I have this friend, well more like a good acquaintance, his personality is like Guinness, and it takes some getting used to. He’s temperamental, likes to spout off at the mouth a lot, but most of the time he has a grudge and holds things in. I guess the best word to describe him is that he’s an asshole. We’ve known each other our whole lives. We have this place we always like to go to, kind of like our own little hang out. I’d say we go there just about everyday, sometimes twice a day. When we get there he is always really anxious to get to it, bossing me around, trying to get ahead of me and even threatening me sometimes. It has become a Pavlovian type response for him. In fact, this pattern of us going out everyday is so engrained in him that before we even get there he’s bugging the shit out of me. It’s really irritating. I have almost lost control of myself before because of him. We bicker back and forth all the way there. I say “Hold the fuck on man! You weren’t bugging me like this ten minutes ago but now that we’re almost here you can’t wait to get going!” He just sits there and pushes and pushes and pushes until I can’t stand it anymore. He even spits on the ground sometimes out of spite. I wonder why I even bother arguing with him sometimes. It doesn’t even make sense. Sometimes, it seems like we’ll never get along, but other times, when things go just right, we are like two peas in a pod. Yep! My asshole and I have been through some shit together but we always end up coming out clean on the other side.
Ivan Pavlov (conditioned response): Experiments using dogs where as some form of stimuli (ie., ringing a bell, mild electric shock, whistles, etc.) was used whenever it was time for the dog to eat. At a certain point the food was never presented and just the stimuli was conducted and the dogs began to drool in anticipation of the food even though it wasn’t there. The stimuli caused the conditioned response rather than the food. Just in case you were curious.
