“My life is your fault”

I blame you. Yes you: the one staring blankly at the computer screen. Not your parents, not your friend, not your next door neighbour... YOU!

Terrie is always blaming me for things. Whether it’s her love of David Tennant or anything maths related, I’m bound to receive some of the blame. We all do this though: shift the blame. We hate blaming ourselves and if we aren’t blaming someone else, it’s something else. Inanimate objects would never survive with feelings as they’re always being blamed for something or other. You blame the pen when it leaks over you, you blame a shoe for tripping you up, and you blame the weather for ruining your hair. You never blame yourself for chewing the pen, leaving the shoe in the middle of the floor or forgetting your umbrella. Instead the poor inanimate objects receive the brunt of your frustration.

We don’t even like seeing others blaming themselves. Obviously sometimes it legitimately wasn’t their fault but even if it clearly was, we try and tell them it wasn’t. For these sorts of situations we have come up with replies such as “it could have happened to anyone” or “you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Blame is a concept pretty unique to humans and I think it’s odd how people hate finding faults in themselves. They hate blaming themselves, but are quite happy to pass the blame on to someone entirely different. However, what I find even odder is that the same people who constantly blame shift are not necessarily amazing at picking out where they themselves excel.

Writing things like CVs and personal statements are hideous jobs and I always feel like I’m boasting rather than just picking out my talents. I think part f this is how we generally hate to express extremes to most people. We don’t like appearing excessively good in too many areas and at the same time we don’t like seeming excessively bad. I don’t know about you but when I’m given a survey to fill out, if the responses are on a scale of 1 to 5, I will rarely pick 1 or 5. And I will rarely tick the ‘strongly agree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ boxes. You have to be pretty passionate about something in order to express extremes to more than those you are close to. Most people don’t want to appear a failure so often blame shift; So Terrie...

“My life is YOUR fault!”

Hehe :)