At What Point In Your Life Did Your Personality Get "Set" (If Indeed, It Ever Did)

they might be surprised that i'm married, though. and rather more so if we spawn.

Kate: But one thing I've noticed from this thread is that things go more easily if you don't just react about something someone has said that you disagree with (and it's taken a few instances of self discipline to refrain from zings) but rather to ask questions and get the person to clarify and rephrase until you understand what they are saying, not just what you expect/think they are saying, due to your impression of what their personality is or isn't.

Says Ms "lalala, I'm not listening" - you'll notice from recent interaction on "your" thread that I have not resorting to zinging or cheap points-scoring, rather I have set out in detail some issues which may impinge on the way others see you, but all you've done is go "oh, fuck off already, I can't be arsed with this". But, hey, perhaps if I do it again you'll be more receptive to my points.

(also see your reaction to certain people on the vegetarianism thread (and other thread passim) based on other issues with them elsewhere...I hope your personality isn't so set in stone that you can't stop doing this all over the place)

no, it actually can change it, i've done it. there was stuff i was *really* bitter about in my early 20s (ok perhaps i don't count and am still in flux and am a mere babe at 28) and it made me miserable to myself and horrible to certain other people. it wasn't just huge things either, but small things would *really* get to me and i was angry and hateful. i decided i did not want to be like that, to myself or to anyone else, and after a lot of internal wrangling i have taught myself to be able to let go, to not be someone who carries badnesses with them like that. and sure, for ages it was literally gritting my teeth and telling myself "it.does.NOT.MATTER.let.it.GO." and reacting "gggrrrnnnghhhbut-but-but-waaaaargh" and so on and so on. but now it's different; i have actually changed.

Emsk - you are me and I claim my five pounds. Except I didn't really get the hang of this until a couple of years ago, and I'm six years older than you. So you aren't me, you're a younger yet wiser me, and you can keep your five pounds.

FWIW, I think I spent too long trying to be something I'm not. I'm happier now than I ever was.

And further, since so much upthread is based upon the involvement of a significant other, this internal change came about several years after I met my husband, and after we got married. And it had nothing, really, to do with him. He married me the way I used to be. I'm still the same, just a bit happier with it. And I'm reaping the rewards - I am more settled in myself, happier with my own company and with that of the friends I have and the company I keep (something I used to prioritise above all others when I was completely incapable of maintaining friendships with anyone, without realising I was going totally the wrong way about it).

I don't think my personality is set in stone yet, but I'm getting happier with it than I was.

(I have no idea what the catalyst for the start of this change was, btw)

Oh, sorry, you've all moved on and are now making jokes about skeletons. Carry on.

The importance of some sort of grounding in knowing how to be 'social' for lack of a better word is key. This doesn't mean, as Ailsa implies, a codependency or a feeling of 'if I just had *somebody* my life would be happier,' rather it's knowing how to balance out your own take on things (to put it in rough terms) with those of others, especially those whose company you value highly, as friends, relations and so forth.

(xpost)

Nah, just me being too subtle for my own good!

Allow me:

As Ailsa implies, this doesn't mean a codependency or a feeling of 'if I just had *somebody* my life would be happier,'

Is such an important lesson. Disengagement. Recognising when someone does exacerbate your worst qualities, and not letting them rile you up.

But it's really difficult when those people who do exacerbate your worst behaviour view such disengagement as being "la la, I can't hear you."

But it's really difficult when those people who do exacerbate your worst behaviour view such disengagement as being "la la, I can't hear you."

Right, so when you want to hear it, it's useful and you can learn from it. When it's something you *don't* want to hear, you can go "lalala not listening" and then claim you're disengaging for your own good when what you are actually doing is not wanting to hear something or deal with something because it's confronting your own personal insecurities and you're too egocentric to notice.

There's a marvellous little phrase you might want to bear in mind sometime. Namely "the truth hurts".

If you are going to continue to set out your personal bugbears for all to see, some people are going to react in ways you don't like. It won't do you a bit of harm to wonder if they actually have a point, rather than blithely "disengaging" (I'd call it ignoring, but, hey ho).

This is general advice, btw. I take criticism on board a lot - I've become a better and stronger person for it in some ways.

Stumbled over this thread doing a Search that was so remotely tangential to it that the connection was pure accident. There's a lot of fascinating discussion up thread, so I am reviving it.

As for me, I have a hard time grasping just what my personality consists of. My turn of mind is often quite literal-minded and simplistic, and so it is generally tethered very directly to whatever is under my nose.

Intellectually speaking, I instinctively submit to the wisdom of the Fool in King Lear, who said "Nothing comes of nothing, nuncle." Whatever my self is at this moment, it connects to what it was a few moments ago, and so on and on, following that thread down into the increasing dimness of the remote past. It all connects, right back to some unknown beginning. But what that amounts to in terms of my 'personality', it baffles me to say.

Taking another tack toward an answer to this conundrum, I once wrote a book. I was the only character in this book. When I wrote it, I had a good grip on what I was doing, but as other people read this book and I had a chance to talk to them about it, I discovered each reader had a different idea of what the book amounted to, which parts stood out, and which caught their interest. Their version was as valid as mine was. I suspect whatever my 'personality' is, it is much the same as what my book is - a complex thing that has no definitive version.

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have you lost your tiller?