EP 38 | Believe the Pattern

How often are you explaining someone’s behavior...instead of believing the pattern in front of you? 

In this episode of Rebuilt Different, we explore why we soften repeated behavior, protect the stories we’ve created about people, and what changes when we stop asking “What did they mean?” and start asking “What keeps happening?”

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You ever found yourself more focused on understanding someone's behavior rather than paying attention to it? Someone disappoints you, you tell yourself that they're just stressed. If they do it again, they got a lot going on. It happens a third time, and instead of asking, why does this keep happening, we start asking, what else could possibly explain it? And I think that that's something almost all of us do. We don't just observe behavior, we interpret it. We try to soften it, we try to explain it. Sometimes so well that we miss the pattern entirely. Welcome back to Rebuilt Different. I'm Tiffany Page, and today I want to talk about the stories that we tell ourselves to avoid believing what's right in front of us. Because sometimes the hardest truth to accept isn't what someone did. It's that they've been showing us the same thing all along. Let's get into it. One thing that I've realized when it comes to people is that we are waiting, is that we're always waiting for certainty. The obvious betrayal, the huge lie, the moment where no explanation is possible anymore. Because if it's obvious, then we can no longer argue with what we've been seeing all along. But that's not usually how people reveal themselves. It's rarely one dramatic moment. It's the little things. It's the friend who never asks how you're doing. The coworker who somehow takes credit every single time. The person who says that they value honesty until the honesty's about them. Or how about the partner who apologizes but never actually changes? And here's the important part. None of those moments by themselves necessarily mean anything. Because everybody has bad days. Everybody gets defensive sometimes, everybody forgets to text back sometimes. I'm not talking about one moment, I'm talking about the moment that keeps happening. The one that quietly repeats itself while we're busy over here giving it a new explanation every time. And that's when I realized something. People usually tell you exactly who they are, just not all at once. They tell you through patterns. So why do we do this? Why do we keep explaining behavior that keeps repeating itself? I'm sure you guys have heard of this: cognitive dissonance. It's the mental discomfort we feel when two things that we believe don't fit together. Maybe you believe someone's a good friend, but they keep disappointing you. Maybe you believe your partner loves you, but they keep crossing your boundaries. Or maybe you believe that your boss really values you, but they keep treating you like you're replaceable. Because out of those examples, those ideas don't fit together. And our brains don't like that feeling. So instead of changing what we believe about the person, we often change the explanation for the behavior. They're distressed, they got a lot going on. They didn't mean it like that. And maybe all those things are true. But eventually, the explanation becomes louder than the evidence. And once that happens, confirmation bias quietly enters the chat. That's our tendency to look for evidence that supports what we already believe while overlooking the evidence that challenges it. Because once we've decided who we want someone to be, our brains start collecting evidence that supports that version. While dismissing everything that doesn't. And it's not because we're irrational, and it's not because we're weak. It's because hope is powerful. And sometimes hope is powerful enough to compete with reality. Alright, story time. I started noticing this in my own life. Not because someone did one terrible thing, but because one day I stopped looking at each moment individually and started looking at everything that happened together. I had a friend for about 10 years. If you'd asked me back then if she was a good friend, I would have said absolutely. She had been through a lot, and I genuinely loved her as a friend. I was driving back and forth to Boston almost every single weekend because she'd been through a whole lot of shit and I wanted to be there for her. But then one day, after she broke plans with me that we'd had for a month, so she could ditch me for her boyfriend that she saw every single day. I'd realized something. In all of those years of us being friends, she had only come to visit me once. That realization didn't end the friendship right there. It just made me start paying attention. And also kind of snapped me out of those rose-colored glasses that I was wearing. And once I started paying attention, I started noticing things. I was the one who's usually adjusting my schedule, I was the one who's usually checking in. Plans with me were the easiest plans to cancel. And that's when I realized something else. We don't just create stories about people, we start protecting those stories. In my mind, I had already decided that she was a good friend. So every new disappointment had to fit that version of her that I had in my mind. And here's the thing: she had always been like that. My bias of her being a good friend kept me explaining away her behavior. So instead of asking whether the pattern meant something, I kept searching for reasons why the moment was different. And here's something else I've noticed. Recognizing the pattern isn't usually the hardest part. Believing it is. Because the moment you believe it, you're faced with the decision. Maybe you stop waiting. Maybe you gotta have a difficult conversation. Maybe you stop making excuses, maybe you leave. And those decisions are not easy. Sometimes they cost relationships, sometimes they cost comfort, and sometimes they force you to grieve the version of the person that you thought existed. And I think that's why a lot of us negotiate with reality, not because we don't see what's happening. Because accepting what's happening often asks something of us. But patterns aren't predictions, they're information. They're not telling you who someone could never become. They're telling you who they are consistently choosing to be today. And that is enough information to make decisions with. So if there's one thing that I hope you guys take from this episode, it's this. I don't think most of us have a pattern recognition problem. I think we have a pattern acceptance problem. Because accepting that pattern asks us to have a conversation, to set the boundary, to stop waiting, sometimes to walk away. And that's a lot harder than coming up with one more explanation. So if you're finding yourself in this position, instead of asking, what did they mean by that? Try asking what keeps happening. Because one moment doesn't tell you who somebody is. And one bad day doesn't tell you who somebody is. But repeated behavior usually tells you a lot. The question isn't whether the pattern's there, the question is whether you're willing to believe it. See you guys next episode.