human nature?

[kellinator]

Expanded from my last post...

Why is it that we gravitate to people who treat us poorly and frequently ignore people who treat us well? I'm not just talking about a romantic context, either. Think of the really nice person at work. The one who always asks how you're doing, bakes you cookies. In other words, the one who drives everyone crazy. In your school days, were the popular kids the nice kids? In my school, they usually weren't. That was reserved for the rich kids, the good-looking kids, the athletic kids. Why do we want to invest time and energy in people who obviously aren't interested in doing the same for us?

I'd love it if somebody could prove me wrong here, that people don't actually do this all the time, but I don't have that much faith in human nature.

Comments

[hotcoffeems.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I've thought aboutthis a lot, in my own life.

I'd say, no, we don't do that, but I've spent too much time in my life desperately seeking approval from people who weren't going to give it. I suspect we do it because we do sometimes need validation from others that we perceive as worthwhile that we too are worthwhile people.

From another viewpoint, the truth is also that sometimes when we get desperate, it's visible to others. And such desperation is not usually appealling to any but predators. I reckon it's because when I've known someone desperately seeking that friendship/approval, I worry about what's behind it. Also...coming on too strong, this is usually a desperate person thing to do. And what looks like "treating someone badly" is sometimes actually "I need you to back off, and this seems to be the only way to accomplish it." We don't always know how to handle everyone optimally. And some people who look pretty groovy have different value systems (sometimes really superficial ones) when choosing to associate with people.

But it would be nice to sit at the cool kid table on occasion, right? To not have to ask, either.

I went to two high schools: at one, the popular kids were assholes. At the other, they *generally* were genuinely nice kids. The difference? I think it's because at the second school, there was a lot less money/social class difference among the student body. A few were jackoffs, but most people knew they were jackoffs, and they were only peripherally popular. Heck, I had a number of good friends among the "power elite" there, which was surprising -- they were good kids. Less money seemed to be the difference.