Pitfalls In Building Relationships, Commitment, And Love - Continuing With S

We continue this series suggesting how to avoid many pitfalls in building interpersonal relationships, whether with family, coworkers, friends, or that special someone...

Committed, loving relationships do not just happen. You may know that there is no success secret, no checklist of things to do, and just as important things not to do to make such relationships happen. But we do have many suggestions that focus on potential problems. We actually have a double series of articles for the letter S. The focus here is on short, slander, and snoop.

S is for short-tempered. Don’t be short-tempered with people. Give them your time and effort. Hear them out. You don’t know everything that they are going to say. By the time they finish their piece you may find that some of your feelings were in fact misconceptions. Don’t discriminate against vertically-challenged people. There is a theory that the taller candidate almost always wins the U.S. Presidential election. I’ve also seen theories that the candidate with the longer last name almost always wins said election. A third theory states that the winning candidate’s first name alternates from a common name such as George to an uncommon name such as… All kidding aside, short people face a lot of discrimination.

Zinedine Zidane, French soccer star.

S is for slander. Elvis Presley sang in the famous 1956 Blue Suede Shoes “Well, you can knock me down, Step in my face, Slander my name All over the place.” In spite of his tongue-in-cheek lyrics don’t slander people. Slander can start small; just a little snide remark gets the ball rolling. Keep that ball from rolling. Keep your tongue from rolling. If you don’t have something good to say about Sal and Sally don’t say anything about them at all. And don’t use both their names and the word item in a sentence; that could be another form of slander.

Don't fall for slander.

S is for snoop. Keep your nose out of other people’s business. I remember waiting for my car in the garage when I heard a familiar voice talking on the public phone, presumably with his wife. He didn’t see me. I immediately crossed the waiting room. Why on earth would I be interested in the details of his car repair? That would be a case of inactive snooping. Active snooping is also a no-no. Get a life. Or if you just can’t keep away from snooping join a spy agency. And keep your nose and your listening devices (they used to call them bugs) out of my life.

Are you tired of all this negativity? Take a look at our companion series that accentuates the positive.