Quote from: Laurie on September 03, 2017, 01:02:04 PM
Thank you Rowena for heading us back on topic. Though I enjoyed the side track and was guilty of participating in it myself, it was off topic. I shall have to keep an eye on myself and try not to stray and derail topics.
laurie
Haha, any time.
Bur hey at least it was amusing of a derailment.
Quote from: Red Lion on September 03, 2017, 01:38:01 AM
I've seen shades of this too over the years. Particularly when my dad and his brothers get together. My dad on his own is fine, perfectly happy to take it easy and let other people be. But when his brothers are around, suddenly he turns into a jerk. That's when he starts trying to show off his guns and act like some kind of tough guy. At his worst he goes out of his way to make other people look/feel stupid by catching them off guard and tripping them up so he has something to point and laugh at. Trying to pour something into a measuring cup? Prepare for him to sneak up and start yelling "Whoa! Careful there! Don't put to much in there! HO! WATCH IT!!" and if it works and he manages to make you either mess up or second guess yourself he'll start going on about how you could never work with explosives. It's like his brothers being around makes him think he's got something to prove. Of course if you turn that around on him and try to make him look like the idiot he gets butthurt and sulks for days. He's also more prone to taking risks around them, drinking more than he normally would, trying to turn a cartwheel even so he's in his 50's and has a bad back. Stuff he always has to pay for the next day.
...I chalk it up to him being the middle child.
I wish I could say it has something to do with where you're (generic you obviously) placed in the family, My dad is the eldest... and at a lovely 73, put him around the rest of the family, he's an idiot... Let's just say there's a reason he's the favorite uncle.
And then there's me, who is the youngest by 8.5 years. And well... scroll up for my big stupid story.
Frankly, there's no rhyme or reason to it... logically speaking. However from a sociological standpoint, Actually... I have a bad habit of writing to much as is, and I could go on and on for hours about the sociology behind it all. But sum up... If you get together any group of people with certain similarities, its going to bring out those similarities in prominence.
Get together a bunch of people who naturally have an inclination to say, 'Hey watch this', then because of the inclination being present in all of them, that thought will then be followed by a stupid action, then subsequently followed by sirens.
Lets take a cultural example. (I'm using one from personal experience) I came from the Washington DC area before moving to Utah. As many of you probably would guess, its a multicultural, multiethnic hub of activity. I grew up one of a few Mormons, so in a school setting, the Mormon traits didn't seem so abundant. You had to look for them. However, in 2005, I moved to Utah.
The difference in coming to a place known for its Mormons was drastic. The traits that seemed so hard to notice, take something simple like, 'Don't drink' or 'Don't shop on Sunday' were prominent. Many businesses are closed on Sundays. Liquor sales... well don't get me started on that. There's an LDS church on practically every corner. Now these aren't necessarily bad (okay maybe the liquor ones are a bit extreme, but that's a different story for a different day), unlike boy stupidity when they get together. But the point remains.
Put any liketraited individuals together, and those traits will become more prominent/noticeable.
Oh... didn't I say I wasn't going to go into sociology? Oh well, at least I kept it fairly short. For once.
