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loloteheOh dear. People are starting to share stories and compare notes.
Got a call from the ass on Thursday, which went to voice mail, which I didn't listen to all of because I was at work and I knew it was just going to be talking with no changes. This is not the first time we've had to have this talk, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the last. I'm tired of wasting my time.
But then, on Sunday, got email from the host of the event saying, "I told this person what went down and that it was not to happen again," and I called and asked and found out that happened on Thursday, so it would seem no one figured out anything and had to be told directly, which means it's probably a good thing I didn't listen to the rest of the message.
Yeah, I'm still talking about this, because it's upsetting that it's happening.
Host and I also had a mild conversation about why we put up with people for as long as we do and it's not due to loneliness or any of the presumed causes of the geek social fallacies.
It's about control.
When we're wee little babies, we're the center of the universe. Nothing else matters or exists but our wants and needs and so we sit there, like the little shit-stained black holes we are, shoving everything in to our mouths and trying to figure out how to make what's outside get inside. As the baby is the universe, so all things are part of the baby. The baby, who in actuality has zero control of anything, including bladder and bowel, knows they have some kind of absolute control over all things by crying.
I don't like babies and I don't like hanging out with them. We will hang out later, after the baby has become a human being.
Children are in a similar situation with control over their lives. They are small and don't know anything and it's good for a child to be a little fearful of the world, as there are many things that can cause them harm, intentionally or otherwise. But kids still have a mild level of control and if they didn't, there wouldn't be cartoons and toy commercials and super-sugary breakfast cereals. Also, kids have that fantastic imagination and so the couch becomes a fort and to be able to effect your environment to that point is a stunning level of control I wish more adults could exercise.
Being a teenager is an awful experience and that's why so many young adult novels take place in a dystopia. Usually, authoritarian dystopias because libertarian dystopias are just called zombie stories and that's more wishful thinking on the part of some people than anything about their lives.
Now where were we?
Fast forward to eventual adulthood. *le sigh* Now, you have almost no control over your life at all, real or imaginary. I mean, yeah, you can drive cross country on a whim or stay up all night or eat nothing but orange sherbert the rest of your life, but as an adult, you understand why we don't do those things. No one is there to tell you "no", but the next morning, when you wake up and you're on the other side of the country and have no money for gas, or you're at work and can't keep your eyes open, or if you've spent all day in the bathroom and your legs are going numb, you kinda wish someone had told you "no" and you will be telling yourself "no" in the future to more and more things as time goes on.
And it's not as much that you can't do things or you're not allowed to do things, as much as you understand there are consequences to the things you do. Yeah, you can not go to work for a week and not tell anyone, but there's going to be a consequence to that and maybe you won't ever have to go back to that job you hate but you won't get paid, either.
Another part of growing up is realizing that other people exist and have thoughts and feelings and desires and drives just as much as you do. They aren't just the extras who walk around in the background to make the movie of your life seem more real. Our little bubbles get smaller, but only because they bump up against other little bubbles. Sometimes, you get to join bubbles with someone else because you have very similar thoughts and feelings and desires and drives (and sometimes you lose your bubble to someone else and you're both inside their bubble but that's a story for another time).
So we orbit around each other in our little spheres of influence or sphere of awareness and discover, much to our chagrin, that just because we want something, doesn’t mean it's going to happen. This is incredibly frustrating experience when it happens the first time and if you doubt me on that, I'm sure there's a toddler throwing a tantrum somewhere who can show you otherwise.
This is part of what we call "socialization". This is when we learn that specific behaviors can get us what we want and others will get us what we don't want. We watch adults, mimic their behaviors, and learn what is or is not acceptable. Some kids learn more quickly than others. Some never learn. Children who are usually ignored learn they can get attention by acting out, because bad attention is better than no attention. We develop theory of mind and learn how to lie.
But more importantly, we break into little groups based on those behaviors and how we feel about them. A kid who's grown up around ponies and pools will have a very different set of attitudes about those things than the kid who gets to pick a present from the "community chest" at Christmas. Kids who watch the adults in their lives drink all the time will very likely grow up to drink all the time because that's normal and that's what adults do. Children who are rewarded for physical prowess will be more interested in activities that involve physical prowess.
And children who are shunned will glom onto other children who are shunned. Teenagers who don't fit in anywhere else will hang out with teenagers who don't fit anywhere else because you have to hang out with someone, right? And because there's strength in numbers, they'll encourage those other kids who are not accepted anywhere else to be part of their group.
Because this is control. We can't control the people we want to hang out with but who don't want to hang out with us. But we can control the people who want to hang out with someone and won't be accepted by anyone else. I think that might be part of why Lilith and Satan hang out.
Anyway.
I can fully understand the need for control because I like to exercise it on occasion. I also know I was a lot worse about that in my 20s, when I'd just take charge of a group. I remember a buddy's girlfriend once accused me of "holding court" at a Denny's, and I don't doubt I did. That also comes with the responsibility of remembering things about people, settling arguments, and granting aid when called upon. Being in charge means making the tough decisions.
But it also means untangling things when they get tangled and there's a lot of folks who will create a situation so they can look like the savior when they swoop in to fix it. I understand this because I've done it (hell, I might be doing it now). It will also mean taking on problem children in the hopes of fixing them, because there's no better follower than the rescued.
I think that may be partially due to children's books, like The King with Six Friends, which I thought was a great book, but where the king made friends by rescuing them from various shitty situations. I know a lot of this is done for expediency’s sake, because how else is a guy going to meet a dude who can turn into a swarm of bees and make friends with him? We're not going to spend twenty pages while the young king discovers bee-guy's likes and dislikes.
So in a need to control things, we look for people in shitty situations, and sometimes the shitty situation is just them. For whatever reason that person didn't learn the proper socialization skills needed or, as Dr. Nerdlove calls it, The Art of Social Calibration. Some folks take a look at that and see their very own Eliza Doolittle. After all, if you can't find friends, you make them, right?
You can do that in high-school. Heck, you can even do that for a few years of college. There comes a point, though, where that's just how that person is.
This is actually part of why I'm still thinking about this. I am loyal, and stupidly so. I remember Dad telling me that was a flaw in my character that we shared and that had cost him dearly. Hell, I know all about that, with bad boyfriends (who I wanted to rescue! Spot the pattern!) or a crappy marriage, or hanging out with some people as long as I did. In each of those cases—at the end—I felt betrayed. I was angry at them for taking me for granted or wasting my time, but that was me being angry at myself for wasting that time on them. Call it escalation of commitment or sunk cost fallacy or whatever, but I made a mistake in judgment and then continued along because I was in denial about that mistake. That's the cost of pride. You keep going until it ends badly. One of those people I don't talk to anymore pretty much nailed it down:
"It had to end badly, or else it wouldn’t have ended."
At the end of my marriage, I let a lot of people go: some sooner than others. You can call it a Saturn return or whatever, but I pretty much let him take a peer group and they didn't fight it, so I guess I made the right call. I have some folk left from that time and I'm glad I still have them.
And I will admit, I might have rushed to build a new group. Sometimes I have to stop and remember that it's quality and not quantity that matters and that's hard to remember in the days of Twitter and Facebook. I don't need a lot of followers; I just need a few I can depend on. I don't have time for people who I can't depend on, so I'm not going to have them as part of my circle.
I can control that, at least.
PART ONE
PART THREE
Got a call from the ass on Thursday, which went to voice mail, which I didn't listen to all of because I was at work and I knew it was just going to be talking with no changes. This is not the first time we've had to have this talk, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the last. I'm tired of wasting my time.
But then, on Sunday, got email from the host of the event saying, "I told this person what went down and that it was not to happen again," and I called and asked and found out that happened on Thursday, so it would seem no one figured out anything and had to be told directly, which means it's probably a good thing I didn't listen to the rest of the message.
Yeah, I'm still talking about this, because it's upsetting that it's happening.
Host and I also had a mild conversation about why we put up with people for as long as we do and it's not due to loneliness or any of the presumed causes of the geek social fallacies.
It's about control.
When we're wee little babies, we're the center of the universe. Nothing else matters or exists but our wants and needs and so we sit there, like the little shit-stained black holes we are, shoving everything in to our mouths and trying to figure out how to make what's outside get inside. As the baby is the universe, so all things are part of the baby. The baby, who in actuality has zero control of anything, including bladder and bowel, knows they have some kind of absolute control over all things by crying.
I don't like babies and I don't like hanging out with them. We will hang out later, after the baby has become a human being.
Children are in a similar situation with control over their lives. They are small and don't know anything and it's good for a child to be a little fearful of the world, as there are many things that can cause them harm, intentionally or otherwise. But kids still have a mild level of control and if they didn't, there wouldn't be cartoons and toy commercials and super-sugary breakfast cereals. Also, kids have that fantastic imagination and so the couch becomes a fort and to be able to effect your environment to that point is a stunning level of control I wish more adults could exercise.
Being a teenager is an awful experience and that's why so many young adult novels take place in a dystopia. Usually, authoritarian dystopias because libertarian dystopias are just called zombie stories and that's more wishful thinking on the part of some people than anything about their lives.
Now where were we?
Fast forward to eventual adulthood. *le sigh* Now, you have almost no control over your life at all, real or imaginary. I mean, yeah, you can drive cross country on a whim or stay up all night or eat nothing but orange sherbert the rest of your life, but as an adult, you understand why we don't do those things. No one is there to tell you "no", but the next morning, when you wake up and you're on the other side of the country and have no money for gas, or you're at work and can't keep your eyes open, or if you've spent all day in the bathroom and your legs are going numb, you kinda wish someone had told you "no" and you will be telling yourself "no" in the future to more and more things as time goes on.
And it's not as much that you can't do things or you're not allowed to do things, as much as you understand there are consequences to the things you do. Yeah, you can not go to work for a week and not tell anyone, but there's going to be a consequence to that and maybe you won't ever have to go back to that job you hate but you won't get paid, either.
Another part of growing up is realizing that other people exist and have thoughts and feelings and desires and drives just as much as you do. They aren't just the extras who walk around in the background to make the movie of your life seem more real. Our little bubbles get smaller, but only because they bump up against other little bubbles. Sometimes, you get to join bubbles with someone else because you have very similar thoughts and feelings and desires and drives (and sometimes you lose your bubble to someone else and you're both inside their bubble but that's a story for another time).
So we orbit around each other in our little spheres of influence or sphere of awareness and discover, much to our chagrin, that just because we want something, doesn’t mean it's going to happen. This is incredibly frustrating experience when it happens the first time and if you doubt me on that, I'm sure there's a toddler throwing a tantrum somewhere who can show you otherwise.
This is part of what we call "socialization". This is when we learn that specific behaviors can get us what we want and others will get us what we don't want. We watch adults, mimic their behaviors, and learn what is or is not acceptable. Some kids learn more quickly than others. Some never learn. Children who are usually ignored learn they can get attention by acting out, because bad attention is better than no attention. We develop theory of mind and learn how to lie.
But more importantly, we break into little groups based on those behaviors and how we feel about them. A kid who's grown up around ponies and pools will have a very different set of attitudes about those things than the kid who gets to pick a present from the "community chest" at Christmas. Kids who watch the adults in their lives drink all the time will very likely grow up to drink all the time because that's normal and that's what adults do. Children who are rewarded for physical prowess will be more interested in activities that involve physical prowess.
And children who are shunned will glom onto other children who are shunned. Teenagers who don't fit in anywhere else will hang out with teenagers who don't fit anywhere else because you have to hang out with someone, right? And because there's strength in numbers, they'll encourage those other kids who are not accepted anywhere else to be part of their group.
Because this is control. We can't control the people we want to hang out with but who don't want to hang out with us. But we can control the people who want to hang out with someone and won't be accepted by anyone else. I think that might be part of why Lilith and Satan hang out.
Anyway.
I can fully understand the need for control because I like to exercise it on occasion. I also know I was a lot worse about that in my 20s, when I'd just take charge of a group. I remember a buddy's girlfriend once accused me of "holding court" at a Denny's, and I don't doubt I did. That also comes with the responsibility of remembering things about people, settling arguments, and granting aid when called upon. Being in charge means making the tough decisions.
But it also means untangling things when they get tangled and there's a lot of folks who will create a situation so they can look like the savior when they swoop in to fix it. I understand this because I've done it (hell, I might be doing it now). It will also mean taking on problem children in the hopes of fixing them, because there's no better follower than the rescued.
I think that may be partially due to children's books, like The King with Six Friends, which I thought was a great book, but where the king made friends by rescuing them from various shitty situations. I know a lot of this is done for expediency’s sake, because how else is a guy going to meet a dude who can turn into a swarm of bees and make friends with him? We're not going to spend twenty pages while the young king discovers bee-guy's likes and dislikes.
So in a need to control things, we look for people in shitty situations, and sometimes the shitty situation is just them. For whatever reason that person didn't learn the proper socialization skills needed or, as Dr. Nerdlove calls it, The Art of Social Calibration. Some folks take a look at that and see their very own Eliza Doolittle. After all, if you can't find friends, you make them, right?
You can do that in high-school. Heck, you can even do that for a few years of college. There comes a point, though, where that's just how that person is.
This is actually part of why I'm still thinking about this. I am loyal, and stupidly so. I remember Dad telling me that was a flaw in my character that we shared and that had cost him dearly. Hell, I know all about that, with bad boyfriends (who I wanted to rescue! Spot the pattern!) or a crappy marriage, or hanging out with some people as long as I did. In each of those cases—at the end—I felt betrayed. I was angry at them for taking me for granted or wasting my time, but that was me being angry at myself for wasting that time on them. Call it escalation of commitment or sunk cost fallacy or whatever, but I made a mistake in judgment and then continued along because I was in denial about that mistake. That's the cost of pride. You keep going until it ends badly. One of those people I don't talk to anymore pretty much nailed it down:
"It had to end badly, or else it wouldn’t have ended."
At the end of my marriage, I let a lot of people go: some sooner than others. You can call it a Saturn return or whatever, but I pretty much let him take a peer group and they didn't fight it, so I guess I made the right call. I have some folk left from that time and I'm glad I still have them.
And I will admit, I might have rushed to build a new group. Sometimes I have to stop and remember that it's quality and not quantity that matters and that's hard to remember in the days of Twitter and Facebook. I don't need a lot of followers; I just need a few I can depend on. I don't have time for people who I can't depend on, so I'm not going to have them as part of my circle.
I can control that, at least.
PART ONE
PART THREE
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
As a poem in my own profile says...
Date: 2016-08-30 04:54 am (UTC)And there is nothing you must do.
There is really nothing you must have,
And there is nothing you must know.
There is nothing you must become.
However,
It helps to understand that fire burns,
And when it rains the earth gets wet."
- Author Unknown
RE: As a poem in my own profile says...
Date: 2016-08-30 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-08-30 06:06 am (UTC)Let me throw some stuff out there and see what is useful. They're kind of guide lines or random philosophies I've learned over time.
(note: I understand I'm doing the 'man thing' of 'wanting to help and trying to fix' here. I offer these thoughts for comment)
1. All life is forever high school.
It really is. It never goes away. All social dynamics are just like high school. Even in a 'nerd' hierarchy there are still 'jocks' and 'debs' and 'cheerleaders' and 'chess or A/V club' . It's true.
2. In any gathering, only 10% are worth a shit and of that only 1% actually 'do stuff'. Note that 'people who do stuff' are not always the leaders, because politics are different from ability. 40% are frankly drones who will listen to whoever seems to be the more cool person at the moment, the rest just do whatever.
3. Leadership is a drug. that's pretty obvious.
4. Nobody appreciates you taking charge. Often you are resented. It will usually be part of that 10% referenced above that will work against you because it's not fair that you know stuff and do stuff. To see this in nature, attend a con, find two people you want to eat with, and then wait until they decide to invite 20 other people, THEN comes the voting to see where to go, what kind of food to eat, how to get there... (the way to avoid that is say "I'm going to that restaurant there, wanna come with? Leaving now" and then leave). In the end you'll end up going a place you didn't really want to go, driving people you don't know, dealing with an annoyed server who doesn't want to deal with a 20-top and on and on.
(aside. There was one AWA, there was a desire to take Peter Fernandez to lunch, and it became SUCH A THING oh my god. I loved how that Georgia Diner tried hard to take care of we weirdos but I could tell that little event taxed them to the limit. I tipped like a BOSS every time I ate there because so many were being cheap-ass)
5. The two most important words in the world are 'Pay Attention'. It's shocking how few people do that. Paying attention allows you to spot those 10% people who are out to put a knife in your back. Paying attention allows you to solve problems before they BECOME problems. Do not think for a moment this will be seen as praiseworthy.
Ahhh, that's enough for now. :)
no subject
Date: 2016-08-30 06:14 am (UTC)Being in charge is big deal to a lot of people who have never been in charge. They can have it. I'm going to tootle off and do my own thing.
And for some reason now, I imagine that a caber toss is, in fact, a "game of throwns", but that's neither here no there.
Yeah, there is pain there. This is how I exorcise it.
the plasticity of a person pretty much halts at 25.
Date: 2016-08-30 11:52 pm (UTC)before I forget
Date: 2016-08-30 06:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-08-30 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-08-31 02:30 am (UTC)Huh.
She's sooooooooo evil
Date: 2016-09-01 04:22 am (UTC)