The Annals of It's Not About You

I like that title, and think I might have a potential ongoing series there.

So I was at a tea for Harvard's Memorial Church last week, because I am part of the Harvard community (in my other job) and a big fan of Rev. Peter Gomes, a delightfully outsized personality. Rev. Gomes's weekly teas are a good way to meet other people from different walks of Harvardian life, from undergraduates to faculty to security guards.

Most of them have some connection to the Church, of course, and one such gentleman asked me if I attended services there. "No," I replied. "I'm Jewish."

"Well, you'd still be welcome!" he heartily affirmed.

I was too astonished to make the correct reply, which would have been, "Not at my synagogue if my rabbi found out I'd been going to a church, I wouldn't be."

I recognized that the man meant well, and you know my feelings about how we deal with well-meaning religious folk. So I only made some mild joke about if I was in temple on Saturday, and church on Sunday, when would the laundry get done, and left it at that. But his attempt to be welcoming had some remarkable assumptions behind it. I don't not attend Christian church because I think my presence there would offend them, I don't attend Christian church because I have another religion. Obviously I'll go if there's some reason--an interfaith event, a particular speaker, a friend who wants support or company. But as a general practice, uh, no.

It would be as if a friend of mine were going to a singles event and invited me along, and I said no, and she said, "Oh, come on! You've still got your looks!" Yes, I do, and I've got a husband too. That's why I don't go to singles events. I have my commitments and my preferences, and they preclude certain other avenues of action.

I think a lot of the time we--all of us--tend to assume that people are doing or not doing things for reasons having to do with us, or for the reasons we would do them or not do them. Which can be annoying at best and offensive at worst. Women do this a lot, particularly, around food:

Person A: "I don't want any dessert, thank you."
Person B: "Oh, it won't hurt you, you're so thin!"

But maybe A wants to stay thin. Or maybe she's diabetic. Or allergic to chocolate. Or maybe she just doesn't feel like having any dessert. It's pointless and rude to imply "Well, here's the only reason you could possibly have for doing/not doing X, and that reason is invalid, so do X, already!" And then there's this:

Person A: "I don't want any dessert, thank you."
Person B: "Oh, now I'm going to feel guilty for having some!"

Well, that's B's problem, then, isn't it? Because A's decision is about her own lack of desire for dessert, and is not a comment on A's desire for same.

And this has been the first volume of "The Annals of It's Not About You." Do you have a story about someone who mistakenly believed it was About Them? Of course you do. So send it on in to missconduct@globe.com, and your story might just be featured in a future installment.