a character study, no, really.
2 Jan 2009 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouSomeone on my flist posted a self-critique about the issue of trust, or lack thereof: not able to trust in general, not able to trust anything, that something/one can provide or be a place a safety, a respite. I didn't reply there because -- being someone with a similar mindset -- I suspect my response may have seemed offensive to anyone doing their best to assure my LJ-friend about friendship good intentions and support.
Thing is, this is one of those instances where the only thing to do is accept that sometimes, when a person says, "it's not you, it's me," that this really is the truth -- and then rather than kneejerk, stop and think.
I'm treating this as a mild character study because it's a difficult one for people to write who don't get the mindset. There's often a conflation, as I've mentioned in past posts, between trust-as-specific and trust-in-general. You could conceivably go through a fair part of your life avoiding, say, spiders; the concept of distrust as a constant state of affairs towards everything is on a level so far elevated that it's only comparable thanks to the word "trust" and not much else.
It's like saying, because you agree that spiders are gross, that you can totally sympathize with someone who has a genuine phobia about it. Well, sure you can sympathize, but through no fault of your own it's your empathizing that's going to fall short.
When a character/person cannot or does not trust in general (and we'll skip the possible reasons because they are as varied as there are personalities and backgrounds), and then takes the big step of recognizing this or admitting it, there are eight basic reactions (less, if you view some as variations on each other). I've discussed this before, but more focused on the origination points and less on the dynamics of how some folks react.
1. A listener with even an iota of insecurity is likely to take it as a criticism.
That's the "oh my gawd, is it something I did?" Followed quite often by the "oh, what can I do to help?"
Likeliest reaction from the speaker: a kind of helpless confusion. If it were so easily fixed, just saying it out loud would have fixed it, don't you think? And furthermore, when the listener gets all worried and upset about what s/he can do, the focus abruptly shifts from the speaker's issue to the listener's insecurity. That can go even so far as to end up with the speaker now having to spend time reassuring the listener about the fact that, no, it's not you, it's me... and (to be frank) coddle the insecurities of the listener. Lovely, eh.
Yeah, it's not intentional for the dynamic to happen like that, but it's normal act-react on the part of two people who are doing their best to be friends while missing an integral part of the other person's world-view. Play it to the end and the speaker may eventually not just distrust the listener, but may even resent the listener for not actually listening -- not to mention completely missing the extent to which the speaker had to be vulnerable to say that out loud.
2. A listener who genuinely wants to help but isn't sure how, will reassure.
The problem is that it's still, not you, it's me, and you can't really reassure that away. On top of that, the speaker is now getting the same reaction as if one had stated, "man, I hate my hips" or "my nose is too big." Friends jump in with well-wishes, that it's not that bad, that you're OKAY as a person, they're here for you. Does anyone else think of the term, fishing for compliments, at this point? Although the speaker didn't intend it, that's the sensation when overloaded with well-wishing, well-meaning, effusive supportive reactions.
It's especially striking when those kinds of comments weren't there, twenty minutes before, or ever, in the friendship. The speaker's statement now carries a loaded question on top of it, of whether or not the speaker inadvertently created a sense of obligation. And obligation between friends often creates resentment -- so from the point of view of an in-general-distrust person, there's going to be not just a suspicion about these sudden effusive reactions, but also about whether or not a small taste of resentment has been added to the mix.
Chances are, the speaker may not mention it again around the effusive-type person. That goes back to the distrust: a kind of general anxiety over whether or not the person's reassurances were true, whether the person now sees the distrustful-speaker as weak, or whether the distrustful-speaker has "used up" some kind of quota of friendly reassurances.
3. A listener tries to relate.
This one's a little easier for the vulnerable speaker. To say, "yeah, I get what you mean, there are things and places that trigger that for me," is at least some acknowledgment that the overwhelming terror about spiders is not completely off-the-wall. The danger is when the listener goes a step further and suggests that since s/he can deal with his/her sense of grossness about spiders, that the speaker should be able to "deal with" the full-blown phobia somehow.
4. A listener takes the alternate form of helping, by coming up with ways to fix it.
Mix in equal parts helpless frustration, worry about obligation, a growing sense that the sympathy is appreciated but the empathy is lacking, and eventually the speaker just wants to change the freaking subject. Honestly, if generalized distrust and/or anxiety were that easy to fix, does the listener not realize the speaker would've done it by now? The blend of vulnerability (in speaking) and frustration (in being heard but not actually listened to) slams up against this well-meaning "here's what you can do to become better" and ends up sinking into a kind of "look, let's just change the subject, forget I said anything" fatalism -- because that overpowering well-meaning attitude is really quite patronizing.
5. The listener gets offended.
Very bad (if very human) response; the extreme version of #1. The listener's been working hard all this time to have a friendship, and hasn't missed this sense of general distrust but has never really been able to pin it down. Then along comes the speaker who admits, s/he doesn't trust easily (if at all), and the listener's genuine and understandable frustration takes it as a personal attack. What comes out in this version, though, isn't the anxious insecurity of "oh, no, what did I do wrong?" but anger.
Here I am, the listener says, working so hard to be your friend and you don't even trust me, what's your problem? Let it escalate and you end up with an angry listener saying things like, don't you value this friendship? I feel like I'm doing all the work here, but just how many flaming hoops am I supposed to leap through before you stop treating me like you can't trust me? What have I ever done to you?
Take it to eleven and soon you get the resentful fury of: I'm a good friend, and it's you that has the problem!
Which was rather the point of the speaker's statement in the first place. Only now, the speaker -- who wasn't entirely certain the listener, as representative of the world-in-general, would offer a safe place -- has just learned the hard way that vulnerability gets met with righteous anger and indignation. Okay, not a safe place. Congratulations, number five, you just proved the speaker's fear to be valid.
6. The listener gets into the philosophical.
Don't. Just don't. A listener who replies, "why can't you be happy?" should get a blank stare, or at least a sense of disconnect, from the speaker. The issue of whether or not one is happy, or can fall in love, or can be a good person, is independent of whether one has some kind of faith in the world's goodness -- one can be perfectly happy with a spider phobia, so long as one avoids spiders. That is, one can be happy in love and still harbor a fear of the lover leaving, or a quiet certainty that the love will end in a painful way. It's not a perfect happiness (if there's such a thing) but it's not a truly miserable unhappiness, either.
By the time someone's an adult, the person's going to have coping mechanisms in place, some more rigid than others (all the way up to OCD, if you ask me), and most folks have managed to achieve some kind of basic happiness regardless of peripheral, generalized, issues. Delving into the philosophical is maddening, insulting, and puts even more weight on the distrust/anxiety issue, along with the hidden question of: if you're admitting this, then what else is really really wrong with you that you're not admitting?
7. The listener questions the speaker's idea of what a friendship "really is".
Alternate versions being, what do you expect from this friendship? Or the harder whammy, are your expectations realistic? Most often delivered with a gentle tone, as though the undercurrent of #5's anger isn't present, no, honest. It's there, though, if a subtler version than the infuriated "what do you expect from me, anyway?"
Being someone who doesn't trust easily is not automatically synonymous with being a doormat. Not all distrust-issue folks will be distracted by the only tangentially-related "what friendships are" and expectations thereof. That's why I think the best re-reaction to #7 would be something like, "gee, my expectation is that you listen to me and accept that I'm telling you something about myself. Or is it actually that your expectation of a friendship was that I wouldn't dump such personal details on you?"
8. The listener insists s/he can be trusted.
A much better response, except that it must come with a caveat to any listeners planning to use it. I don't know how many times I've read stories (or experienced it myself) where this statement is said with an expectation that just saying it out loud makes it all better (a corollary, if you think about it, to the notion that the speaker's statement out loud must thereby reduce or nullify the general distrust/anxiety). Everything said is now out in the open, true, but when the listener insists s/he can be trusted, it's a kind of promise. To say, you don't have to fear me, and I'll offer you a safe place, and then to just casually or gradually withdraw, is to undermine -- even downright negate -- that promise. It's a slower burn of #5, end result the same: proving the distrust was well-founded.
I would be very very happy if at least some of the authors out there, writing characters with trust issues, would stop thinking that a lover saying, "it's okay, you can trust me," automatically makes everything okay and the issues just fade, maybe one or two bumps and then woo, we're cured! Authors, you're just reinforcing the naivete when you go for the easy way out.
9. The listener says, "Okay, I hear you... what would you like me to do, personally, that would help? How can I make it easier on you?"
[ETA per conversations in comments, doh!]
This is the positive form of #1 and #4, in that the listener is not saying, oh noes, what did I do wrong! Nor is the listener saying, have you tried X or Y? (And it should go without saying that such a question should lack the sarcasm/anger in #5, please.) The listener is saying both "if I did something wrong, I'm willing to try and do better if you let me know how" as well as "give me something concrete that might help you" -- while simultaneously putting this back on the one with the admission, that is, the speaker.
If the speaker doesn't have an answer -- perhaps because it's a new realization and there are no coping mechanisms in place yet, or perhaps because no one's bloody well ever asked before -- then this question leaves the communication lines open. There's no need to solve or resolve. A listener only need say, "hey, if you're not sure, you just keep me posted, and whatever I can do, I'll willing to try, okay?"
The speaker is the one with the trust issue, so let them take the lead. S/he may not be able to let go of fear/anxiety enough to fully trust, so someone in this conversation's gotta do it. If the listener can, then the listener is a damn good friend.
The last, in my opinion, is possibly the one reaction that could quiet the fear to a manageable level -- even in situations when the speaker admits s/he doesn't know what else could be done, or doesn't even think anything could be done.
10. The listener says, "It's okay. If that's what you feel, that's what you feel. I'll just stick around and prove you wrong."
Note: none of this applies to Jay Lygon, who ALREADY GETS IT.
ETA: there's a difference between a person with control issues who gives the appearance of distrust as a result of inability to rely/delegate, versus someone with trust issues who ends up trying to control things as a coping mechanism for dealing with fear/anxiety. The two are not the same.
Thing is, this is one of those instances where the only thing to do is accept that sometimes, when a person says, "it's not you, it's me," that this really is the truth -- and then rather than kneejerk, stop and think.
I'm treating this as a mild character study because it's a difficult one for people to write who don't get the mindset. There's often a conflation, as I've mentioned in past posts, between trust-as-specific and trust-in-general. You could conceivably go through a fair part of your life avoiding, say, spiders; the concept of distrust as a constant state of affairs towards everything is on a level so far elevated that it's only comparable thanks to the word "trust" and not much else.
It's like saying, because you agree that spiders are gross, that you can totally sympathize with someone who has a genuine phobia about it. Well, sure you can sympathize, but through no fault of your own it's your empathizing that's going to fall short.
When a character/person cannot or does not trust in general (and we'll skip the possible reasons because they are as varied as there are personalities and backgrounds), and then takes the big step of recognizing this or admitting it, there are eight basic reactions (less, if you view some as variations on each other). I've discussed this before, but more focused on the origination points and less on the dynamics of how some folks react.
1. A listener with even an iota of insecurity is likely to take it as a criticism.
That's the "oh my gawd, is it something I did?" Followed quite often by the "oh, what can I do to help?"
Likeliest reaction from the speaker: a kind of helpless confusion. If it were so easily fixed, just saying it out loud would have fixed it, don't you think? And furthermore, when the listener gets all worried and upset about what s/he can do, the focus abruptly shifts from the speaker's issue to the listener's insecurity. That can go even so far as to end up with the speaker now having to spend time reassuring the listener about the fact that, no, it's not you, it's me... and (to be frank) coddle the insecurities of the listener. Lovely, eh.
Yeah, it's not intentional for the dynamic to happen like that, but it's normal act-react on the part of two people who are doing their best to be friends while missing an integral part of the other person's world-view. Play it to the end and the speaker may eventually not just distrust the listener, but may even resent the listener for not actually listening -- not to mention completely missing the extent to which the speaker had to be vulnerable to say that out loud.
2. A listener who genuinely wants to help but isn't sure how, will reassure.
The problem is that it's still, not you, it's me, and you can't really reassure that away. On top of that, the speaker is now getting the same reaction as if one had stated, "man, I hate my hips" or "my nose is too big." Friends jump in with well-wishes, that it's not that bad, that you're OKAY as a person, they're here for you. Does anyone else think of the term, fishing for compliments, at this point? Although the speaker didn't intend it, that's the sensation when overloaded with well-wishing, well-meaning, effusive supportive reactions.
It's especially striking when those kinds of comments weren't there, twenty minutes before, or ever, in the friendship. The speaker's statement now carries a loaded question on top of it, of whether or not the speaker inadvertently created a sense of obligation. And obligation between friends often creates resentment -- so from the point of view of an in-general-distrust person, there's going to be not just a suspicion about these sudden effusive reactions, but also about whether or not a small taste of resentment has been added to the mix.
Chances are, the speaker may not mention it again around the effusive-type person. That goes back to the distrust: a kind of general anxiety over whether or not the person's reassurances were true, whether the person now sees the distrustful-speaker as weak, or whether the distrustful-speaker has "used up" some kind of quota of friendly reassurances.
3. A listener tries to relate.
This one's a little easier for the vulnerable speaker. To say, "yeah, I get what you mean, there are things and places that trigger that for me," is at least some acknowledgment that the overwhelming terror about spiders is not completely off-the-wall. The danger is when the listener goes a step further and suggests that since s/he can deal with his/her sense of grossness about spiders, that the speaker should be able to "deal with" the full-blown phobia somehow.
4. A listener takes the alternate form of helping, by coming up with ways to fix it.
Mix in equal parts helpless frustration, worry about obligation, a growing sense that the sympathy is appreciated but the empathy is lacking, and eventually the speaker just wants to change the freaking subject. Honestly, if generalized distrust and/or anxiety were that easy to fix, does the listener not realize the speaker would've done it by now? The blend of vulnerability (in speaking) and frustration (in being heard but not actually listened to) slams up against this well-meaning "here's what you can do to become better" and ends up sinking into a kind of "look, let's just change the subject, forget I said anything" fatalism -- because that overpowering well-meaning attitude is really quite patronizing.
5. The listener gets offended.
Very bad (if very human) response; the extreme version of #1. The listener's been working hard all this time to have a friendship, and hasn't missed this sense of general distrust but has never really been able to pin it down. Then along comes the speaker who admits, s/he doesn't trust easily (if at all), and the listener's genuine and understandable frustration takes it as a personal attack. What comes out in this version, though, isn't the anxious insecurity of "oh, no, what did I do wrong?" but anger.
Here I am, the listener says, working so hard to be your friend and you don't even trust me, what's your problem? Let it escalate and you end up with an angry listener saying things like, don't you value this friendship? I feel like I'm doing all the work here, but just how many flaming hoops am I supposed to leap through before you stop treating me like you can't trust me? What have I ever done to you?
Take it to eleven and soon you get the resentful fury of: I'm a good friend, and it's you that has the problem!
Which was rather the point of the speaker's statement in the first place. Only now, the speaker -- who wasn't entirely certain the listener, as representative of the world-in-general, would offer a safe place -- has just learned the hard way that vulnerability gets met with righteous anger and indignation. Okay, not a safe place. Congratulations, number five, you just proved the speaker's fear to be valid.
6. The listener gets into the philosophical.
Don't. Just don't. A listener who replies, "why can't you be happy?" should get a blank stare, or at least a sense of disconnect, from the speaker. The issue of whether or not one is happy, or can fall in love, or can be a good person, is independent of whether one has some kind of faith in the world's goodness -- one can be perfectly happy with a spider phobia, so long as one avoids spiders. That is, one can be happy in love and still harbor a fear of the lover leaving, or a quiet certainty that the love will end in a painful way. It's not a perfect happiness (if there's such a thing) but it's not a truly miserable unhappiness, either.
By the time someone's an adult, the person's going to have coping mechanisms in place, some more rigid than others (all the way up to OCD, if you ask me), and most folks have managed to achieve some kind of basic happiness regardless of peripheral, generalized, issues. Delving into the philosophical is maddening, insulting, and puts even more weight on the distrust/anxiety issue, along with the hidden question of: if you're admitting this, then what else is really really wrong with you that you're not admitting?
7. The listener questions the speaker's idea of what a friendship "really is".
Alternate versions being, what do you expect from this friendship? Or the harder whammy, are your expectations realistic? Most often delivered with a gentle tone, as though the undercurrent of #5's anger isn't present, no, honest. It's there, though, if a subtler version than the infuriated "what do you expect from me, anyway?"
Being someone who doesn't trust easily is not automatically synonymous with being a doormat. Not all distrust-issue folks will be distracted by the only tangentially-related "what friendships are" and expectations thereof. That's why I think the best re-reaction to #7 would be something like, "gee, my expectation is that you listen to me and accept that I'm telling you something about myself. Or is it actually that your expectation of a friendship was that I wouldn't dump such personal details on you?"
8. The listener insists s/he can be trusted.
A much better response, except that it must come with a caveat to any listeners planning to use it. I don't know how many times I've read stories (or experienced it myself) where this statement is said with an expectation that just saying it out loud makes it all better (a corollary, if you think about it, to the notion that the speaker's statement out loud must thereby reduce or nullify the general distrust/anxiety). Everything said is now out in the open, true, but when the listener insists s/he can be trusted, it's a kind of promise. To say, you don't have to fear me, and I'll offer you a safe place, and then to just casually or gradually withdraw, is to undermine -- even downright negate -- that promise. It's a slower burn of #5, end result the same: proving the distrust was well-founded.
I would be very very happy if at least some of the authors out there, writing characters with trust issues, would stop thinking that a lover saying, "it's okay, you can trust me," automatically makes everything okay and the issues just fade, maybe one or two bumps and then woo, we're cured! Authors, you're just reinforcing the naivete when you go for the easy way out.
9. The listener says, "Okay, I hear you... what would you like me to do, personally, that would help? How can I make it easier on you?"
[ETA per conversations in comments, doh!]
This is the positive form of #1 and #4, in that the listener is not saying, oh noes, what did I do wrong! Nor is the listener saying, have you tried X or Y? (And it should go without saying that such a question should lack the sarcasm/anger in #5, please.) The listener is saying both "if I did something wrong, I'm willing to try and do better if you let me know how" as well as "give me something concrete that might help you" -- while simultaneously putting this back on the one with the admission, that is, the speaker.
If the speaker doesn't have an answer -- perhaps because it's a new realization and there are no coping mechanisms in place yet, or perhaps because no one's bloody well ever asked before -- then this question leaves the communication lines open. There's no need to solve or resolve. A listener only need say, "hey, if you're not sure, you just keep me posted, and whatever I can do, I'll willing to try, okay?"
The speaker is the one with the trust issue, so let them take the lead. S/he may not be able to let go of fear/anxiety enough to fully trust, so someone in this conversation's gotta do it. If the listener can, then the listener is a damn good friend.
The last, in my opinion, is possibly the one reaction that could quiet the fear to a manageable level -- even in situations when the speaker admits s/he doesn't know what else could be done, or doesn't even think anything could be done.
10. The listener says, "It's okay. If that's what you feel, that's what you feel. I'll just stick around and prove you wrong."
Note: none of this applies to Jay Lygon, who ALREADY GETS IT.
ETA: there's a difference between a person with control issues who gives the appearance of distrust as a result of inability to rely/delegate, versus someone with trust issues who ends up trying to control things as a coping mechanism for dealing with fear/anxiety. The two are not the same.
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no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 03:12 am (UTC)You mention previous posts dealing with the same issue. I am still working my way back through your posts (and slowly at that, because I want to be able to savor the writing and the ideas), so if you have the time, do you mind referring me to those earlier posts dealing with trust?
Thank you!
no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 03:53 am (UTC)It's really interesting to see this broken down, in a situation where I am not involved and can be objective. It's definitely given me something to think about it.
no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 05:37 am (UTC)Asking "oh my goodness, did I do something wrong?" is an honest first-reaction, I think -- it's when the listener refuses to believe the speaker's assurance that no, this is for everyone. If you're able to take that at face value, then that dynamic is a mild hump and easily passed, and you can modulate into a more positive version of #4, which is just as simple as, "is there anything I can do, personally, that will help reassure you?"
Not too many people think to ask that, but you might be amazed at how powerful a question it is. It makes the speaker stop and think about concrete things, that s/he would want (instead of suggesting anything yourself). If the person can't, then table it. Just say, "well, when you think of something, let me know." That way, the communication begun by the statement is remaining open, but without pressure.
That is, if you're somewhat good friends. If you consider yourself really, truly close friends and value the relationship, just skip straight to #8 and take it on face value that the most important thing for an anxious/trust-issue friend is that you stick around even when they're afraid you won't.
Although all of that is solely from my personal experience, so your mileage may vary. All I can tell you is that when someone says, "what can I personally do, to help, to make it easier on you?" it's got to be one of the most stunning moments of a friendship. For an anxious person, it's both terrifying and exhilarating, I think, because it's a strong expression of your trust in the person -- that is, that you're trusting him/her to tell you, and to give you that chance. That's pretty powerful.
no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 05:50 am (UTC)I totally get the impulse to make it better, or to want to talk it out, like this will resolve it. Sometimes it might, but plenty of times it won't. That's why I say, if you just ask -- what can I do? -- that's the fastest way to learn whether the person's at a stage that they can come up with coping mechanisms (tell me this, or remind me of that) or if they're still grappling and don't know.
If they don't know, or they don't think there is anything you can do, just accept it -- and take the admission as one of the highest forms of flattery (I think) is possible in a friendship: the willingness to be vulnerable around you. It means you've made the person feel safe enough to this point that they're willing to try wading a little deeper.
If you really want to reassure someone, then maybe do it about their words, not the actual issue. Like, I know that wasn't easy to say. That's always good to hear, that the listener gets that it wasn't easy, and I'm sure it's something you probably want to hear at equivalent times on your end, too, eh?
no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 06:19 am (UTC)This all sounds like common sense, but when you're caught up in the moment, you don't always thing sensibly. So yes -- I think this is going to be good to have in the back of my mind.
Love my icon.
no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 05:16 am (UTC)My own knee-jerk reaction is #1. Getting #5 in return usually knocks me off my feet, and getting #7 tends to put me in tears. That's always frustrating, but you know me XP
no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 05:44 am (UTC)I agree about #5. It's got to be the most painful kind of reaction to experience, and it's one reason I don't have a close friend in Australia anymore. How am I supposed to react to that kind of reaction, except by backing down and getting the hell out of there? Combine it with the false promises of #8 and you've got the makings of a really bad burn.
Do give yourself kudos for at least being able to recognize that #7 is really a hurtful reaction. I'm not the only person I know who fell for that time and again, thinking the person was 'helping' and not realizing the message buried under there. (I think it's a friend-version of the more intimate family/lover phrase, "I'm only telling you this because I love you..." kind of crap.) It takes a lot of self-awareness to be able to say, wait a minute, you're feeding me a line, here.
Although I think in the future I may take to just telling people outright, "no, no, this is where you say, what can I do to help you? and then you SHUT UP while I answer, okay? JUST SAY IT ALREADY, so we can get on with things!"
Heh.
no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2009 06:02 pm (UTC)I tend to think that reaction #1 is nearly unavoidable when the issues are about interpersonal dynamics, such as trust issues. Whether it becomes a problam or not tends to depend on how quickly the listener is able to move away from it and understand that this is Not About Them.
It's interesting that, to me, each of the reactions fall into one of two categories: the reaction is either about the listener or about the speaker. And all of the reacions that feel 'right' to me are the ones that are about the speaker.
Reactions #2-4 appear to be about the listener as advisor, really. How to talk the speaker around to the listener's perspective mainly. And there always seems to be an implied 'reward' for the listener -- "And you will show me how well my advice worked."
Reactions #5-7 are still about the listener but more personal, sometimes intensely so, sometimes destructively so. The issue becomse not just what the speaker is intending to say, but about how the listener hears it. The listener isn't hearing the speaker' tentative admission of vulnerability but instead sees a personal failure that the issue could exist between them. And then there's a twisting back and forth in placing blame, as if blame (or guilt, for that matter) is necessary.
#8-10 are reactions that are about the speaker. #8 is a good reaction, but it's only a starting point. It has to be combined with #9 and #10 -- and particularly #10 -- for it to work in the long run. Because once the listener tells the speaker s/he can be trusted, the only ways to prove it are to do what the speaker needs, but more importantly to be there regardless.
no subject
Date: 4 Jan 2009 12:31 am (UTC)I think the universal part of it is that when we hear things, we naturally think it's something About Us. Why else would someone tell us, unless it's an issue within our control? It just takes a lot of confidence and security on a person's part, to be able to say, okay, this is Not About Me. But I don't blame anyone for having that reaction right off the bat, especially since the majority of the time (for other topics related to relationships), it's a perfectly appropriate reaction, y'know?
[I should also disclose, I suppose, that I do #4 all the time. I think the more someone was raised with academic and/or teacher-like parents, the more likely a person is to use teaching-as-affection. I can now pinpoint other teachers' kids thanks to them showing the same traits. Doesn't change the fact that it's annoying and patronizing, though, especially if the lecture comes with, as you noted, the expectation that the lecturee will reward the lecturer by following instructions.]
no subject
Date: 8 Jan 2009 07:41 pm (UTC)I found your journal thanks to someone (can't remember who) posting a link to your what authors get wrong about the street in urban fantasy. I'm interested in what you write and especially about these subjects. I've never lived on the streets so your viewpoint informs me about that. I can also relate (in my own way) to some of your issue topics like this one about trust for different reasons (emotional abuse and neglect by divorced parents). This is why long-winded way of stating that I've added your journal to my friends page and that I hope you don't mind. If you do, tell me, and I'll remove you.
no subject
Date: 8 Jan 2009 07:55 pm (UTC)