call me Veruca Salts

I finished season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer last night. It was good. The next to last episode, in which a girl becomes invisible because no one notices her, made me think. In that episode, Cordelia makes the point several times that she is the center on her universe, which is no surprise. It was really quite amazing to see how she could change any situation into a tragedy for her, no matter who else was affected. And her criticism of the literature in class was further evidence to her extreme self centeredness. Now, of course, she is an exaggeration, but it made me wonder how much I and those around me do the same thing, to a far lesser degree. Is it truly possible to ever really see the other person's point of view, even if you try? I can think of several times in my life when I was trying to lend a sympathetic shoulder to a friend and I thought I understood where they were coming from and why they were upset, only to find out that they were upset for a completely different reason. It makes you think. I wonder how self centered I appear to be. And that was a rhetorical statement. I think there's an important lesson to be learned here. No matter how hard we try, we can never understand anyone else, so why try? Look out for number 1, baby! :)