competitive SOs...(long)

[VeloVT]

Is he an oldest sibling, by any chance? (I don't mean *your* oldest sibling of course , but the oldest of the children in his family).

My sister (there are two of us, she is the older one) is this way. I will like something different than what she likes, and she will be convinced that I just don't know what I'm about, and then later, when she discovers what I had liked, she's 100% all about it. At one point she decided to give me ski pants for my birthday (she was working in advertising at a ski resort and got big whatever you call it direct discounts from certain companies). She asked me to let her know if there was a certain pair I liked. I went to the North Face store in town and found a pair I really liked, and told her. She decided they weren't what I really wanted and got me the same pair she had (which were more expensive, she wasn't being cheap). Then a few months later we were in the store together and I tried on the pair I had liked and she wanted a pair.

Recently I was thinking about getting my chin length bob chopped off into a short cut. (For a long time she had short hair and recently grew it out into a chin length bob). I mentioned this in a conversation and before I had even finished saying it she was shaking her head like it would be a mistake. Of course, whatever she's doing at the moment is the right thing to do.

I used to take it personally, but it's really not personal at all. I used to think sometimes that she was being judgmental or competitive (in other circumstances related but slightly different to the ones I've described), but I realize now she wasn't, she's just used to being the "first" and having me follow, and has a hard time accepting other patterns.