How Should a Person Make People Feel?
On a positive customer experience
Last year in the fall I went out for a date with a cool guy in Sales who was vastly different from me: He loved Marvel flicks, took pictures of expensive steaks in various steak houses and golfed with his sales buddies, I slummed it in art galleries, broke into abandoned buildings to take photos, ate the same salad the whole week and watched Possession religiously. But we connected online in the summer and surprisingly had a lot to talk about especially once we acknowledged our utter incompatibility. Since I was in Europe we had to wait to meet in person. When we met there was definitely chemistry and the banter was on. But we both knew that there was no way this was going to go anywhere and there were zero hard feelings. I was a bit of a bull in China Shop with my reasons but he was a lot more gracious and then said something that blew me away. Remember how he was in Sales? He said, “My goal in life is for people to have good experiences when they meet me, and walk away hopefully feeling happy.” I immediately thought of the first time I got to use my new generation Dyson and how happy that made me, the ease with which it was gliding over carpets, and how quickly I got the whole house clean. He was a Dyson. I even shared the joke with him and he laughed because the one thing we had in common was a sense of humour and relatively flash-fast banter. I enjoy watching his Stories till this day that feature various cuts of wagyu and creatively drizzled squares of mousse and Florida golf courses.
His saying stayed with me. It not only made me think of how people perceive me but also how I perceive others and what is important when it comes to human connections. When I was younger I hung onto quite a few relationships with “potential,” meaning I tried to make it happen with people who didn’t make me feel so nice but who I believed one day would. I could be devoted to a fault, holding on to that belief harder than to any evidence that there was any basis for my investment in them. I didn’t pay any attention to the feelings of mental and emotional exhaustion, anxiety and feelings of having been used. For a time, especially in my first years of recovery where I met a lot of beautiful, broken people, I believed that friendship meant you had to suffer and give someone endless chances to eventually have them see the potential that you yourself saw in them. And I would feel absolutely devastated and guilty when I would start to avoid people who made me feel anxious and exhausted, I’d feel like I was abandoning them, maybe becoming one more person in their life who failed them… so I’d try again and again, I’d be baffled that nothing was changing.
I have little tolerance for those feelings now. I will absolutely ride on someone’s potential up to a point but if things keep being one-sided, when the only form of communication is, for example, asks for favours or demands of support with zero reciprocity I gtfo. If there are lies and/ or lack of communication and lack of respect for my time and lack of appreciation, I honestly cannot muster much in myself in terms of enthusiasm. As Gen-Z would say, I unsubscribe.
These days, I instinctively gravitate towards people who make me feel nice and whose company inspires me. I have friends who are better than drugs, meaning, I am genuinely elevated and feeling happy after spending time with them. I’m not saying I need my friends to be always “on” and that I avoid sharing difficult things and don’t want to be bummed out and avoid them when they have difficult things going on. Absolutely not. But it is the positive, inspiring feelings that make us stick around and that build a connection that can withstand any storm. I am loyal to a fault and I will go to bat for the friends that I keep.
In my last post, I talked about Maya Angelou and her famous quote “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” My Sales friend is no Maya Angelou but that was a very similar sentiment and it’s a great adage to go by and the result of our acquaintance is that now I think back to that one date and it’s a pleasant memory and I’m genuinely happy we’ve met. When I was younger I used to wish that I was more of an asshole because I used to think that being an asshole was edgy and even a sign of higher intelligence and it gave you more control or something and that kindness and niceness equaled weakness. Now that I’m older I believe it’s kindness that is revolutionary and making people feel good after they interact with you is the real superpower.