Studies in human nature

Sometimes we have abilities of which we are unaware, especially when young. Mind you, I can hardly claim to be multi-talented. I wish I could draw and paint, but never had the know-how.

In my professional life, as a junior employee I pretty much did I was told, including making the tea and coffee, but that was the office junior's lot along with putting away everyone else's files. There was not much engagement with clients which was left to more senior people, and it was not until I took on more responsible roles that I met clients face-to-face.

As soon as I did, I started in the professional sense to learn the art of people watching. Of course my elders would tell me their opinion of clients, their attitudes and preferences and whether they were to be trusted. This was long before we had to worry about Money Laundering Regulations and the like. It was simply whether clients could be relied upon to tell the truth. I learned to gauge professional clients but somehow never transferred this to my personal life.

I don't know why it never dawned on me that a “nose” for understanding different characters in the people I met could not be translated into one's personal life. It took the devastating shock of being deceived in love back in the eighties to shake me out of an ignorant complacency, though after that I had some years of being deeply suspicious of the motives of many people I met on a social basis.

Over the years, though, I have been more relaxed about these matters, which is fortunate since otherwise I would not have eventually been more lucky in love. I do find it quite easy from having met people a few times to know exactly how they think; whether they are really friendly or just pretending, whether they are generous or mean, how they are likely to react in a given situation and therefore how to avoid offending them.

I guess that I have a talent for empathising and putting myself in other peoples places with their mindsets. That is really useful in business, but golly, it is so brilliant in “normal life”. I wish I had known how this worked when I started out in my adult life.