The Ghost of ÉmilieDo you consider yourself "sane"? #Poll
| Yes, I do | |
| No, I don't |
Poll ends at .
If so, what's the least sane thing you've done?
I'm just going to start talking about whatever hell.
I've been talking with a particular person a lot recently, and... last night, I had a dream about them getting into an argument with me and us not being friends anymore...
I felt sad about that because... in a perfect world, we would be understanding towards one another and work it out... but since we don't live in a perfect world, what ends up happening a lot of the time is that you say something that makes them angry... and then they write a strongly worded message to you and block you...
Then you might cry for a while, and that's a normal response I suppose...
I saw Tio write Frankie a strongly worded message yesterday... and that made me upset for a moment, because I knew Frankie was just trying to start a conversation about something... Tio seemed not to understand that at all, but maybe he did.
Oh yes, vote on my precious poll. Thank you, thank you.
By the way, some of this may not make any sense.
I think that... no matter what I do... this friend will inevitably explode on me... because I've seen them do it to others, and I'm not perfect and I say stupid things sometimes. I can keep my mouth shut, which I'm good at, but I think I'll probably let something slip at some point.
I don't *want* that... I just think it's what'll probably end up happening. And what should I do when it does? Tell them, "No, you're wrong, and that's not what I meant"? I doubt they'll buy it, but I can try.
It seems like once someone's upset at you, there's no way to tell them otherwise. And that's really unfortunate.
Okay, so actually there are two scenarios... There's the first situation, where you say something, and you didn't intend for it to be taken as seriously as it did, and then someone starts going off on you about their interpretation of what you said... Then there's the second situation, where they understood you completely and are still mad at you. In the first situation, like I said, it's really hard to tell them otherwise.
In the second situation, you actually did do something wrong. In that case, you can try to correct your mistake so you don't do it again in the future. They might still be mad at you, though, like in the first situation... so you might just have to change for yourself, not them (since they might still go off on you and block you no matter what).
There's one particular person on fedi who was sexually harassing people... and they said sorry but still didn't change... That was annoying.
There haven't been any times on fedi where I've "gone off" on someone. I just don't see the point of it... because it doesn't teach them anything, and depending on how they take it, it can deeply hurt their feelings... so I don't do that.
Instead, I try to coach people into coming to the correct answer on their own. I don't get mad at them if they don't, since it doesn't really affect me personally either way, no matter what they do.
I might say to myself, "Hm, that's dumb, but okay..." but I don't go out of my way to prove that to them... I just do something else and forget about it.
In the last argument I saw on fedi, two people were both trying to "prove something" to each other, and neither of them were getting anywhere... It kept going in circles, too, because the second person couldn't understand how what they were saying could possibly be wrong. It wasn't.
It wasn't wrong, it's just that the first person was on a rampage, trying to prove themselves... and they were right, too. So... both sides were right, and they were arguing as if they disagreed with each other. It was pretty dumb.
Then... something even dumber happened... And I couldn't even explain why it was dumb.
Let's call the first person Angel and the second person Joe.
So... after this argument, the one where both people were right... Joe makes this post... which is a critique of the way Angel was talking... but it was so unclear.
I get the feeling someone might say "But you're unclear" at this point, because that's what the troll within me would say to myself... I just want to say that I know you're out there and I get it.
The post was unclear because it was directed at Angel, but Angel was never referenced specifically. As in, they wanted Angel to read it and understand their behavior was wrong, but they didn't actually send it to Angel.
And from my previous interactions with Joe, I knew there was no way in hell they would ever put two and two together and see this was directed at them.
And no, I'm not a hypocrite because this is me telling a story, and this is not directed at anyone and I don't want anyone to change as a result of reading this.
Now I'm thinking about what a better way to get someone to change is...
This thread is such a mess... Anyway...
I think the first step... is to get them to "opt-in" to what you're saying... So you would say something like "Hey (Name), I felt weird about our interaction earlier, can we talk about that?"
That's a very important step... because if you don't do that, then they might get defensive because they might disagree that something they did is wrong, or they might not understand how it was wrong.
Rokosun@thebiologist1117
You don't have to give an opinion on everything. But if I'm having a conversation with a close friend and they disagree with something then I'd like them to be open about it, I think it shows a certain level of trust in each other when you can openly have conversations without being afraid of the other person judging you, I think that's how best friends are, haha 😄
You don't have to give an opinion on everything. But if I'm having a conversation with a close friend and they disagree with something then I'd like them to be open about it, I think it shows a certain level of trust in each other when you can openly have conversations without being afraid of the other person judging you, I think that's how best friends are, haha 😄
@thebiologist1117 Yes you're smart, its a good way of looking at things. And especially on the internet you have time to think about what you're writing, so you don't have to act on your emotions, just take your time.
@thebiologist1117
This is not true for everyone, I think communication is very important here, given enough time people can cool down and understand each other better.
This is not true for everyone, I think communication is very important here, given enough time people can cool down and understand each other better.