Once is a mistake. Twice is a preview of coming attractions.

A single incident genuinely can be an aberration, and treating it as destiny is unfair to people. The second occurrence is different information: it establishes a pattern, and patterns predict. Most of the damage people take comes from continuing to treat the second one as another exception.

When something happens twice, write it down somewhere you will see it again. Change what you expect rather than what you demand, because expectations are yours to adjust and other people’s behavior is not. You can stay kind and still plan around the version of someone that keeps appearing.