It depends on whether or not they know what you're doing, and are OK with it. If they are, fine. Otherwise it's using them without their knowledge or consent.
Lets take a reasonable example. I'm over here, and I need a lift to somewhere. You volunteer, and drive me over. Now, on it's face, that's a neutral situation. I get a ride, you get to feel good about having done something for me if that makes you feel good.
But if you were denying yourself something you wanted to do, like going out to a party, I'd probably tell you to go off to the party and that I'd find a lift elsewhere. If I really needed you, I'd probably feel a bit bad that you sacrificed something to help me out.
Worst case would be that you picked me up, didn't go to the party, and didn't tell me. At that point, despite you having done something for me, I'd be pissed off at not having the option to decline the lift because you going to the party might be something I didn't want to interfere with. I've got an expectation that friends will let me know about these things, and a right to say no if I choose to do that.
If it were something minor that you were denying yourself, like ice-cream or a rest after work, I'd be less inclined to expect to know about it, and not pissed that you didn't tell me. I'd probably be grateful, and also feel a bit bad at having put you out when you wanted rest though.
It's all a matter of scale, and consideration for other people's feelings. Does this make sense?
Since sinboy has put it better then I would have, I'll just chime in with a "metoo" on this one.
BTW.. I think this falls under the "parents do this" blanket too- what you may be expected to do for your children is not what the rest of the world expects you to do for them. It's a different relationship, in dependance, in power balance, and in all sorts of other ways.
You've hit on something. There's a buried arrogance inherent in my approach... a sort of "I'm the grown-up, you guys are the wayward, irresponsible teenagers" attitude.
And at the same time, I see a lot of "It's other peoples' responsibility to notice when I'm upset and help me out, not mine to communicate it" in what you do, which reminds me of a baby crying and the parents having to figure out by trial and error whether that means "feed me" or "change me" or "I'm lonely" or "I felt like crying, what are you all worried about?".
My usual approach would be your "worst-case"... I wouldn't want any of my concerns to affect your willingness to accept help. In my mind, you should decide based on your needs... and I wouldn't want you to feel guilty afterward.
For example... a couple of years ago, rosefox needed someone to take angilong to SJC airport from her 19th St. apt. I volunteered... driving Mountain View to SF, then down to SJC. Rose wanted to go... they were having a rough time. She was going to take the train, but then asked if I could give her a ride home instead. So I drove her back SJC to SF, then back down again to the South Bay.
That cost me 210 miles driving, about a tank of gas in the Mustang, a day of vacation and three missed meetings at work (one of which I then got chided for skipping). But I was not going to tell her any of that then, and in fact have not mentioned it until now :-). She needed help, that was what mattered. I didn't feel that I was being inconsiderate of Rose's feelings...
My usual approach would be your "worst-case"... I wouldn't want any of my concerns to affect your willingness to accept help. In my mind, you should decide based on your needs... and I wouldn't want you to feel guilty afterward.
Omitting details about putting yourself out is something I'd rather have the decision about left to me. It's been my experince that most people feel this way as well.
She needed help, that was what mattered. I didn't feel that I was being inconsiderate of Rose's feelings...
Putting yourself in rosefox's position, would you want someone to make that much of a sacrifice for you, and then not give you the option of having enough information to decide to accept?
rosefox probably always will want to know more, not less. But at some level, details about putting myself out are private, so I only have to divulge them if I feel comfortable with it (and are directly asked, probably). If I'm not holding her responsible for putting me out, or claiming future consideration in return, then it doesn't affect her and she has no need to know...
If I'm not holding her responsible for putting me out, or claiming future consideration in return, then it doesn't affect her and she has no need to know...
Need to, no. Would prefer to, certainly. I tend to err on the "would prefer to know about it" for putting myself out in a substantial way, and my prefernce for what other people would want from me. Just to be clear, no one is denying you have a right to private self denial in service of others, but you did ask about how people react to it.
If I'm not holding her responsible for putting me out, or claiming future consideration in return, then it doesn't affect her and she has no need to know...
That leaves out my responsibility to myself to act in what I consider to be an ethical manner. As a friend, I'd hope you would support me in that, including by giving me maximal information in a decision-making situation so that I can have the highest possible chance of making the best choice. It may not be what you think of as the best choice, but it's my choice; and if I end up choosing badly, I may not get fallout from you, but I will get some from myself, and you will certainly get fallout from me if I feel you've withheld information that could have led to me making what I feel is the better choice. For heaven's sake, give me the information and then argue with me if you think I'll come to the wrong conclusion based on it, but don't lie to me or hide things from me.
And yes, I do consider that a decision-making situation for me as well as you, since I could have asked other people for rides or used public transit if necessary. Maybe you didn't see that as called-for, but if I'd been fully informed, I very well might have. My idea of ethical behavior is that I accept the offer of help from the person who is sacrificing least for it, and that I do my best to return favors in kind (not because my friend requires compensation, but because it's what I feel is the fair thing for me to do). You didn't give me the opportunity to behave ethically, because you didn't let me know what you were sacrificing. Is that your idea of being a good and helpful friend, or just wanting to control the situation?
My idea of ethical behavior is that I accept the offer of help from the person who is sacrificing least for it
Hmm. That makes sense, and I'd probably want to do the same thing in your place. At that time, it didn't occur to me that that would be one of your motivations, or that you'd care -- in some sense, I underestimated you. I apologize for that.
I'd hope you would support me in that As a friend, I want to support you in making ethical choices, just as I want others to support me likewise. So in the same set of circumstances, I'd inform you of the side-effects. Hopefully... generalizing that to all people is hard.
Apology accepted. As for generalization, I think it's partly difficult because you don't meet people with an open mind; you have a preconceived idea of how they'll behave (or probably several preconceived ideas, based on whether they're male or female, boss or subordinate, etc.), and so it's harder for you to see their internal workings and motivations and ethical sets.
(nods) I have default behavioral-templates which I quickly adjust and tweak to match a given person's behaviors as I know them better... later, I use the refined model in a predictive sense, to interpret or project the meaning of that person's actions.
That cost me 210 miles driving, about a tank of gas in the Mustang, a day of vacation and three missed meetings at work (one of which I then got chided for skipping). But I was not going to tell her any of that then, and in fact have not mentioned it until now :-). She needed help, that was what mattered. I didn't feel that I was being inconsiderate of Rose's feelings...
How dare you take that decision out of my hands? How dare you remove my option of informed consent?
What it comes down to is that if I said "I understand you may be giving things up in order to help me; is it worth it to you? Do you get sufficient return from helping me to make up for the loss in what you gave up?" to most friends, I would trust them to make a reasonable, considered decision. I got angry because I don't really trust you to make what I feel is a reasonable, considered decision in this sort of situation, and so felt that the onus was put on me to be the person making a reasonable, considered decision, and since you didn't give me enough information to make an accurate decision, I made what I feel in retrospect was a flawed one. (I don't know what I would have done at the time. I was not exactly at my most reasonable, so it's quite possible I would have made a flawed decision regardless.) In other words, I felt that I needed to put things in proportion for you because I didn't feel you could do it for yourself. Obviously, this is insulting to you and overly taxing for me. As I said, the responsibility is yours, not mine. If you choose to abrogate that responsibility (as I see it), and you really felt that what you got out of it was worth what you gave up for it, then it's not my place to say otherwise. Everyone gets to choose what's worth sacrificing and what's worth being sacrificed for.
That being said, I think this is a wonderful example of how your choices in that direction are really, really not healthy for you. If you think they are, why did you keep that information from me?
It was, at the time, a reasoned, considered decision... I thought carefully about the impacts, decided that no irreparable harm would be done, and said yes. You had lost a family member a few months earlier, were wrestling with another relationship, and few reasonable requests of yours would have been too much at that time.
And I did gain something... the drive wasn't bad, weather was nice, and I got to assuage some of my post-9/11 guilt for not having been more useful in those weeks. And I certainly didn't want you to carry any more emotional burden at that point, or feel bad about asking -- so I kept the information to myself for a couple of years, after which I thought it was old enough to be a safe example.
Part of what's so hard for me in this is that I have had to teach myself not to take advantage of people, and you make it so damn easy to take advantage of you that I sometimes find myself starting to backslide. This situation is also a great example of that. Low self-esteem is the only thing that might have kept me from saying, with full knowledge of your situation, "Well, if you think it's worth it, do it." Now I have ethics in place of the low self-esteem (oh, they are so not the same thing!), which I feel better about but which are also less reliable. In short, that makes it really difficult for me to be around you when you're being so self-sacrificing, because I have to constantly remind myself that just because you want to throw yourself on your sword doesn't mean it's right for me to say "Here, let me hold that steady for you".
And if you can't be convinced any other way that these trends of yours are damaging to friends and friendships, imagine how you'd feel if a friend came to you and said, "Hey, Brian! I want to throw myself on my sword! Will you hold it steady for me?" Afterwards, no matter how much you knew it was his choice, no matter how much you knew that if you'd said "no" he might have found someone else, you'd know that you'd contributed to his demise, and you'd have to live with that knowledge in yourself. Enabling sucks for everyone. Please, please try not to put your friends in the position of holding your sword for you. If you're going to damage yourself, at least do it yourself. I'm not exactly stupid and it's still really easy for me to get drawn into these patterns of neglect-and-support, as with my first reaction of feeling that I had to make decisions for you because I didn't think you could make them yourself. I know I'm not the only one who does it and I hope we all clue in and stop before you end up stabbing yourself, over and over, via people who care about you.
I don't want to be your parent. I don't want to be a "wayward teenager". I want to be your friend. Friends are equals. That means that you hold me in the same esteem as yourself (within a reasonable margin of error, say +/- 2%). Let me know when that's something you think you can do, even if it means regarding me as poorly as you regard yourself. I'd still prefer that to being forced to consider and treat you as though you were inferior, when I know perfectly well that you aren't. I may think your judgement is sometimes faulty, and we certainly have different priorities, but that doesn't make you a lesser human being and I'll be damned if I'll keep buying into your claim that you are.
Your decisions are yours and I won't argue with them. I won't shy away from telling you when I think you're wrong, though. That's what friends do, because they consider each other worth improving, worth taking the time to talk to and argue with and convince and learn to understand. If you were worthless, I'd walk away. You can take my sticking around as proof to the contrary.
(Yes, that's calmer. Calm enough that I think I can go to sleep now. I hope you'll respond when you get a chance, but it's fine if you don't. I've said what I need to say.)
just because you want to throw yourself on your sword
Interesting... because when I choose to do something, or help someone, I don't feel hopelessly self-sacrificial about it. I might grumble to myself if it is kind of an unreasonable request, or the third time they've asked for something that week, but I generally am not walking around feeling martyred.
you'd have to live with that knowledge in yourself
Which sounds like assisting in self-abuse, or like I'm beating myself up by volunteering. Which arguably also assumes that I'm not capable of making my own informed choices...
The closest thing I've done to enlisting others in self-abuse was in a certain LJ flamewar a year or so ago, and the other parties did not indicate that they were conscious of the role. Certain I wasn't volunteering to help those guys! Heh.
I didn't think you could make them yourself
You admittedly fight to not take advantage of others... I admittedly tend to put others' needs ahead of my own priority-wise. So there is a natural tension. I *can* make them, but the ethics and basis may be sufficiently strange to you that it seems uninformed.
You can take my sticking around as proof to the contrary.
I consider you my friend, and take your criticism and comments as a gift. I don't consider myself worthless, either... heh. In many respects, I'm an arrogant SOB who believes that the poly community and his friends are lucky to have someone with his skills, talents and connections... but I don't let that side out very often in public.
In many respects, I'm an arrogant SOB who believes that the poly community and his friends are lucky to have someone with his skills, talents and connections... but I don't let that side out very often in public.
Maybe you should? Maybe it would help? Not out-and-out arrogance, but dude... knowing your own worth. It's a good thing, I think.
I'm working on it, slowly. As a kid, any time I appeared to display openly any self-esteem, I got beaten up by schoolyard bullies. Or mocked and humiliated, later on. So I learned to show the world a self-effacing facade, especially when I felt threatened in some way. And then had to be satisfied with blowing the grade curve, quietly, for revenge.
It has taken years to let out this much... but inside, I know my own worth. Damn straight. ;-)
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-16 06:44 pm (UTC)Lets take a reasonable example. I'm over here, and I need a lift to somewhere. You volunteer, and drive me over. Now, on it's face, that's a neutral situation. I get a ride, you get to feel good about having done something for me if that makes you feel good.
But if you were denying yourself something you wanted to do, like going out to a party, I'd probably tell you to go off to the party and that I'd find a lift elsewhere. If I really needed you, I'd probably feel a bit bad that you sacrificed something to help me out.
Worst case would be that you picked me up, didn't go to the party, and didn't tell me. At that point, despite you having done something for me, I'd be pissed off at not having the option to decline the lift because you going to the party might be something I didn't want to interfere with. I've got an expectation that friends will let me know about these things, and a right to say no if I choose to do that.
If it were something minor that you were denying yourself, like ice-cream or a rest after work, I'd be less inclined to expect to know about it, and not pissed that you didn't tell me. I'd probably be grateful, and also feel a bit bad at having put you out when you wanted rest though.
It's all a matter of scale, and consideration for other people's feelings. Does this make sense?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-16 07:01 pm (UTC)BTW.. I think this falls under the "parents do this" blanket too- what you may be expected to do for your children is not what the rest of the world expects you to do for them. It's a different relationship, in dependance, in power balance, and in all sorts of other ways.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 05:11 am (UTC)For example... a couple of years ago,
That cost me 210 miles driving, about a tank of gas in the Mustang, a day of vacation and three missed meetings at work (one of which I then got chided for skipping). But I was not going to tell her any of that then, and in fact have not mentioned it until now :-). She needed help, that was what mattered. I didn't feel that I was being inconsiderate of Rose's feelings...
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 07:45 pm (UTC)Omitting details about putting yourself out is something I'd rather have the decision about left to me. It's been my experince that most people feel this way as well.
She needed help, that was what mattered. I didn't feel that I was being inconsiderate of Rose's feelings...
Putting yourself in
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 11:14 pm (UTC)Need to, no. Would prefer to, certainly. I tend to err on the "would prefer to know about it" for putting myself out in a substantial way, and my prefernce for what other people would want from me. Just to be clear, no one is denying you have a right to private self denial in service of others, but you did ask about how people react to it.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 08:42 am (UTC)That leaves out my responsibility to myself to act in what I consider to be an ethical manner. As a friend, I'd hope you would support me in that, including by giving me maximal information in a decision-making situation so that I can have the highest possible chance of making the best choice. It may not be what you think of as the best choice, but it's my choice; and if I end up choosing badly, I may not get fallout from you, but I will get some from myself, and you will certainly get fallout from me if I feel you've withheld information that could have led to me making what I feel is the better choice. For heaven's sake, give me the information and then argue with me if you think I'll come to the wrong conclusion based on it, but don't lie to me or hide things from me.
And yes, I do consider that a decision-making situation for me as well as you, since I could have asked other people for rides or used public transit if necessary. Maybe you didn't see that as called-for, but if I'd been fully informed, I very well might have. My idea of ethical behavior is that I accept the offer of help from the person who is sacrificing least for it, and that I do my best to return favors in kind (not because my friend requires compensation, but because it's what I feel is the fair thing for me to do). You didn't give me the opportunity to behave ethically, because you didn't let me know what you were sacrificing. Is that your idea of being a good and helpful friend, or just wanting to control the situation?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-24 11:41 pm (UTC)Hmm. That makes sense, and I'd probably want to do the same thing in your place. At that time, it didn't occur to me that that would be one of your motivations, or that you'd care -- in some sense, I underestimated you. I apologize for that.
I'd hope you would support me in that
As a friend, I want to support you in making ethical choices, just as I want others to support me likewise. So in the same set of circumstances, I'd inform you of the side-effects. Hopefully... generalizing that to all people is hard.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-24 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-25 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 06:42 am (UTC)How dare you take that decision out of my hands? How dare you remove my option of informed consent?
I think I'm too angry to continue this right now.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 08:20 am (UTC)What it comes down to is that if I said "I understand you may be giving things up in order to help me; is it worth it to you? Do you get sufficient return from helping me to make up for the loss in what you gave up?" to most friends, I would trust them to make a reasonable, considered decision. I got angry because I don't really trust you to make what I feel is a reasonable, considered decision in this sort of situation, and so felt that the onus was put on me to be the person making a reasonable, considered decision, and since you didn't give me enough information to make an accurate decision, I made what I feel in retrospect was a flawed one. (I don't know what I would have done at the time. I was not exactly at my most reasonable, so it's quite possible I would have made a flawed decision regardless.) In other words, I felt that I needed to put things in proportion for you because I didn't feel you could do it for yourself. Obviously, this is insulting to you and overly taxing for me. As I said, the responsibility is yours, not mine. If you choose to abrogate that responsibility (as I see it), and you really felt that what you got out of it was worth what you gave up for it, then it's not my place to say otherwise. Everyone gets to choose what's worth sacrificing and what's worth being sacrificed for.
That being said, I think this is a wonderful example of how your choices in that direction are really, really not healthy for you. If you think they are, why did you keep that information from me?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-24 11:53 pm (UTC)And I did gain something... the drive wasn't bad, weather was nice, and I got to assuage some of my post-9/11 guilt for not having been more useful in those weeks. And I certainly didn't want you to carry any more emotional burden at that point, or feel bad about asking -- so I kept the information to myself for a couple of years, after which I thought it was old enough to be a safe example.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 08:20 am (UTC)Part of what's so hard for me in this is that I have had to teach myself not to take advantage of people, and you make it so damn easy to take advantage of you that I sometimes find myself starting to backslide. This situation is also a great example of that. Low self-esteem is the only thing that might have kept me from saying, with full knowledge of your situation, "Well, if you think it's worth it, do it." Now I have ethics in place of the low self-esteem (oh, they are so not the same thing!), which I feel better about but which are also less reliable. In short, that makes it really difficult for me to be around you when you're being so self-sacrificing, because I have to constantly remind myself that just because you want to throw yourself on your sword doesn't mean it's right for me to say "Here, let me hold that steady for you".
And if you can't be convinced any other way that these trends of yours are damaging to friends and friendships, imagine how you'd feel if a friend came to you and said, "Hey, Brian! I want to throw myself on my sword! Will you hold it steady for me?" Afterwards, no matter how much you knew it was his choice, no matter how much you knew that if you'd said "no" he might have found someone else, you'd know that you'd contributed to his demise, and you'd have to live with that knowledge in yourself. Enabling sucks for everyone. Please, please try not to put your friends in the position of holding your sword for you. If you're going to damage yourself, at least do it yourself. I'm not exactly stupid and it's still really easy for me to get drawn into these patterns of neglect-and-support, as with my first reaction of feeling that I had to make decisions for you because I didn't think you could make them yourself. I know I'm not the only one who does it and I hope we all clue in and stop before you end up stabbing yourself, over and over, via people who care about you.
I don't want to be your parent. I don't want to be a "wayward teenager". I want to be your friend. Friends are equals. That means that you hold me in the same esteem as yourself (within a reasonable margin of error, say +/- 2%). Let me know when that's something you think you can do, even if it means regarding me as poorly as you regard yourself. I'd still prefer that to being forced to consider and treat you as though you were inferior, when I know perfectly well that you aren't. I may think your judgement is sometimes faulty, and we certainly have different priorities, but that doesn't make you a lesser human being and I'll be damned if I'll keep buying into your claim that you are.
Your decisions are yours and I won't argue with them. I won't shy away from telling you when I think you're wrong, though. That's what friends do, because they consider each other worth improving, worth taking the time to talk to and argue with and convince and learn to understand. If you were worthless, I'd walk away. You can take my sticking around as proof to the contrary.
(Yes, that's calmer. Calm enough that I think I can go to sleep now. I hope you'll respond when you get a chance, but it's fine if you don't. I've said what I need to say.)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-25 12:35 am (UTC)Interesting... because when I choose to do something, or help someone, I don't feel hopelessly self-sacrificial about it. I might grumble to myself if it is kind of an unreasonable request, or the third time they've asked for something that week, but I generally am not walking around feeling martyred.
you'd have to live with that knowledge in yourself
Which sounds like assisting in self-abuse, or like I'm beating myself up by volunteering. Which arguably also assumes that I'm not capable of making my own informed choices...
The closest thing I've done to enlisting others in self-abuse was in a certain LJ flamewar a year or so ago, and the other parties did not indicate that they were conscious of the role. Certain I wasn't volunteering to help those guys! Heh.
I didn't think you could make them yourself
You admittedly fight to not take advantage of others... I admittedly tend to put others' needs ahead of my own priority-wise. So there is a natural tension. I *can* make them, but the ethics and basis may be sufficiently strange to you that it seems uninformed.
You can take my sticking around as proof to the contrary.
I consider you my friend, and take your criticism and comments as a gift. I don't consider myself worthless, either... heh. In many respects, I'm an arrogant SOB who believes that the poly community and his friends are lucky to have someone with his skills, talents and connections... but I don't let that side out very often in public.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 12:28 am (UTC)Maybe you should? Maybe it would help? Not out-and-out arrogance, but dude... knowing your own worth. It's a good thing, I think.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-01 06:44 am (UTC)It has taken years to let out this much... but inside, I know my own worth. Damn straight. ;-)