People change

[Alex]

I posted a message last week about my situation. What I am coping with is that people change sometimes when you think you really knew them. I thought I knew Megan inside and out, but she has become a different person lately. We used to email each other back and forth during work, and I suggested a few times that she download AOL Internet Messenger. Each time she resisted, saying that she hated those things and hated chat rooms. Now, she has met someone on a Yahoo chat room, and this morning, the little evil voice in my head was curious as to whether she had signed up on AOL IM. So I looked up her email address, and sure enough, she is registered. So what is this? Is she a different person, and was I taken for a ride? Or is she going through some self-discovery and experimenting?

 

Either way, to anyone else going through something similar, be careful, because it seems that people can change after you thought you really knew them.

[Wiser Woman]

People DO change for many different reasons. Like any other animal, we adapt to our surroundings and environment. We learn from life's experiences and often change to either make something happen or to prevent something from happening again. Sometimes just growing up and older causes people to change. Megan probably is not taking you for a ride - she is probably just experiencing new things for herself. You didn't say if you had been a couple for a while or if this relationship was an online thing or what so it's really hard to tell just what is up. What would be really nice is if you could talk with her and try to get her to open up a little about the changes in her life or why she now finds chatting and instant messages so interesting..... Talking with her might help you find out if you do it in a nice, not demeaning or demanding, way.

[Tony T]

People don't change...because they are no particular way. The mind is not set in concrete and neither is the soul. We do not have a free will for a specific hour, day or week but for anytime.

 

What makes homo sapiens so interesting is that they can and do change their minds, their interests, etc. and they do so often and have a God-given right to do so. That's why popular televisions shows get cancelled, great Presidents have to resign or get impeached, people get divorced, we decide on butter pecan instead of the usual vanilla.

 

If you think every person you encounter is going to be consistent on how they feel about any particular thing, you are on the wrong planet.

 

Most people, once they have been socialized and mature, seem to subscribe generally to certain moral concepts. Even then, people like preachers Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Robert Tilton...trusted by millions...fade into disgrace because they were tempted. They didn't change, they just exhibited behavior initiated by a thought at some particular moment.

 

Your suggestions and encouragement probably had a subliminal affect on this lady and she caved in, downloaded the IM program, and bombs away. So she met somebody in a chat room...better than at a brothel. I once loved a lady more than life itself and when she graduated from college I helped get her a job as a teacher at a school where a family friend was principal. Two years later, she married a coach at the school.

 

So what do you think???

[Alex]

So what do you think???

 

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think that you can generally deny that there are many people in our lives whom we come to know very well. Personalities are unique and different, but also stable to a degree. It is why people can be affected by friends and grow to resemble them in fashion or manner of speaking, but they never become clones of each other. The age-old question of nature-vs-nurture. I apologize if this is off the topic of the list, it won't last too long.

 

We all know that there are close friends of ours whom we can predict behavior in. You can see the core person and understand the way they think and figure reasonably on what their reactions will be to different situations. It is when a person begins acting entirely differently in an extremely short period of time that we begin to wonder whether this is an anomaly and we knew the "real" person, or whether we never really knew them, and we are seeing their true colors. In my case, Megan has been treating me differently all of a sudden, and none of it fits with her other patterns of behavior. That is why I am confused, because everyone has patterns of behavior, and when they stray from those by a large amount it is bewildering.

 

If you wanted to talk further Tony, let me know, and we can do so off of the list so as not to get off the topic. :-)

 

Alex