The exercise of understanding somebody is never ending...unless, of course, the need to understand them goes away. People evolve day to day...some leaps are larger than others, but what motivates me today can bore me tomorrow. We consider a lot of character traits to be constant without the evidence to support the assumed consistency. Even after a large sampling, something can happen that will cause a person to alter what others might consider to be a pillar of their personality. Without proper communication and attention, you can easily find yourself trying to talk to an outdated version of a person you thought you knew.
Personally, I ask a lot of questions, that's my way of understanding motivations, and ultimately, people. Often my questions double as insults or are said in jest but, most of the time, they are sincere and not meant to demean. This dichotomy can be confusing and only through understanding who I am will people be able to accept it. However, if you don't like your decisions/actions being questioned, you're telling me that you don't want me to understand you, thus stunting whatever progress that was being made.
Call me selfish, arrogant, or whatever else, but I highly value my attention. Because of this, I am very discerning with who & what I give my time & attention to. If I see that I'm walking down a dead end, the runaway slave in my blood kicks in and I stop and go another way that is more fruitful. I'm not the one to beat my head against a wall. If you or your actions tell me that I need not put any more effort into understanding you, I'll oblige.
That being said, how well do you know your friends? How do you go about maintaining the necessary level of understanding? What is most misunderstood about you? Be honest, you can't fix an issue you don't know about.
This was a good one.
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