mortensorchid Posted March 12, 2012 Posted March 12, 2012 In recent years, I have become a different person. Pick up any self help book on the fine art of conversation, and they will tell you that one must be open and honest. I no longer believe this, since in my experience with people (be it in the workplace or any other setting) that people like to take information about you and rip you to shreads with it. It could be something trivial (ex. Your favorite color is blue), or something personal (ex. your deepest, darkest secret - insert whatever that is here). In the past, if people have asked me "How do you feel about (fill in the blank)?" and I tell them, they will ridicule me about it. If I were to point out "but you just asked me to tell you how I feel about (blank) and that's how I feel about it", they act like I am the bad guy. One cannot win in this situation, so I think the best thing to do is to remain slightly apart from others. I have a tactic with some people. If, for example, someone were to ask me why I have never been married or why I don't have a boyfriend at this moment, I just say "I don't know. Never thought about it." Or, if someone were to ask me to talk about something somewhat controversial or probing, I would just say "I'd rather not talk about that right now, maybe later." Of course, over time I would tell things about myself once I build a trust with the other person. I have encountered a lot of people who seem to try to pry secrets out of others and then use them against others. Some guys I have met in the recent past have told me "You're not like other women, you're mysterious and hard to read." Unfortunately that's what it has to be for me, I don't show emotion very much and don't share a lot of things about myself. Has anyone else ever encountered this? I'm just wondering, and if so, how did you handle it?
reallyhotguy Posted March 12, 2012 Posted March 12, 2012 (edited) Has anyone else ever encountered this? I'm just wondering, and if so, how did you handle it? Definitely, and learning how to deal with it is key to social success. People and things are not necessarily how they appear. This difference creates conflict, because the mind tends to create shortcuts for understanding complex things (such as a person), which can be inaccurate. And all it takes is a few details to fill in the blanks. The most skilled socialites take advantage of this by not trying to be a certain way, hopefully the "right" way -- which is difficult, and can backfire -- but by being no way. This allows the person they're with to fill in the blanks how they would prefer -- which they tend to do, having nothing else to go on but a few vague ideas and their own inherent desire to surround themselves with people they want to like. I remember once a friend of mine telling me about the time he got a Vespa. He met an important client on it, and they had an excited discussion about it. His client said something to him like "Vespas, I've always had my eye on one of those." As my friend was leaving, he realized that his client didn't say anything affirmative to him about his Vespa. At the time it sounded earnest and vaguely positive, but it was ultimately meaningless. "Excitement", "interest" -- these neutral states of being that we conflate with affirmation. Social graces like these were (and probably still are) taught as crucial skills among certain social classes, and you can still discover it if you read F. Scott Fitzgerald or whoever. These rules have since been systematically deconstructed, and speaking of authors, you can see that in the preceding generation of novelists decrying the farce of the gentile society they literally fought to the death for. It's good to deconstruct these rules, because they're kind of bull****, right? But with that deconstruction we lose access to a sort of psychic protection. The search for earnestness has left most of us vulnerable, unless we're psychopaths, and then we can go and be rewarded by the financial sector. The earth is a hostile place, and humans are no exception. For the benefit of society, we've abstracted our hostility from physical violence into language (sarcasm, for instance). For that reason, social society is anything but benign. It behooves everyone to learn how to have social graces because these skills are vital toward protecting oneself from our would-be social assailants, who would like nothing more than to dominate us with their words. Edited March 12, 2012 by reallyhotguy
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