posted 2006/03/12 at 22:56
If there's one area of my life where I've probably tried to overcompensate for my character flaws, it's conflict.
Those of you who remember me from the pre-.org days probably remember that I didn't deal with conflicts too well. I started stupid conflicts, I stuck my nose into conflicts that I should have just avoided, and when I got into conflicts I didn't tend to do too well, either in terms of arguing my own points or arguing against the points that others made.
Really, what that situation came down to was that I simply decided that the conflicts weren't worth it anymore, and to an extent I finally learned the art of walking away when things just clearly weren't meant for me to be involved in. Of course, over the coming months I had some relapses there and tried to kick new conflicts up, but eventually that simmered down.
There is something to be said for the wisdom of avoiding conflict, especially when my own life tends to be so crazy and hectic. However, I think that maybe over the past year I've gone too far the other way, and I've avoided conflicts that I should have stuck out.
Case in point #1: Spectrum. Rather than stand up and defend myself against baseless accusations made by someone in the group, I decided to walk away from the group and not get involved in something that I feared could polarize the group. Not only did this result in me losing all of my friendships here locally (save one, and even that took months to get restarted), but Spectrum has shrunk back to the same level of insignificance on campus it was at before we turned the ship around in '03-'04. (And I still can't get anyone there to return my things that other people have.)
Case in point #2: Cincinnati. There were some things I did with my former friends there that I could have handled better, and I was hardly without fault for what caused the eventual split, but for the most part I lost those friends because I didn't challenge someone who misrepresented me and my actions. I didn't want to rock the ship, and even though it freaking killed me to be literally without a friend in the world for a while there, I still thought it was better to sacrifice my own feelings so as not to cause tension between the other people there.
Now it's happening again, as I was thrust head-first into the teenage/young adult drama that seems to be endemic in the Carolina dance game community in the days leading up to the tournament. I tried my hardest to be a peacemaker and to be the voice of reason, but I didn't realize until it was too late that I was dealing with a lot of unreasonable people. Even though there are still some people there who want to meet me this coming weekend, other people have made it clear that my presence at the tournament will only make things worse, not better.
Not surprisingly, my instinct right now is to pull out of the tournament entirely, not go to North Carolina at all, and let the people who have made it clear that they won't welcome me there have their way. This is in spite of the fact that, quite honestly, I think my ability to continue to function as a rational human being depends on me going down there to handle certain things. Still, as much as I want to stand up for myself and say, "Damn it, I want to go down there," I still can't help but feel that things would just be better for everyone else if I were to stay at home. Really, shouldn't other people's concerns take precedence over my own?
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon