Pam Hartley

... one of them, I should say, as I've several, has a very interesting
personality trait. She will take some portion of conversation, morph it in
her head, and come out believing (and saying) something that never happened.
(I don't have any idea what causes her to do this: habit, upbringing,
psychology, beats me).

The most recent examples:

1. Sil telling my husband (her brother) that on her next visit she'll be
ready to review our daughters' homeschooling for us. My husband replied to
this something along the lines of, "Huh?" She repeated that, as they had
agreed, she would look over the girls progress and help us sort out any
problems. Wally assured her he had no memory of this agreement, and would
never ask anyone at all under any circumstances to do this. Sil became very
indignant.

2. Sil telling my other sister-in-law, Heidi, "remember when Judi told me to
'just get over it' about Mom dying!" Judi is their step-mother, a very kind
woman with a good relationship with all four of her daughters (natural and
step), and this confused Heidi who had no memory of such a conversation, but
Sil insisted it was true.

After sorting through both situations, we did figure out what had happened:

Wally was trying to explain homeschooling to Sil (a chemistry major, who is
about to get her PhD), using as an example that if our daughters ever got
the chemist's bug and went beyond what we knew to do or could figure out, we
knew who to call for advice and help, namely Sil.

And, in a conversation about how difficult it would be for Sil to marry next
spring without her mother at the wedding, Judi (step-mother) had said
something in an attempt to comfort along the lines that it WAS very hard,
but she knew that Sil's mother would really want her to have a happy life
and that she, Sil, shouldn't feel guilty about being happy.

Some recent conversations on this list are reminding me a lot of trying to
talk to my sister-in-law. The trouble is, she believes what she says, and no
matter who or how many say, "you said this" she says, "No, I said that." It
makes for excruciating conversations with a person who is otherwise quite
pleasant to be around. And it is pointless to argue, as she really does seem
to think she's got the right of it and all the rest of the world is
persecuting her for reasons unknown.

The only bright spot is that everyone around her figures it out pretty
quickly, and makes allowances for it.

Pam

Bridget E Coffman

On Sat, 08 Sep 2001 22:10:51 -0700 Pam Hartley
<pamhartley@...> writes:
>
> Some recent conversations on this list are reminding me a lot of
trying to
> talk to my sister-in-law. The trouble is, she believes what she says,
and no
> matter who or how many say, "you said this" she says, "No, I said
that." It
> makes for excruciating conversations with a person who is otherwise
quite
> pleasant to be around. And it is pointless to argue, as she really
does seem
> to think she's got the right of it and all the rest of the world is
persecuting her
> for reasons unknown.
>

This is exactly the reason why I save my sent files for a while and why I
refer back to the archives to check what was actually said, before I say
that I didn't say something. Sometimes, something comes across
incorrectly and I can correct it then, and sometimes people are
attributing things to me that I didn't say, and sometimes, someone will
just flat out insist that I said something and nothing will convince them
otherwise. I feel sorry for those people because I bet they miss out on
a lot of interesting friendships. They are so sure of themselves that
they refuse to review the conversation for themselves.

Bridget

~~~~If electricity comes from electrons...does that mean that morality
comes from morons?~~~~
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell;
And by and by my Soul returned to me,
And answered, "I Myself am Heaven and Hell." -- The Rubaiyat