Minding Her Own Business

Have you ever been bullied or tormented as a child? Of course you have. We all have – unless you’ve lived in some kind of bubble; in that case, have you ever watched a movie or seen a TV show where a young child was bullied or tormented by his or her peers?

Anyway, we all know what it feels like, even vicariously. And we know what it feels like when someone else stands up to defend us, how good it felt to know we weren’t alone, that somebody had our back.

As kids, we relied on each other heavily for emotional support; it was us against the grown-ups, the teachers, the authority. We all felt some type of insignificance, even if it was just because of our younger ages. Who didn’t resent needing a babysitter or chaperone? Who was never bothered by being told they were not old enough to do something?

We made our friends out to be the most important things in our lives – of course we did; how many of you did not feel self-pity when there was ‘no one to play with’ because ‘[he/she] is mad at me’?

(and yes, it was usually over something stupid).

Once we started feeling our oats, we became quite independent. After all, the biggest sign of adulthood is being able to do something ‘all by myself’, isn’t it?

When we grow up, we begin to live our adult lives in relative isolation, at least from our friends. It’s no one’s fault, and it isn’t a bad thing, either. That’s just the way it is. Once we start our jobs, careers and families we don’t have the same kind of free time we used to – and if we do have free time we are usually too tired to play.

Maintaining the kind of friendships we had as children seems close to impossible. We find ourselves switching friends with our routines and marital status; our friends are the people we work with, other single people, other married couples, parents whose kids go to the same schools, and people who belong to the same organizations we have joined. When we change jobs, marry, re-marry, divorce, retire, become grandparents and the like we end up playing with new friends from those same circles.

Again, this isn’t a bad thing; as long as we have someone around us that we can call ‘friend’ we are good. No man is an island, and those who choose to live that way truly don’t know what they are missing.

If we are really lucky, we have friends around us from long ago, people who’ve managed to stay with you – who you’ve managed to stay with – even through all the life changes.

I am that fortunate, I know. I have many friends, many good friends. Yes, time is tight and it isn’t as easy to spend time with them, but sometimes that makes our time together that much more special.

One thing, though, about that grown-up isolation we seem to cherish so, is that it distorts the support we would have taken from friends as children. If someone stands up for us in any way, or ‘sticks their noses into our business’ we end up resenting them as if they were trying to tell us that we are not capable of handling things on our own (the prized trait of the ‘grown-up’), as if we are still children.

We are really ass-backwards, aren’t we? What we envy in children as adults is what we chose to give up to become adults.

While there is a certain measure of pride and accomplishment in handling our own business, there sometimes can develop a resentment at having to handle it all on our own, even if we don’t see it.

The idea of minding your own business is another translation of ‘not getting involved’ – an idea we, collectively, have taken too far. If one truly understood that we are all connected in some way and wanted to preserve the value of that connection, the world would definitely be a better place. Yes, there are times when it is good to handle your own business, and it can help build character, but if the character built is an island inside a wall, the life sentence served contains little ‘life’.

On the smaller, more personal scale, as adults we resent what we consider to be ‘interference’ from others when it has to do with our dealings with other people like family members, friends, significant others, etc. If a family member or friend tried to defend you or stand up for you in some way to someone in a close circle around you, they would most likely be told to mind their own business. That stems in part by residual resentment of the feelings of being treated like an incompetent child and concern over how the other person would react.

Say you are having dinner with your spouse and parents, and your spouse said something ugly to you. Your parents would most likely defend you, but you – who has to live with this person – would not want them to do so because of how it would affect your communication with your spouse later, when they weren’t around, and you immediately resent them for ‘butting in’ and tell them. A fact that is completely ignored is that by doing so, you are attempting to control another person’s reaction by controlling a situation – and you cannot control, ever, how another person acts or reacts. The control or attempt at avoiding any situation will only postpone sometimes inevitable circumstances, and if your concern is protecting yourself in any way from mistreatment of another by doing so, then your problem is not the people ‘butting in’ or even the situation itself.

Yes, there are some times when you have to handle things by yourself. My ex-husband and I went through something that I had to handle on my own with him because it was big enough to ruin our marriage.  Family members were not let in on any of it, because if we did manage to work things out between us and our families think we handled it wrong, their difference of opinion with one or both of us would have caused future problems with them – because, ultimately, the way we handled or would have handled the situation would really have only directly affected our marriage.

So, yes, in some cases we have to fight our own battles.

But what about smaller issues? We’ve grown so accustomed to only worrying about ourselves and having to take care of our own business that any support or backing up can seem like a butting in. Our friendships lose the feeling of unconditional support, because we are only to interfere for the bigger crises, the TRAGEDIES. When we ‘allow’ ourselves to ‘need’ something from another person, and another person is ‘allowed’ to butt in and help. 

My best friend and I are on vacation together. The more time we spend together, the more we share with each other. Obviously. I have a little (by most accounts) issue with another person, and it can sometimes hurt. Do I handle everything right? Absolutely not – and she tells me. Quite often, in fact.

Apparently, she had reached out to this other person and put in her two cents. She basically told the other person that she resented the way I was being treated by that person - I wasn't being bullied, but my treatment wasn't necessarily considerate.

The other day she told me what she did. She even told me she wasn’t sure if she was going to tell me about it, but with all the time and wine we’ve been sharing together lately …

My best friend just butted her nose into my business.

Technically, all she did was offer an opinion to someone that I have dealings with, which is really all that anyone who butts in is doing, and how anyone reacts to an offered opinion is up to them only.

How did I feel about that?

Here’s another example of where I realize being older is a good thing – and when I say ‘being older’ I mean that I’ve been an adult for a longer time than I haven’t. Who knows, 20 or 30 years ago when I was trying to prove my adulthood and my being big enough to ‘do it all by myself’ I might have considered it interference and resented her for it. But I’m older now, and it’s no longer a source of pride to handle everything on my own all the time, because I now know I have nothing to prove to anyone.

I also already know – with some measure of acceptance – that I cannot control how another person reacts; if the person she spoke to reacts negatively to me, it’s on them, and has nothing to do with me.

You know what I feel?

I feel cared for.

And I feel young – in a good way. I’m eight years old and my best friend just told someone “You're being a big ol' doodyhead to my best friend.” She has my back.

And she was minding her own business. She loves me, and was hurting because I was; therefore, I am her business. 

Don't underestimate the value of a good friend who cares enough to try to stand up for you. You are never alone, so stop acting like it.

And let's all try not to be big ol' doodyheads.