Experimentation

While house-sitting for my bro, I'm also dog-sitting, and when you give the dog his dinner, you tell him to sit, then put the food in his kennel, then tell him, "OK," and he runs in to eat. He's a very obedient dog, so it's kind of comical sometimes when he's really eager to eat and you can tell he really doesn't want to wait for the "OK" but is patiently sitting anyway. It sparked an idea.

I wanted to see how he would respond to subtle variations on the usual routine, which takes place three times a day. So the second day, I said, "O-" and stopped before saying "K", just to see what he'd do. He started to get up but immediately caught himself and looked at me with eager anticipation. I said, "K" and he ran into the kennel. I laughed with hearty fascination. The next day, I just made a noise that sounded vaguely like, "OK". That seemed to be enough, and off he went. The next day, I just motioned with my hand and off he went. Next, I said, "OK" very monotonously and slowly. No response. I said, "OK" in the normal, fast way but being very careful not to give any nonverbal cues like nodding my head or motioning with my hand or even making eye contact. Off he went. Very interesting. I'd decided not to test him more than once a day (today's second test, which I'm about to mention, being unintentional) because I didn't want to disturb the routine too much or grey the cues for him. I was just intrigued as to what, exactly, he considered the green light. Was it the tone? The word? The nonverbal movements? All of the above?

So today, I started to wave him in, and he was so eager that as soon as I brought my hand up and said, "O-" he started running towards his kennel, but I said, "Stay!" and he stopped and sat. I think he realized I hadn't finished. I said, "OK," and off he went.

After that last incident, I thought to myself, "Good grief, he's probably getting really tired of being tested with variations on the command. The poor guy just wants to eat!" and I figured I should probably stop experimenting on the little (big) dude. It's just that when I get a question in my head, I want to explore the answers, and if it involves experimentation, better yet, so I examine and pinpoint, testing from different angles, experimenting with different stimuli and responses... Thinking about this, I realized: I do this, probably even on a subconscious level, with just about everything, including relationships with people.

I get bored, in a way. On one hand, it's enough to just be with people I care about and enjoy time together, but on the other hand, I always want to understand them on increasingly deeper levels, particularly if I find them interesting. So I act this way or that and test their responses, ask probing questions, challenge their statements to see what's behind them... It's a curse, but it's a curse I rather enjoy entertaining. Unfortunately, I probably wear some people out that way. They just want to "be", and I'm always subtly poking and prodding and testing and exploring because that's what makes life interesting to me. Sometimes I just want to be, not have to defend myself or debate, and even I get annoyed being on the other end of it, so certainly people who are less analytical get utterly fed up!

...I guess what I'm saying is I should probably learn to rein it in a bit and recognize when my poking and prodding is too steady and incessant, and I should deliberately force myself to stop testing people to give them a breather more often. And regardless of however well I learn to manage that tendency, I'll probably need to be with someone who enjoys being poked. ...You know what I mean.