139 - Alternative motives

Alternative motives can usually be discovered where someone does something that seems good for you, when truthfully, they're doing it for unknown reasons of their own, and not because they want to be nice.

It's like the husband that comes home with gorgeous sparkling earrings because he did something wrong, or wants to have sex. It's like the parents that tell their child the house pet's gone to live on a farm to keep the kid from mourning over their pet's recent demise. It's like the kiss-ass at school, or in the workplace, that sucks up to the people in charge just to get ahead. It's like the older sibling that smokes and drinks to look cool in front of the younger sibling. It's like the friend that tells you he/she likes the style of your horrible clothes, or your tragic mess of a hairstyle, only to make bitching about you with others a helluva lot funnier, and juicier, afterward. It's like Jennifer Aniston showing up at the Oscars to show Brangelina that she's okay.

From what I see, it seems we do things with alternative motives everyday. We always want to keep up a reputation of being civil, funny, amiable, helpful, polite, loyal and cordial, and so we do nice things for people, we tell jokes, we make an effort to ask how people are when really, we don't care... not that much, not as much as the beneficiary might be led to believe.

And it's dangerous. Who knows who really cares? Are people just doing it because they feel guilty about something? Are people doing it because they pity you? Are people helping you to impress a girl, to impress your friends? Is your mother, or your sister-in-law, or your son, doing things to look good in the eyes of the rest of the family? Are people calling you up because they're just bored? Are people offering you aid because they want/need to feel wanted/needed themselves? Do bloggers around the world really mean it when they compliment you?

Do they, themselves, know they have alternative motives attached to their actions?

Am I being paranoid, or merely doubtful? Pessimistic, perhaps? Cynical? Distrusting? Or is all of society really this conniving?