Of how some people try to manipulate you...

So, here's the funny thing. One of my friends has this way of looking at occurrences whereby he is almost never the guy at fault. This tendency leads him to interpret people's behaviour in certain ways so as to allow him to arrive at his conclusions. I always secretly assumed this was a character weakness, because it can't almost never be his fault.

However, of late, my perspective has been slowly shifting. It is a slow and arduous process, but it is happening. Anyway, I realized that the underlying principle behind my friend's behaviour was not a self-serving tendency, but an innate self-confidence. A good kind of confidence that is positive for a person's mental health.

I don't like attributing base intentions to people's actions. However, that shift in perspective has involved accepting that people bullshit a LOT. People lie, hide and manipulate.

This morning, I felt the stirrings of an old dynamic between myself and someone from my past life. That he should have stayed in my past life and not spilled over to my new life is my mistake. But the manipulation is something that he and I have discussed in the past and something for which he has accepted blame. Still, after all these years, we are back to square one. I tend to yield and he tends to crush. At least I had the sense to hang up quickly once that behaviour began.