Thursday, June 14, 2007

Disingenuous Day

Some days I just feel a little down and disappointed about people in general. It usually only happens when someone personally disappoints me or if I have multiple disappointments at the hands of 'friends' or 'trusted associates' within a short period of time. Yesterday was one of those days. Everyone just seemed so disengenuous.

First case in point: I reached out and communicated with my friend who borrowed the money and is avoiding both repayment and discussion. I chose email rather than a phone call so it would be less confrontational for her (and me) and to allow her a chance to gather her thoughts and respond thoughtfully. I asked her if things were going okay, since I had not heard from her lately. (She knew what I meant.) Her response was, I felt, disingenuous at best. Classic tap dancing around the elephant in the room. She responded with paragraphs about everything else and then in the middle of one, buried a request to delay payment for another 3-4 months because of blah blah blah. I didn't need to see body language; I could tell by the way the email was written that she was attempting to avoid the topic again and then buried it alive in the middle of something else. Disappointing, and I haven't decided how to respond to her. But I'm delaying a response, and this time, she can wonder about me while I'm not communicating with her.

Next up: The buyer of our townhouse backed out, cold turkey. The sale was supposed to close on Aug 1, and he called up with some really lame excuses and said he'd changed his mind. He had requested 14 days (instead of 7) in the contract to review the homeowners' association documents. We agreed, as he's a lawyer, and we figured he wanted pour over the docs ad nauseum to satisfy himself. On the 12th day, he called up with some lame excuses, none of which had anything to do with what he read in the documents (it was never mentioned), and said he'd changed his mind. Based on that, I feel like even though he negotiated and contracted for the property, he was never really sincere about buying the place, and he used our goodwill to stretch out his 'comtemplation period'. Again, disingenuous.

Finally, I got a phone call from another "friend" late morning. While her demeanor is warm and she registers concern for my well-being, I seem to rarely get a call from her unless there is some underlying agenda which causes me to always be a little suspicious. When I asked what she'd been up to lately, she described some activities and painted a visual of it all a certain way. I thought nothing of it, but later on, I spoke with another friend (who never has an agenda, truly), and found out that the visual that was painted for me absolutely in no way represented fact. It wasn't dishonest completely, it was just misleading and disingenuous. And I don't even know why, because it wasn't about anything that mattered, which makes me feel even worse about it. Why would she purposely mislead me on something that doesn't matter? So strange and disconcerting.

So I ended the day with my faith in people somewhat diminished. While I'm sure I'll overcome that, it feels disappointing. All day, I felt like I had a grey cloud overhead.

1 comment:

Miss Forthright said...

I know what you mean about days like this. Hope you feel better x