h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What do you do that you know makes you a dick. If you lack self-awareness to the point where you can't think of anything, then chances are you are the dick everyone else talks about.

1) I find it very hard to be genuinely sympathetic to sick people. I'm of the "soldier on" school and can't stand people who do the "poor me" thing. Unfortunately that means I've hurt/offended people who were seriously ill.

2) I have a very self-depreciating sense of humour, I'm constantly putting myself down, however I forget that some other people don't like the piss taken out of them as mercilessly as I do to myself.

3) I'm not as smart as I'd like to think I am.

4) I am terrible at remembering names and can have entire conversations and meetings with people without once saying their name. Whilst I am good at faces, I often put the wrong name to them.

5) Pretending to hear things and just nodding along. My hearing is terrible, particularly if there's a lot of background noise like in a club or at a match. I've had to master the art of mirroring somebody's tone and expression to just go along with what I think they've said. Sometimes I get it wrong and have to admit that I didn't hear them and was just agreeing to any old shite.


What are your five faults?

What are my fault's what?

That would be one of mine (pendantic? moi?).

2) When someone says something to me, I'll often argue from the other point of view even when I don't actually believe it.

3) The sympathy for sick people thing - yep, me too.

4) I can very easily forget what I'm told almost instantly. If I don't write stuff down straight away, I'll forget it until some point in the future when I can't deal with it, like 3am in bed. And I'll argue til I'm blue in the face that I was never told.

5) Can't think of another one. Don't get me wrong, I have many faults, but none of them really work in the context of this converation.

Deb

Main one would be a pedantic inability to resist correcting people's incorrect use of apostrophes!

...and correcting people who spell it "pendantric" - what, is it hanging 'round you're neck?!

... and correcting people who can't spell "self-deprecating" and spell it "self-depreciating" - what, you're writing off a proportion of your value against future earnings???

... and hating it when people remind me of this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9vMCgWS_n8

Oh, I have lots of faults.

1. I don't like confrontation, so I tend to bottle up problems rather than raising them immediately. This means that I sometimes make a bigger deal about something than is really necessary, because it's been bothering me for a long time.
2. When I have time to think through what I am going to say in too much detail, I tend to be overly precise, and this can come across as cold. I also tend to opt for mild sarcasm, which seems clever in my head but isn't helpful.
The above combine to make outbursts like "...But of course you wouldn't do that, because that's a foolish thing to do, and obviously you're not a fool." See what I mean?
Oh, and I also have difficulty with problems that build up slowly. If I spill something then I'll mop it up immediately, but I rarely do anything about an ongoing build-up of dirt and grime around the house.

And the fifth one would be an inability to think of more than four things when asked to populate a list of five.

1. Confrontation avoidant. I'll do anything for a quiet life.
2. I'm overly fond of a glass of wine or 2.
3. Terrible at remembering people's names.
4. I have no sense of humour. Well, a really odd sense of humour.
5. I'm not that great at hoovering, dusting etc. And my garden's a mess!

1) I don't like to admit my faults.
2) I dwell on my faults too much.
3) I fear criticism.
4) I am slothful.
5) I have a head in the sand attitude to financial affairs.

and

6) I snore. Loudly.

@swl - the names thing...I am very, *very* bad at names. Sometimes I'll see someone who I've known for years. I'll be able to tell you loads and loads about them - just not their name. However...I've come to the conclusion that this is less a fault and more a disability.

Everything else is 2legs fault.

Exactly five? Okay then:

4. Once I establish a fixed method for doing something, I am very reluctant to change it. This brings me into conflict with other people when they have other methods, especially if they aren't willing to explain in detail why their methods are better. Whether it's logic or just rationalization, I always have a reasoning to back up my methods, so it irritates me when anyone dismisses them without having anything solid to present as an alternative. "This is just the way I do it" drives me up the wall!
5. Should I do procrastination? That's linked to no. 3 really, a different symptom of the same underlying problem. Okay, instead I'll do this: I'm very certain of my own opinions, and I rather depend on other people being equally certain. I used to know people who would habitually trump "I think..." with "Well I _know_...", just to get their own way, so I now usually drop the "I think" and count on people to step in if they genuinely know better, at which point I will back down.
Fortunately, I take pride in always being prepared to admit I am wrong. This is very important to me.

Actually...neither I nor Beatrice have answered about what makes us dicks. Probably others don't mind the ones I listed as much as I do.

OK...

1) Not listening/being glued to the keyboard.
2) Speaking first and thinking afterwards. (and sometimes I apologise )
3) Getting cross about things I'm not cross about rather than the thing I am cross about.
4) Being vague bordering on mendacious about work/travel arrangements to try to hold off mentioning that I'm about to do something awkward.
5) Acting all innocent.

I'll come back with mine shortly, but just wanted to say; excellent thread, swl

Like swl, I'm terrible at remembering people's names.

Like Deb,I will argue from the other point of view even when I don't
believe it.

I can usually resist my pedantic tendencies, but when I'm sorely tempted I cave in....

Like JustBob, I hate confrontation and keep things bottled up. I also set a course
and don't want to change it. And even if I want to change, I procrastinate.

Edward's faults seem very lovable. Taken together, they don't seem like such bad faults.

I don't understand why anyone should want to have exactly five faults. Does the sixth one automatically qualify you for that very hot place run by a guy with horns and a long pointy tail?

Non-facetious answers:

1. Congratulating myself for being "tolerant" when what I'm actually doing is not tolerating something at all but to a greater or lesser degree of success concealing and bottling up my visceral disgust for it until a point where I can conceal it no longer and it all comes out in a tidal wave of destructive hatred.

2. Expecting people to have the same arbitrary set of standards I do, e.g. expecting people to care about putting the milk back in the fridge after they've used it, but NOT necessarily care about an accumulation of detritus in the passenger footwell of a car.

3. A complete lack of any useful ability to read non-verbal cues. Body language, you say? Sorry, I don't speak it and I don't understand it. I can, sometimes, if I'm concentrating, SEE it happening, and can even sometimes, if I'm concentrating, interpret it, but I find I'm wrong more often than I'm right. If you're in my presence and you want me to know something, and you communicate by means of subtle nuance, facial expression and gesture - you might as well not bother.

4. Verbosity. 'Nuff said.

5. A pathological inability to let it lie when someone doesn't know something, doesn't WANT to know something, has made it clear they're not interested in knowing it, actively avoids finding out about it and is blissful in their ignorance.

Awe, shucks, paulh.

But I've put a gloss on them, I assure you.

My faults? I'm a perfectionist .... oh sorry we're not doing dumbass interview questions and their pre-rehearsed cliched replies

(I do believe that I actually used a similar line to this many years ago at an interview, but in my defence, I had never heard the question or answer before and genuinely had just thought it up as an honest response..)

1. I laugh at my own jokes (someone has to).

2. I am fiercely pro Canadian (which is odd since everyone else in my family was born in England).

3. It would seem that I am a thread killer, since I tend to be blunt and/or rude or worse, make an odd joke that has a tenuous link to the subject.

4. I am un-pedantic (or even un-pendantic).

5. I do not suffer fools gladly, yet at times I am one.

I've noticed that pretty much all the Canadians we have here are pretty fiercely Nationalistic.