Pat is a very easy going guy. It’s rare for him to be angry or annoyed with some­one, as aggra­vat­ing as they can be. He has his four basic rules of get­ting along with peo­ple, which are a part of his per­son­al­i­ty. To me, they per­fect­ly explain how I can’t walk ten min­utes with him on cam­pus with­out some­one walk­ing by and greet­ing him. He’s one of the most pop­u­lar, friend­ly, out­go­ing peo­ple I know.

So I was sur­prised to hear him tell me about some­one he met whom he could­n’t stand. After all, this is Patty, the guy who loves and is loved by every­one. I did­n’t believe him until he explained how this per­son stood for every­thing he was against. Pat holds respect for oth­ers as one of the most impor­tant things in life, and this per­son had none.

It was odd to think that Pat has a nat­ur­al “ene­my”, some­one who con­tra­dicts him in almost every way, until I real­ized that I have one as well. I’ve met a per­son who is every­thing I try not to be. He’s obnox­ious, untrust­wor­thy, crude, over­bear­ing, pussy-whipped, jeal­ous, and closed-mind­ed. He has a decent set of man­ners, is gen­er­al­ly friend­ly to most peo­ple, and does have a rea­son­able intel­li­gence as far as I can tell, but none of this can real­ly make up for what he’s like.

I can feel myself being slight­ly, uncon­trol­lably biased against him, which I can’t stand in myself. One of Pat’s rules is that every­one should be giv­en a fair chance, and even though I feel like I’ve giv­en more than enough time for this per­son to change my opin­ion, I’m nev­er sure if it’s enough. I hate being biased.

I gen­er­al­ly can’t stand most peo­ple, but that’s my fault because of my intol­er­ance. This per­son, how­ev­er, is one of the only peo­ple I don’t blame myself for. Perhaps I dis­like him so much because he reminds me a lot of what I used to be. Of course, Aaron thinks that this is a good thing, a reminder of how far I’ve been able to come as a per­son.

Sometimes that’s just hard to see.