Indirect overriding direct feedback...

[jay]

A sweetie recently professed zir love, and said "I don't know what to say to make you feel more secure." But I tend to give words little credence... I tend to watch someone's actions instead. Quietly taking notes and drawing inferences as regards someone's practical, rather than professed, level of interest or affection. In relationships, it seems like I'm always evaluating and re-evaluating how I stand in a given love's affections, usually looking at who zie is spending the most time with,
and the quality of the time spent. For example, if a given sweetie says that "I love you dearly and you're important to me", but can only find time in two months for coffee or a brief lunch (while seeing one or more other partners or close friends several times on evening-long dates or overnights during the same time period), then the message I get indirectly is "I love you, at least somewhat, but I'm too busy to see you, given your relative (un-)importance in my relationship structure." And that indirect assessment then generally determines my willingness to devote further time and energy to that relationship.

I even find myself doing this at times with LJ friend's lists... if I haven't seen an entry from someone in awhile, my first reaction is to check their calendar or profile to determine if I've simply been screened-out of recent entries (given the proliferation of friends-list filtering). If I've been filtered, that affects my willingness to read or respond to that given person's future unfiltered or public entries. Sort of "X doesn't really like me anymore, but is too polite to actually remove me from their friends-list, so I shouldn't bother them in the future. Unless X explicitly shows interest at some future point in something I've posted." There are actually several people with whom I've gone through cycles of filtered-withdrawal-reengaged on LJ, and they aren't necessarily aware of this... (shrug)

Granted that my approach, which works fine for me, isn't necessarily sensible or reasonable for anyone else. For that matter, I have yet to make a friends-list-only entry, let alone use filters. Or killfiles, on Usenet.

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Good point, and one which has tempered my reactions in the past... I don't know of a reliable means to discern between filtered vs. private entries, which then impeaches the evidence, so to speak. In the past, I've looked at posting patterns -- someone that appears roughly five times per week, then persistently appears only twice/week -- adjusted for any known crises, travel, or changes in living conditions. And I usually attribute sudden spates of hidden entries by someone to private entries.

Otherwise, I have been known to skim entries by other people on a given person X's friends-list, looking for their let-slip references to topics discussed in filtered (vs. private) entries... when I have time, and when I'm trying to convince myself whether or not person X is filtering me consistently (and hence would probably rather see me withdraw or disappear).

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

All I can think at this point is that sounds like an awful lot of energy spent on something rather depressing.

-J

[geekchick]

when I'm trying to convince myself whether or not person X is filtering me consistently (and hence would probably rather see me withdraw or disappear).

Is there any particular reason why you would assume that person X wouldn't just take you off their friends list rather than going to the effort to set up a custom filter? (Insert another paragraph here about hating the name "friends" list, yaddayaddayadda, had this conversation before I believe.)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Other than sweeties wishing to occasionally rant about me, it is hard to imagine someone bothering to construct a Brian-only filter (rather than simply expunging me from their list). But many folks with >30 people on their (poorly named, agreed) friends-list have resorted to filters which address subsets of their overall list.

Sort of like invitation lists to social events... some subset may be invited to X-variety parties, an overlapping set to Y-type events, and others only to general-invitation activities. And then personally going from seeing a given friend weekly, to a couple of times per month, to only being invited to the twice yearly huge parties (to which the whole community is invited) and seeing the given (ex-?) friend for 30 seconds upon arrival and departure.

[rosefox]

*bafflement* Why don't you just ask?

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

(shuffle) because that would then inconvenience the person being asked, and Bad Things consequently result... either one then would owe a debt of gratitude to the askee for not having been Consigned to the Outer Darkness, or else the askee is placed in the uncomfortable position of communicating some form of rejection... I see it as more polite for me to try to ascertain the askee's intentions without actually putting them on the spot.