Judgement

When taking a break from my writing or school work, I tend to check out the news feed on the social media site that I regularly go to in order to allow my fried brain a much-needed fifteen minute break. There is something so soothing about watching a cat play piano or any other delightful video that I use to distract myself from life. One real life Bambie and Thumper video in to my Facebook feed, I come across a post that was posted by an old friend from high school with whom I have lost almost all contact with. I noticed that she posted a text message conversation so for some reason beyond me- possibly a mixture of being nosey and curious, I read the conversation. 

                My old friend is a single mother who is a hard worker wanting to create a better future for both her and her son. This conversation was between her and a man whom she had only spoken to a few times before apparently. He began this conversation bragging about how amazing he was and the amount of money that he made. He clearly stated the exact and disappointingly unimpressive number later on in the conversation. He spoke about his high intellect and knowledge while littering the conversation with spelling and syntactic errors that were so egregious that I cringed just looking at them. For someone like me who isn’t an ideal speller herself to cringe that means the spelling was like watching a train wreck slowly, over and over. It wasn’t bad enough that he arrogantly bragged about how amazing he was and stated in graphic painstaking detail all of the reasons why, but after she told him that she was not interested in dating anyone, he turned around and sent her a topless image of himself with the words, “Your welcome” underneath. I wanted so badly to correct the “your,” to “You’re” and the fact that I couldn’t made me itch all over. There is nothing I cannot stand more than arrogance and someone feeling the need to brag about themselves to make another person feel lower. It literally makes me wince. This man was not only arrogant but he was also extremely disrespectful. He belittled her for the job that she had and claimed that in order to become great like him, she would require his wisdom and knowledge. She handled herself in a respectful and lady-like manner which I applaud her for because I can’t say (with my sarcastic personality and choice vocabulary that my mother compares to diarrhea) that I would have been able to do the same.

                After reading these messages from him over and over I began to feel the inner fuel inside of me ignite and burn. I saw him as an arrogant dick who not only deserved a trophy in “Douchery” but also happened to be a living, mouth-breathing embodiment of every character flaw that I abhor shabbily wrapped up in human skin. I was so irritated that I felt like my eyeballs were going to burn right out of my skull. 

Then it hit me, what I was doing is wrong. I allowed my inner self to judge him without knowing him. Yes, what he said was ridiculously inane to the point where my brain wants to melt out of my ears but I don’t know him and I have no right to judge him.  The early results are in and they aren’t good, but perhaps I lacked enough information to get a complete portrait. 

             Often arrogance of this magnitude is really an outward manifestation of insecurity and a cry for acceptance. I don’t know what his background is or where he came from. Someone who is truly secure and happy with themselves won’t feel the need to put someone else down in order to make themselves feel better. It is easy to judge people that we don’t know based on the 1% that we find out about them but that doesn’t mean that our judgements are true. In the end, maybe they are just scared of rejection or don’t feel good enough about themselves so they feel the need to jump up on a pedestal and blow their own horns as loudly as possible in hopes that you will view them higher than they view themselves. The pedestal is often times just a mask and beneath that mask is someone that is truly hurting.