I like the #C term of 'wingman' -- acting as a person's backup.
Which is another dynamic altogether, having watched a friend think she was really telling that guy what-for and that he laid off because she said so -- only to turn around and discover her 6'5" boyfriend had been looming angrily behind her. She wasn't sure whether to be pleased (being backed up) or be furious (that she needed backup) or to be -- well, from what I gathered (and could empathize with), it was a strange mix of let-down that it wasn't entirely her own power that told the creep off, and a little bit of embarrassed pleasure that she'd had backup.
That's a scenario I've never entirely managed to tease out all the implications of, but there's a lot going on in there: gender issues, the question of independence, the need for control, self-determination, lots of things I can't quite recall the words for this early.
I guess it's like untangling the dynamics of, oddly, a dominant-submissive interaction: who is really driving this bus, and how do you react after that flash of "yeah! did it myself!" only to find out that it was either two-person deal or that possibly you "did it yourself" only by the grace of someone else's assistance?
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Date: 20 Sep 2008 04:48 pm (UTC)Which is another dynamic altogether, having watched a friend think she was really telling that guy what-for and that he laid off because she said so -- only to turn around and discover her 6'5" boyfriend had been looming angrily behind her. She wasn't sure whether to be pleased (being backed up) or be furious (that she needed backup) or to be -- well, from what I gathered (and could empathize with), it was a strange mix of let-down that it wasn't entirely her own power that told the creep off, and a little bit of embarrassed pleasure that she'd had backup.
That's a scenario I've never entirely managed to tease out all the implications of, but there's a lot going on in there: gender issues, the question of independence, the need for control, self-determination, lots of things I can't quite recall the words for this early.
I guess it's like untangling the dynamics of, oddly, a dominant-submissive interaction: who is really driving this bus, and how do you react after that flash of "yeah! did it myself!" only to find out that it was either two-person deal or that possibly you "did it yourself" only by the grace of someone else's assistance?
Odd, how we brains think sometimes. hrmmm...