"Misunderstanding"

I like to think the best of people. It's one of my common practices. I like almost everyone I've ever met. I'll give people the benefit of the doubt, or I'll believe they've changed, and I'll do it as much as I possibly can.

But eventually I come to a point where I have to admit to myself that some people suck. You can chalk a lot of things up to a miscommunication, but some people are just liars. You can consider yourself oversensitive until you start to seek counseling for it, but some people are just mean. You can assume people have grown out of their terrible traits and habits, but every now and then, they'll prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are still the type of people that should end up in Hell just so nobody who doesn't deserve Hell has to ever talk to them again.

Maybe you're sure that all ill in the world is either misunderstandings or mental illness. People can't be evil, can they? I know firsthand that they can. Some people simply perpetuate evil. Haven't any of you done something just mean? If you say you haven't, you're deluding yourself.

And others are capable of doing evil things as well. Just for the sake of being mean. And you can't call it a misunderstanding or miscommunication, because it wasn't. That doesn't mean you shouldn't forgive the person, but I think we'd all be healthier if we didn't make excuses for everyone, just like we shouldn't make excuses for ourselves.

The thing that will really shock you is that normal people sometimes do evil things intentionally. It would be nice to assume that everyone is generally good, and when they do bad, it's because they were confused, they had an accident, or they made a mistake. But you know what? Sometimes that's total bull. There are real life people who just enjoy making life miserable for other people.

I'm not just talking about Saddam Hussein, either. I knew a girl in high school who would lie to people repeatedly to try and get them out of relationships. She would actually go back and forth between couples or friends telling them lies to the tune of "so and so said such and such about you." If you think that kind of thing doesn't happen outside of high school, you must still be in high school.

Or I had a boyfriend who was a manipulative liar. When I ran into him years later, I assumed he'd grown up, but it turns out he was an abusive a-hole worse than I'd known when we were young.

It's easy to look at these situations in the aftermath and admit to yourself that, hey, that person is just a bad dude. But when you're in that type of situation, it's hard to recognize whether you're being emotional and oversensitive or judgemental (take that "e" and suck it). Sometimes, you'll have to say, "Yes, I'm acting like a judgemental psycho, and I need to get over it." But other times, I would like you to take a deep breath and remember this mantra:

"Some people suck."