‘Even siblings don’t get the same parents’: Why we experience people differently
University students during a lecture. Students have different experiences with their lecturers and professors.
What you need to know:
- People are experienced differently based on personal perspective, timing, and how we engage with them.
- Perceptions vary—one person's disciplinarian is another's mentor, revealing how subjective human experience truly is.
On Tuesday morning, I showed a colleague a social media post that asked if it is true we experience people differently. He immediately agreed with the comment that said, “Yes, even siblings do not get the same parents.”
In this colleague’s childhood recollection of his mother, she was his protector from his father’s whips. Reasons for whips came often because, as a young boy growing up, this colleague and his older brothers often got up to all kinds of mischief that landed them in trouble.
The plot twist, however, was that, while his mother shielded him from the deserved whips his father wielded, and even interceded on his behalf for his dad not to beat him, his older brothers were readily handed over to their dad for caning, by his mum.
There was a compassionate side to his mother that took centre stage in his experience of her. While his older brothers describe their mother as a tough and unflinching disciplinarian, he cannot relate to this identity of his mother.
Well, in case you are wondering the possible reasons why this colleague received special ‘protection’ from his mother, his hunch has always been that it was because he is the last-born.
Read more: How we see ourselves vs how others see us
Like my colleague, I am convinced that we experience people differently. I am still collecting my evidence, but my tentative conclusion is that when someone comes to you and says, “Oh, I went to see that doctor and she has a stern face from here to Timbuktu.
She never smiles” and your experience of that person is that of a genial doctor you instantly got along with, it does not always mean that one of you has to be wrong about their assessment. There is the possibility that you just experienced the same person differently!
When I joined university a little over 10 years ago, I remember being struck almost immediately by one of my lecturers. Her name is Prof Jennifer Muchiri. She was the strict, sure-footed type – complete with the signature short hair at the time. She walked firmly and appeared to have little patience with students who did not go straight to the point when they spoke.
That means that if you tried to speak to her along the corridors, she would not reduce her speed until you started making sense. I was determined to like her; to get close to her and learn her ways, which I still believe were totally cool. I looked forward to her classes. I do not remember how the vote was done, but I ended up being the class representative for that course. This excited me because it meant I could go into her office more often; I could stay behind after class to ask her questions. I even borrowed some books from her, and she was generous.
I just assumed everyone in my class was as excited and fascinated by Prof Muchiri until one day, during a discussion group session, one person complained that Prof Muchiri was cold and detached.
One of my classmates said this lecturer does not smile and she thinks that is because she got her PhD when she was too young. Some of my classmates did not like her punctuality and insistence that we, the students, do the same.
They also did not like the fact that she was too keen on assignments. You can imagine my shock trying to reconcile these descriptions with a lecturer I adored and thought was the best thing that ever happened to me in my first year of university.
Moved on
My 18-year-old self knew better than to antagonise my classmates in that conversation by loudly declaring that I disagreed with everything they said about my favourite lecturer. For a few classes after that, I observed Prof Muchiri for evidence of the coldness that my classmates had talked about. I eventually gave up and moved on. Later, I discovered other students who had a similar experience of this lecturer as I had, and life moved on.
Looking back now, that was my first adult introduction to the fact that we experience people and situations differently. And I think perhaps something we do not actively pay attention to is the role we play in how we experience people.
For example, could the reason why you always experience your mama mboga as a nonchalant business person be because you never say hello when you get to the stall, and speak to her with your earphones on?