Jekyll/Hyde
Aug. 18th, 2003 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayA 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 ;-).
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 ;-).
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 02:55 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-14 03:13 pm (UTC)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.