flexagon | Mind games

Poor cousin T. I didn't mention yesterday that she had asked me not to tell anyone she wanted to come to the wedding. And in my reply I said something like "I won't tell... but why? Trying to surprise people?" It turns out she's miffed with the family at large, because apparently her parents and sisters had already told her she wasn't invited to my wedding (untrue, by the way, I had considered not inviting her because of our small reception space but I hadn't totally decided); and also, quite recently, her parents told her not to drive to our grandparents' place because she might be "not wanted" there. So, she was pleasantly surprised to in fact receive the invitation and wants to show up at the wedding to say nyah, nyah. As a mature and responsible adult, of course, I fully support this. So I promised not to tell anyone, and now I really hope she comes. :)

It's funny how you never know what situation your actions are being added to, ya know? I'm glad now that I invited her, because it turned out to be an Extra Nice Thing given the other crap that was going on. I hope she comes. If she does she won't be bringing her husband anyway, so it's no big deal guest-list-wise.

I should mention that her parents are my favorite aunt/uncle set, and hearing that they haven't been nice to cousin T lately is rather surprising.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's funny how you never know what situation your actions are being added to, ya know? I'm glad now that I invited her, because it turned out to be an Extra Nice Thing given the other crap that was going on.

Dovetails nicely with something I was reading about last night - Fundamental Attribution Error...it's basically our tendency to credit people's actions more to their fundamental attributes (lazy, kind, intelligent) than to situational factors, when in fact situational factors seem to be more of a determinant of people's behavior.

If she hadn't explained why she wanted to come and why she wanted you to be shady about spreading this info, what would you have assumed?

I think I would have assumed pretty close to the right thing, except I would have wondered if she was coming partly out of "nyah, she doesn't want me but she sent an invite so this is what she gets and I hope it's expensive", which is really more effort than I would expect to rate. The truth of "Nyah, I am invited and this will show my stupid family" is much more realistic and I would have figured it was mostly that. I still feel slightly sucky, because I had indeed asked my aunt about the etiquette of not inviting her, but it's not like the decision is really made before the things are mailed, you know?

Fundamental Attribution Error--I looked it up. "In other words, we fail to give people the benefit of the doubt." Yeah... I've tried playing the "pretend the person who just did Bad Thing X is having a really bad day" game, and it helps. (Driving seems to be the example all the websites talk about. In driver's ed I remember being taught to just view the cars on the road as objects without human attributes [i.e. not valid things to be angry with, just objects that move]. I don't know if most of them do that or if it was just my home state). Anyway, this has gone all tangential on me, but thanks for prodding me to look that up. It is a nice dovetail.

*goes off to ponder this some more*

Good call on the driving technique. I'll have to try that. :)

Mind games

Ah yes...

Re: Ah yes...

Re: Ah yes...