Jekyll/Hyde

[jay]

A few realizations, today, largely unrelated.

For some combination of reasons, I've been depressed, almost despondent at times, since we got back Friday evening. And this has spun off my usual depression-parasitic reactions... increased insecurity, defiance, self-putdowns, clingyness. Strangely, my spirits were hugely lifted in a Krispy Kreme shop tonight when the counter guy handed me a warm doughnut... "you look like you could use this." Not on my waistline, perhaps, but that little act of kindness brought me out of a funk. Thankfully, my down periods rarely persist for more than a few days, and soon I'll be back at work (which tends to drag me out of a hole).

At work I feel in charge of myself, competent, capable and I have a track record of accomplishments. Self-confidence. I know my value, and can measure my past impact in a couple of fields. And I enjoy it -- I feel passionately about what I do, and learn. All of those things collude to bring me up and make me fully-functional again.

Personally or socially... I feel adrift, incompetent, and fairly unattractive. Like I have no accomplishments, and nothing much to offer personally. Left idle at home, or without positive external social reinforcement, I'll tend to damp down and gnaw on myself. And I'm not fishing for compliments here... I'm stating my mindset, whether or not it matches reality. One reason that I avoid planning a social calendar during the workweek is that subconsciously I associate it with this mindset. Brian-the-scientist doesn't want to think about turning back into Brian-the-geek, come Friday evening, or the possibilities for failure and rejection therein. Kind of a Jekyll/Hyde flip... and at the same time, I feel internally compelled to go out and find friends and be social. I can't just hide away until Monday morning.

Another realization, coming out of a 2-hour-long chat with my dear friend EA, is that my courting behaviors, manners, and attitudes are much closer to what girls are apparently taught than boys. I wait for the other person to make the first move. I dislike pursuing... I worry about harrassing or annoying women if I show much interest. I'd much rather wait until someone shows some signs of interest, then reciprocate. All of my five past-and-present sweeties kissed me first, probably after running out of patience (wry smile). patgreene claims that I moved first, but she's wrong ;-).

The same thing is true of casual touching... even with partners or close friends. I don't want to seem forward, or make the other person uncomfortable. I almost never reach for anyone. If someone takes my hand, fine, then I can safely assume that that level of touch is welcomed from then onward. But if I touch a woman who doesn't want my touch, I'm a bad person, a boor.

Even in the bedroom... I'm reluctant to be demanding or to impose anything on my partners... so I don't approach my partners unless they first seem interested themselves. Even if I'm really frustrated, myself. Unless I'm running out of time on an LDR visit... (reminisce).

Inculcated belief structure: approaching is aggressive. Aggression is bad...

EA's response was that she was confused, that these are things that women are often taught in this culture... and teasingly asked me what gender I was born ;-).

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

You have these skills and this experience.

Eh? Was that a typo?

it benefits us both for me to assume that it was not. And so, I accept on faith that it wasn't

Okay... but in other contexts, taking things on faith (which things may or may not be true) for the sake of beneficial side-effects is not uncommon. Many religions are based on that concept...

How does /that/ benefit you, or the person being called?

At some level, I don't think that matters... what matters is what is true. If there's a possibility that it was a snub, pretending that it couldn't be is just defying reality.

do you ask to verify later that it was indeed a snub

Probably not, if I've already confirmed that they were home and screening calls. I don't want to sound whiny, or like I'm pressuring them.

If you need to make conclusions about other people's motives, why assume the worst?

Historically? Because then I'll rarely be disappointed? (grin)

reciprocity requires that A get email until you get a chance to speak live w/ B?

Not the way I see it... it's about both symbolism, and time/energy balancing. If A and B are nominally equal friends or equal sweeties in my view, then I shouldn't deny anything to A that I give to B, and vice-versa.

But logistics may make speaking-live a rare opportunity with B living in Singapore, and A may rarely get in-depth email if I see her locally twice a week. But if I'm investing the same time and energy into both relationships, then neither A nor B is a second-class citizen. And when B visits the US, he gets lots of live-speak if he wants it... maybe temporarily bumping A's access to the same. That's where I'm going with "reciprocity."

Do you really offer your ongoing friendship with the condition that you get some degree of aggregate "same level" treatment as other friends?

No. However... I have a need to feel valued and respected by my friends and partners. I need to not feel like I'm treated as a second-class citizen.

And symbolism is very important to me... I may not regularly want to go bowling with E and E's other friends, but if I'm never-ever invited even once (and then some visitor from Indianapolis is invited) then that feels to me like a slap... like E isn't really my friend, or that I'm just there when it is convenient for E and E's priorities. Now, if E invites me, I decline, and it is mutually acknowledged that I'm not interested in bowling, then future bowling invitations to others imply nothing about the friendship between E and myself. No problem, then.

But if I don't feel respected and valued, and my expressed needs aren't being met, and I feel second-class or taken-for-granted... then, yes, that friendship or relationship is likely in danger if that situation persists over the long-term.

One difference over the past few years is that I will nowadays try to bring this up explicitly with the other person, at least once. Earlier, I would have probably just gone all passive-aggressive and glowering until E finally figured out that something was wrong...

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

Nope. You do have the skills and experience to successfully manage some social negotiations without explicit verbal processing and negotiation. You may not be as comfortable with these as you would like or as others may seem, but you have them none the less. Likewise, you may not has as fully developed a set, as you would like or as others mas seem to, but you have them none the less.

Okay... but in other contexts, taking things on faith (which things may or may not be true) for the sake of beneficial side-effects is not uncommon. Many religions are based on that concept...

Yes! Exactly. That is a huge benefit that people gain from religion. It's not a counter to what I was saying, it's the point!



But, in the time that you don't know - when there isn't yet a what is true - when considering the cost/benefit trade for assuming a snub vs. assuming no snub - in what circumstance does it come out ahead to operate from the assumption of a snub rather than assuming none until demonstrated otherwise? Incorrectly assuming the snub is just as reality defying AND results in more unhappiness - in the immediate reaction to the perceived snub, in the long term expectations of people to be snubbing, in the long term reactions to broadcasting a worldview full of assumed snubbing, ...



Your choice, your preference, your level of confidence in your interpretation of what information you have and all that... but...

I included this specific example after you were earlier asking if who_is_she and I went back for explicit processing on our negotiation, and how we could both know for certain without checking in that one another weren't snubbing/rejecting each other. And I think my direct (rather than by illustration) answer is that we both seemed to operate from a belief that in a non-hostile non-coercive circumstance adult humans are generally capable of consenting to what they're okay with and declining what they are not, and an assumption that if there was problem something would be said. (An expectation for people to prove the negative rather than a hope that they'll sufficiently display the positive for proof by inference.) Maybe that's just projection on my part. Either way, I'm happy working with it until proven wrong.



A something to consider (with all the usual disclaimers, YMMV, etc) - I am vastly happier when I let people live down to my expectations of the best and am more frequently disappointed by them falling below even that than I am when less frequently disappointed, but letting them live down to my expectations for the worst.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

It's not a counter to what I was saying, it's the point!
(grin) okay, I'll concede that one.

Incorrectly assuming the snub is just as reality defying AND results in more unhappiness

Hmm... you have a useful point, but I'm not sure that it results in more unhappiness. After all, the point of setting low expectations of others is to be able to accept apparent rejection or other setbacks from them, with minimal adverse emotional impact.

an assumption that if there was problem something would be said

There's a large difference between us... I don't assume that others would necessarily say something, so I could be causing a problem and not realize it.

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

Hmm... you have a useful point, but I'm not sure that it results in more unhappiness. After all, the point of setting low expectations of others is to be able to accept apparent rejection or other setbacks from them, with minimal adverse emotional impact.

Then let me ask you this - are you happy - not just okay or content or satisfied - but happy with and about your interactions with the people around you?

I don't assume that others would necessarily say something...

Hmmmm... my beliefs require the given that adult humans are (outside of violent, coercive, or other abusive situations) capable of consent (both in choice and expression) - and as a result, have an obligation to express their choices with regard to consent issues. I don't believe that one can simultaneously both accept that a person is capable of consenting to a behaviour AND not expect them to be able to exercise/express that consent.

I have very little patience for coddling that sort of expression out of people who act reluctant to do so - and generally don't spend much attention on them. (For the converse reason - anyone not readily able to exercise/express their consent choices may not actually be capable of consenting - and that's a mess I don't want to be in the middle of except by very special, and vastly more carefully negotiated exception.)

But that's my belief set and world view; and I know that not everyone believes/operates that way.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Happy? Happiness is a transitory emotion, not a steady-state one. "Cheerful" is as close as I can get to "happy-for-longer-period" or equivalent. I don't grok "happy" in the context of interactions with those around me.

Most of my strategy has been "minimize suffering and pain in relationships" rather than "increase happy episodes." If things are going well, I'm not on anyone's blacklist or being attacked. Or getting negative feedback (like rejections).

accept that a person is capable of consenting to a behaviour AND not expect them to be able to exercise/express that consent.

I expect that any person who is capable of consenting to a behavior may:
(a) exercise that consent (yes or no)
(b) withhold the expression of that consent either way, whatever they may have decided internally
(c) be afraid to express that consent around me, and hence say/do nothing
(d) be afraid of hurting my feelings, and consent to something they don't/didn't want to do, without telling me such, or
(e) be afraid of hurting my feelings, and nominally consent while in fact doing the opposite.

It is left up to me to figure out which (a)-(e) response is in effect for any given request I make.

and generally don't spend much attention on them.

That's a luxury, in my view... if I took that stance, I wouldn't ask anything of anyone, or pay attention to anyone other than a tiny handful of people.

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

I don't grok "happy" in the context of interactions with those around me.

Most of my strategy has been "minimize suffering and pain in relationships" rather than "increase happy episodes." If things are going well, I'm not on anyone's blacklist or being attacked. Or getting negative feedback (like rejections).

Then why are you bothering to deal socially with people at all?! This view sounds a lot like you've chosen for recreation a losing game with a best case success criteria of merely breaking even. Perhaps I'm projecting since I consider happiness a fundamental criteria for personal fulfillment, and you seem to define your own fulfillment in different terms.

What is it that you hope, best case, to be getting out of interacting socially with people in general? In specific?

I explicitly mention socially, since you've stated that you don't generally have these interpersonal relations issues in a business-relationship context, leaving you free to interact as necessary with other people in a non-strictly-self-sufficient world.

Or is this another case of me thinking I'm projecting and merely minimizing suffering is your best case goal? In that case - wouldn't a best case zero-suffering result be optimally approached through not having those relationships? (Shades of a routine with no output can be optimized to zero instructions.)

And backing up to my earlier point - assuming a (not yet factually confirmed) snub on the part of others seems to provide more (at least an increased frequency of) opportunities for your own needless pain/suffering than would a case of assuming (until sufficiently demonstrated otherwise) that no snub was intended. Which was my point earlier, phrased within my own context assumption that one's goals are motivated by happiness rather than the this-case minimum of suffering as motivation.

It is left up to me to figure out which (a)-(e) response is in effect for any given request I make.

First off - my reaction to this is that in cases c) through e) above you don't trust the person to be able to express consent on their own behalf. And as in the earlier post - I just don't trust people who I can't trust to be able to express consent on their own behalf.

But that's all aside the point: you don't /have/ to guess which response they're promoting -
If you assume a) then it seems they've chosen to clearly express their consent(state).
If you assume b) then it seems they've chosen to not express consent at this time.
If you assume c) then it seems they've chosen to not express consent at this time.
If you assume d) then it seems they've chosen to express consent despite having some reservations.
If you assume e) then it seems they've chosen to express consent despite having serious reservations.
(Where "it seems" might also be interpreted as interchangable with "one might reasonably conclude" and the expression "at this time" rightfully carries the implication that that expression may change at a later time, duration not specified, reprompting not required.)

In an earlier comment in this discussion you talked about your own policy to go along with something you're uncomfortable with for fear of hurting another person's feelings, and then later expanding on that by stating that if you were sufficiently uncomfortable you would of course hurt their feelings rather than compromise your boundary. Sounds like cases d) and e) above until it got to a "Not consenting" outcome of case a).

I don't actually recognize much difference in your b) and c) cases above except that you state clearly in c a motivation that could be assumed as one of many for case b. Likewise d) and e) except the magnitude of the discomfort.

There is of course a huge gaping difference between not liking something one chooses to do and not consenting to doing so - but in an example of recognizing that - we have laws protecting people from having to handle (relevant classes of) consent issues in the workplace because of the strong coercive element of workplace relationships. Most of the time, socially interactive relationships aren't bound by such easily coercive forces.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'm projecting since I consider happiness a fundamental criteria for personal fulfillment

Bingo. If I were internally-motivated (as I interpret your stated motivations), then yes, it would look like zero-discomfort would be the best possible outcome, and hence why bother? But I'm motivated more by external feedback than my own emotions. So I can be mildly unhappy in a given relationship or friendship, and still consider it a net positive if I'm receiving external validation of some sort, or meeting my promised obligations, or making others happier as a result.

And I do get an energy boost and sense of well-being by being around other people socially, and respond adversely to the lack of that in my life... so I have to have *some* social interactions.

as in the earlier post - I just don't trust people who I can't trust to be able to express consent on their own behalf.

(nods) which wouldn't work for me, because I don't generally trust others to be able to express consent on their own behalf... I worry that I'm unknowingly oppressing them, any time I make a request.

you don't /have/ to guess which response they're promoting

Roughly speaking, I have to guess within [b,c] or within [a,d,e], depending on whether it is an expressed consent or refusal.

Sounds like cases d) and e) above until it got to a "Not consenting" outcome of case a).

If you mean getting to an outcome of case (b), then I agree. I might very well agree initially to something I disliked, hiding that discomfort to protect the others' feelings, then have to bail out later when I discovered that it was just too much ickyness to handle.

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

It seems incredibly unlikely to me that the majority of people who surround you are not in the habit of freely or clearly expressing their consent. Granted - the people we know in common may be a severely unrepresentative sample of vastly over expressive people relative to your population of acquaintances. What I have to go with on that assumption though is my own interaction with people in the habit of freely and clearly expressing their own consent and their representative distribution among the sample of people we know in common.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

This may be one of those Southern cultural influences... I'm not used to social directness.

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

No. However... I have a need to feel valued and respected by my friends and partners.

Fair enough. I think everyone needs that. It's what makes putting up with people worth it. But I think we've a fundamentally different view of how to measure that. I don't think I could ever be happy even trying to measure my fulfillment from a relationship by the other person's other relationships or interaction with others.

That doesn't stop me from noticing when a bunch of my friends are regularly going out [bowling] and I'm not invited. But if it's something I'd like to be doing, especially if with them, then I ask about it. (As you said you've worked lately to do as well.)

But it's important to me to not let what (my friends) A & B (who are also friends of similar importance/intimacy/duration/etc) do when they're together change my perception of my relationship with A or with B. I suspect that operating in your model, I would take it as a snub or rejection when they increased their frequency of get togethers from monthly to weekly while I stayed on roughly monthly terms with each (or either) of them. But it seems perfectly contrary to (what is at least for me) one of the core tenets of polyamorous identity - the believe that my relationship[love] with X does not diminish my relationship[love] with Y.

And in my view, E's bowling excursions, even with random strangers visiting from Indianapolis, should not diminish E's relationship with me, even if I'm not invited to participate in said bowling excursions, or don't manage to go bowling ever with E, as much as I may adore going bowling as much as I do E's company. I feel the same way about being on sexual, kissing, dinner, bdsm, road trip, late night IM, and even lj commenting terms. It may seem a pretty extreme level of abstraction to put all of these things on the same plate; but in my view they are.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

measure my fulfillment from a relationship by the other person's other relationships or interaction with others

But their other relationships/interactions provide the only valid, independent metrics and calibration for that person's behavior. What does a kiss mean to them? Or volunteering to babysit? Or going bowling? Without these external metrics, I have no way to figure out where I currently stand in a given person's favor (or not).

And symbolism is critical to my self-esteem, in relationships and friendships. I need to be treated as the equal of B, with respect to A, if B and I are supposedly at a similar level of relationship or friendship to A. Not everything has to be identical, but there must be balance overall or I'll feel taken-for-granted.

would take it as a snub or rejection when they increased their frequency of get togethers from monthly to weekly while I stayed on roughly monthly terms with each (or either) of them.

Sort of... I'd interpret that my relationship was now less relatively important to A or B than the one between them. Which is likely to be true, in that case. It might leave me feeling reduced and thence rejected-in-part, or just as likely neutral or compersive (if my absolute position hasn't worsened WRT A and B individually).

I don't decouple each relationship or friendship from others... we don't exist in dyadic bubbles, but in dependent, ripple-prone networks. The eigenvectors are complex. (smile)

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

And symbolism is critical to my self-esteem, in relationships and friendships.

I still don't get why these tokens need to be interpreted in terms of what they mean to A or to B rather than in what they mean to you? Why does it devalue to you a sincere offer to babysit if you know that similar offers are made to others?

I imagine that following your system I'd spend a lot of time paying attention to ranking everyone else's behaviour and being jealous of all the ways in which I wasn't ranked as highly as I'd like and generally dissatisfied with all of my relationships rather than happy for what time, attention, and affection I was freely given, and the ways in which that nourished and fulfilled me and thankful to my friends for providing that. I hope that's not the case for how it works for you - but that's why I can't make sense of your approach.

Glasses at half capacity with water and all that.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Why does it devalue to you a sincere offer to babysit if you know that similar offers are made to others?

(grin) it doesn't! That's not my context. My context is: if offers to babysit are made to others, but not to me, then *I'm* devalued (not the offer) with respect to whatever set of others, in the network of the person making the babysitting offers.

If the given person makes babysitting offers to a stranger-with-kids he's just met, but I'm supposedly a close friend of his and he's never offered (or refused my past request), then my estimation of the value of my friendship in that person's eyes is placed lower than that of someone he's just met -- i.e., practically zero.

In a third-grade context... (grin)

If mommy gives all the other kids a cookie but won't give me one, that means that she must love all of them more than me... If she gives one to the new kid that just moved in down the street, but not to me, then she must not love me at all, because she doesn't love the new kid at all (and I'm even less important that he is, because he gets a cookie and I don't).

That's over-simplified, but how I feel about symbolism... especially for publicly-displayed things. The "cookie" may be unimportant in itself, but as a token it conveys information about the state of a given friendship or relationship.