Earlier in your thread you mentioned you had a gut feeling about a certain individual that had a superior air to her. Well, a lot of the time, our gut feeling is right. We actually do learn a lot about others during our childhood, we do tend to develop these gut feelings as we experience different individuals that can prove to be unfriendly or invade or try to control our boundaries in ways that contribute to our not feeling safe.

When you realized how some individuals never change, never grow out of the behaviors they portrayed in high school that they developed and used to navigate, yes, that's how it is more often than not. If someone did not have any respect for authority figures and took pleasure in breaking the rules, and found joy in doing that, that is often the same type of behavior that individual maintains even as an adult. Often they don't really grow out of it, but instead just learn more ways of maintaining and achieving it better.

When I interact with you rdgrad, I learn you are a "nice" person. And I think at your core, you were always that way. And because of that, you are always going to observe behaviors that you will feel in your gut that the other individual isn't one who has depth or ability to be trusted. And what is important to remember about that, is that when that other individual fails to be responsible, they are always going to blame that on others, it's how they NAVIGATE.

One of the things I experienced recently is how an individual like what I described can pick up another individual that will actually support them while they choose to go on their smear campaign. I am sure if you sit and think about that rdgrad, that's what you experienced in high school. You said, it was the worst in high school, yet, you think about the more recent you experienced of that which is in college. The reason for this rdgrad, is that it was worse in high school due to how high school is smaller and more intimate and in college it isn't that way because high school is a more intimate environment like a very small town compared to a large bustling city. It sounds like for you, even though college has some elements similar to high school, it felt safer because it was not smaller and as confined as high school is.

In another thread of yours, you described how you felt once old friends you had in college began to disappear. Well, because college is a larger community, you were able to come across other nice people and you did not have that old feeling you experienced in high school as much, instead you exerienced some more rewarding relationships. Even in a place you spent time with these friends socializing and had some good times in is now somehow changed. It's there, but it's not there the way is used to be.

When a person once again reduces their environment, like for instance instead of being a college student where you meet so many others and find a nice group of friends, and now its a smaller community of faculty? Something becomes familiar again as you have shared. Often that's because you are now dealing with a smaller group again, and you are noticing behavior patterns that can be so similar to what it was like in high school. You miss something, something you experienced on that large campus that provided you with good memories and experiences. It very possible that your friends moved away because they began to feel it too depending on what their career goals were. You stayed because you felt the environment could continue providing you with a place you can flourish.

When my daughter graduated from high school, and she did like high school because she liked a lot of the teachers, enjoyed the support they gave her while she was learning and she does like that even in the horse world too, she enjoyed being a student with different teachers. When it came to college I sat and listened to the meeting the staff had for the parents. They talked about how the first year for many students is very scary. They talked about how many students express a desire to return home, and how as parents we need to not give into that and instead encourage them to stay and adjust. The bottom line is that because they no longer have that smaller sense of community they experienced in high school, they often feel very out of sorts and lost.

Fortunately, my daughter was not like that, my daughter embraced and loved it. My daughter loved the fact that it was not such a confined community and thinking back on why, I think it was due to how I raised her to expand her exposure to many instead of just being confined. Basically, my message to my daughter was "you don't like the bus when it has bullies?, find another way of transportation and I always let her feel free if she wanted me to drive her to school. I paid attention to when she experienced that contolling trainer, he told her how she would not find another trainer if she left him, and I proved to her NEVER listen to that, instead leave and find another trainer. I also told her, if you find yourself in a group and there are bullies that like to make you feel bad?, leave that group and find a nicer group. So basically, by the time she got to college, she did not need that sense of smaller community, she had already learned important navigational skills so she was not scared. She learned how to develop a group of friends just as you had in collage. She also was more capable of handling a larger corporate world that has a bigger community verses a smaller confined community. She flew out to San Francisco from the east coast to a big corporate gathering, she sat in a large conference room with strangers, many of which were on higher levels. She presented as more mature and presented questions that many of these individuals were impressed by. And a lot of that was because she learned to expand instead of just staying confined in a smaller group. Because she learned how to walk away from the control of that one trainer and learned how to engage more than one trainer, she learned how to find better mentors too. Sometimes if the sandbox is little and someone only learns to play in that small sandbox, they can feel uncomfortable playing in a much bigger sandbox that isn't so confined. This is expecially true for individuals that control the sandbox and get angry if that is somehow challenged.

I think you enjoy the bigger sandbox rdgrad, because you learned there are better things to experience when the sandbox is bigger and you found nice people because of that. I think it's possible that when you returned to that smaller type of community, you may have started to experience old anxieties that are due to how often a certain type of smaller community can have the same dynamics of individuals that interacted in unhealthy ways. So it could be that while you are at a big college campus, and you have found memories, the faculty you experienced meant something different then how you are experiencing the faculty now. Now, that faculty is in itelf a smaller community within that biggered town size campus. So, the social dynamics can lend to the behaviors you encountered before that did not agree with you. Often it's that kind of transition that can present challenges that a person did not do well in. And YES it's not unusual to run into those with that Superior attitude and those that gossip and can be controlling and blame others instead of admitting their own lacks.

Actually, it's taken me a while to write this post to you because I have been inturpted by things I am dealing with here on my farm. I have a young man helping me with the barn work and for him it's helping him feel useful and productive. This young man has a very challenged history, grew up via state care verses a normal family because his parents were not able to provide a safe home for him. He struggles with ADHD and relationship challenges and turned to alcohol to help him deal with not only the ADHD, but also never really experiencing a normal home environment. He also struggles with PTSD. So I had to go out and talk to him and discuss what I needed and I know that once he gets that, he will do it all the way that works best for him in terms of organizing how he best gets what I want accomplished. The other thing he shared with me is that the one mentor role model he had, his uncle, just passed away two months ago. He is a very lost young man right now. Just needed to talk a bit but also be allowed to do something that is productive.

Well, for myself? That happens to be what I do well at, working with individuals one on one. That's what I did when I taught, worked with children one on one and figuring out how they function that works best for them and helping them understand it as well.

Then I have another guest arriving, a policeman that is bringing his young son here to fish in my pond. I had to tell him to bring bug spray because the nats are out early. To stay away from the rocks due to snakes, and to be careful when casting lines in the water because I have a pair of muskrats and I love my muskrats and don't want them to accidently get hooked. Also, we only do catch and release here too. Also, not to venture up to the barn or around my ponies so as not to pet them because I touch them a lot and I want this young man to have his space so he can do the work without being interupted, he likes to work without being inturupted. I GET THAT, no problem it's how he functions best. So, everyone gets to have their space to enjoy what's here, including my muskrats and the other wildlife I have here. I want this young man to stay sober, to have some space with a sense of personal control. I am not one that needs to micro manage and he does best when it's like that so he feels he has control over what needs to get done. As long as he stays sober and is productive, I am fine with him coming and getting to feel productive. No one gets owned here, it's more about respecting and sharing, no space hogging and gossiping or smearing and dumping and hovering crap.

So getting back to you rdgrad, I think you would fair best in finding a way to share the experience you had with students so they can navigate that big world they are entering into looking to figure out what would work best for them and getting an education that can help them do just that. I think if you can have that kind of career without having to deal with a small community that gets too much like it was in high school, you will fair better. You may fair well too if you develop some good relationships with some students that are more free ranging like your group of friends were. It's really ok if you prefer to distance yourself from that smaller type sandbox, experience has showed you it's not really your cup of tea and that's ok.