It’s kind of a problem for me. I never judge someone the first time I meet them. Most people try to put their best face on when they’re meeting new people. It’s when they get comfortable with you that it starts to happen – for me at least. And I confess, it affects how I view their active duty spouse, as well. For example, I once knew a girl who came from serious money. She told everyone about the money her folks had and how well off she was as a result of it. I couldn’t have a conversation with her without her somehow going back to the money her folks had. Additionally, her folks took in foster kids, and she had two gorgeous adopted little sisters. She made a HUGE deal about the adopted sisters, but not in a “aren’t my kid sisters cute?” kind of way. Rather, a typical sentence from her might sound like, “Oh, you know. My pop just has all this money and he, like, you know, he wanted to take care of some of the inner city kids in Philly, so he adopted two little black girls. They, like, totally should be grateful we took them in.”
Cue explosion in 4…3…2…
After a few months of listening to this, I began to wonder how her husband could put up with it. How does a man love a woman who is so self-involved, not to mention disgustingly racist, and so stuck up that she honestly believes she’s better than anyone else because of the shade of her skin and the number of zeros in her trust fund? Unless he’s just as self-involved, racist and stuck up… Once I’d come to this conclusion, and fully judged them both, our friendships with them were over. It didn’t take an entire month for an explosive argument to break out and we never spoke again.
Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. Are you overweight? Underweight? Battling an addiction? Battling acne? I am not judging you. I’m judging everyone else: the people who sit behind their computers and spew hate to each other on Facebook; the Lt. Col’s wife who turns her nose up at the Lance Corporal’s wife because of rank, never knowing that the same little wife is the daughter of a four star General; the loud, obnoxious new wife who’s emasculating her husband from four tables away during a black tie affair…
Like it or not, the truth of the matter is this: When you make an arse of yourself, there are all kinds of people standing in the shadows judging you. I’m just one of hundreds. Maybe thousands.
Listen, I can practically HEAR the comments from this side of the computer screen: “I can’t believe this immature little girl! She must be a child.” What’s that if not a judgment of me? Hypocrite. We can play this game all day. Look, I fully admit… I am a hypocrite too. And I am working on it. It doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to be judgmental… but I wonder how much of it is human nature, the judging. Besides, it’s not like I walked up to that wife and put her in her place in front of everyone, as much as I might’ve enjoyed that. No. I do have some level of maturity. It’s not much but it’s something. I do sometimes call out obnoxious people, though generally to their face and in private so as not to thoroughly embarrass them. But mostly, I’m just judging from afar.
And I think others might be too.
