Chris vs. Maya

A few days ago, a friend of mine posted a really interesting blog about why it seems so many gay men are so eager to “settle down,” that they are practically ready to profess their love and move in together after the second date.

Now… those of you that know me know that I definitely don’t fit into this category. But the blog was interesting none the less, and one sentence in particular caught my attention:

“When people show you who they are, believe them, the first time.”

It’s a quote from Maya Angelou, and on first thought, it made perfect sense to me. After all, who really knows what a person is like better than him or herself?

But the more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder if Maya might have made a mistake this time. I began to wonder how well people really do know themselves.

I mean, how many times have you heard someone tell you that they need some time to “find themselves” or some variation of the like? Now, I’m not really sure exactly how people “lose” their sense of self in the first place, and this has never happened to me, but there sure are a lot of people out there trying to find it either again or for the first time.

Come on, we all know at least a few.

And what ever happened to giving someone the benefit of the doubt? …turning the other cheek? …forgiving and forgetting? I mean, is one action always a part of a trend? For example, if a person lies once, does that mean that he/she will always lie and should be written off as a liar?

Now it may just be me, but this sure seems like a pessimistic way to go through life, and it’s definitely not my style. It’s not like I’m some cheery glass half full optimist all the time, but I do believe that people are generally good and that a mistake can be just that.

In my opinion, defining people be one action alone fails to take into account just how wonderfully complex we all are.

I think you may want to rethink this one Maya.