Analyzing the situation

The next step involves analyzing, or assessing. This happens immediately after I have taken a good look at the situation. There is one question I always ask myself at this point: “Is it real?” That’s critical.

The “analyze” part of it comes from the fact that I must interpret many things after having taken a look around. “Is he staring at me, or is he looking past my shoulder at someone, or something, else?” “Are they laughing at me, or just indulging in some friendly banter within their group.” “Did he intentionally ignore me, or did he not see me?” “Did she really end our conversation to go to the washroom – or did she intentionally ditch me?”

At this stage, I have to give people the benefit of the doubt and entertain all possibilities - Innocent until proven guilty. The reality is that there is usually a perfectly reasonable explanation for people’s behavior. I always read too much into things, only to find out that there are no hostile intentions at all. After that determination has been made, I always scream the truth back at myself (silently of course).

The other part of the analyze stage is being aware of when people really are acting negatively towards me. In other words, I can’t go around looking at the world through rose-colored-glasses.

I’d like to say that every negative feeling I’ve ever had turned out to be false, but that isn’t the case. There will always be situations where my “paranoid” thoughts are bang on. Fortunately, they are few and far between.

Let’s face it, it takes all kinds to make the world go round, and not everyone is going to fit into my ideal profile. Some people are just naturally cynical, snobbish, angry, sarcastic, and less tolerant than others. And again, not everyone is going to like me – regardless of how hard I try.

As to whether or not their behavior is warranted – well, that leads us to the next stage in the stare method.

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