that having a good old dust up can have, but I think that’s just as good an analogy as I’m going to get without actually getting into a lot of arguments with people. So, poker. Whether it’s a psychological placebo is up to debate, but fuck it, I’ll keep on using it.
Alrighty, that’s enough of an update for now. But I’d like to ask anyone that reads this: how do you deal with confrontation? Are you able to confront someone about an issue that bugs you, or do you do what I do and let it slide?
No related posts.
Comments
I don’t think I realised it until just now, but you’re like a real life science dude. Whoa.
Confrontation – I like to argue/debate a point, but I’m not a fan of confrontation. I actually get a fair bit of anxiety when I know a confronting situation is on the horizon. If it can be avoided I will, but when I need to I can suck it up and deal with it, my insides just feel like they’re in a blender the whole time :-/
I struggle with it too mate. If I’m in a “decision making” position or I’m responsible for something it’s easy: I’ll listen to their side, but at the end of the day it’s my call and just lay down the law. But dealing with friends, partners or people I need to work with who do fucked things is a real challenge – you don’t want to confront them because you don’t want to mess up the friendly dynamic, but are genuinely troubled by something they’ve done/are doing.
Once I’ve written someone off as a douche-bag though I have no issue confronting them on anything – but it’s confronting people I like that’s the problem.
I’m no expert, but this is something I’ve thought about ALOT particularly over the last 6 months. The way I see it now, if you bring something up with a good friend, they flip out and refuse to hear your concerns – what kind of a friend are you going to lose? If they can’t take feedback on how their actions affect you but expect you to put up with something that upsets you, it’s a pretty one-sided friendship.
May be a bit brutal, but the options really boil down to;
- Put up, shut up and get walked all over
- Be everyone’s friend to their face and bitch about them behind their back
- Avoid/label as douchebags people likely to flip out, but only have a small number of good friends who you CAN confront
I guessing from my distinct absence this year from PHYSSED you can pick which one I opted for.
Bad luck with the trip too mate, I know you were excited about it. Sounds like there was a silver-lining anyway, so everything’s not lost.
@Ryan Yes, yes I am a scientist (: What you’ve described is something I’ve felt often, although I sort of tend to forget what I’m feeling during.
@MightyGinge That’s some good advice right there, thanks. (: Like you say, it’s just a matter of being rational about it and thinking about what I stand for and what I expect others to stand for. I should add that most of my confrontation comes with people I’m not close friends with, which seems counter-intuitive: I should just not care, right? But for some reason I do, I think that’s where I need to look at what it is I’m trying to protect by avoiding.
Heh, enough of my self-analysis, now here’s a rant about cars :P
I guess it depends on how much I like the person. If it is someone I do not like, or like only very marginally, then I have no problem getting into a confrontation. Some may say I actually enjoy it, or even seek it out. I think that is also a result of pent up anxiety and aggression.
In fact, Facebook sends me an email every week, just to tell me that all my friends think I am the “Least Kind” and “Least Nice” person they know! :O
However, the people I do care about, I will almost never confront them, and this becomes a major point of contention in my own mind. There are things even now that I want to say to people but simply can’t for fear of an adverse response, and while I know that any adverse response will only be temporary, and that my good friends will quickly get over it and move on, it is that initial disapproval that I simply cannot bear.
Which boils it down nicely, I think. The reason I do not confront my friends is not because I fear they will freak out, it is the lack of approval that I fear; like some kind of strange human puppy… :|