Handicap your friends

Isn't 'handicap' an inappropriate word now? I'm not sure. Apologies to those offended. I'm referring to how golfers 'handicap' themselves, though.

For those unfamiliar, handicapping your golf score enables people of all skill levels to better compete with each other. With accurate handicaps, I could play with a pro golfer and it'd be competitive. The number of strokes the pro would spot me would depend on what the two of us score on average. In other words, we are acknowledging there is a difference in capability, so we are rewarding the player who performs better within their range of capability. If the pro has a bad (worse than average) day and I have a good (better than average) day, I win - even though I would probably never win by raw score.

As far as relationships with people go, I think it's important to develop the skill of accurately handicapping. If you let people be who they are and accurately assess what they are capable of, you're going to get along a lot better. We all have different expectations of human beings. I don't expect a 10 year old to act the same as a 40 year old, but I shouldn't expect two 40 year olds to act the same as each other either.

I know people who have fought and fallen apart with good friends because they fail at being able to understand how they think and what they are capable of. If one person is late 4 times out of 5, you can't get upset with them for being late to your birthday party. It is expected behavior. You must adjust your expectation of that person in order to make the relationship work. Am I CONDONING tardiness? Certainly not. I'm merely saying that if you are choosing to have a relationship with this person, it is up to YOU to understand how they operate. If tardiness is a pet peeve of yours, perhaps you should seek other friendships - it's hard to change people.