I have suddenly become super anxious about motherhood. How embarrassing would it be if my son turned out to be a weirdo?

Hello Alone, I'm Frightened. — unenlightened

Sup.

Ever been to a Quaker Meeting? A bunch of people still and silent together with intent.
— unenlightened

This sounds more like a funeral to me.

Meet Authentic. Authentic, this is Sad, and Alone, and I'm Frightened. Unfortunately, Authentic does not know her own name, which makes conversation confusing at times. But she is beautiful, isn't she? — unenlightened

The only answer to this problem is Sad marries her and he is no longer Sad.

The concern i had in response to un’s post - one i voiced a little too flippantly - was something like: self-consciousness coupled with a desire for authenticity makes all the world a game - and its a game thats like a trap, and the sorrow of it is that probably not everyones fallen prey to it, so that anything you can do to try to connect, from within the trap, to people outside it, will be expressed from within it, and pass silently by the people you want most to hear it. — csalisbury

I am unsure of several aspects to your argument here, in particular whether self-consciousness is this self-awareness (transcendental apperception) or whether it is that doubt and constant preoccupation to ourselves that is largely formed because of society (Rousseau)? In addition, why would people desire authenticity? They are being authentic the moment they desire authenticity since the latter is a state of mind, self-reflective empirical psychology or the way that we approach the contents of our cognitive states.

This dichotomy appears to be combined into a coherent whole by our imagination, where we associate and reproduce representations that satisfy our understanding and identification with external experiences. Ideology is rooted in this same imagination, in fact, we socially construct communities in order to believe that there is some unity in our understanding, a shared belief that you and I have the same opinions and this establishes a coalition and enables mobilisation. If nations are imagined, does that make everything that we understand of society unreal? No, it is real. When Foucault speaks of discourse and power, he claimed that it produces an efficient network that can also be positive despite the almost unethical dimension that enables it to function.

Let us take that to an individual level and pretend you have deep feelings of insecurity that make you follow and do everything your partner does. It takes away your responsibility to make your own decisions, you are saved from your emotional instability and feelings of worthlessness because your are getting someone else to think for you and thus artificially enabling a sense of security. You tell yourself that you are not copying, that in fact you do have your own identity and personality, but your imagination comforts you with this to overcome the sorrow of being unable to be authentic about your motives. If it takes away this self-consciousness and preoccupation or doubt - thus the anxiety and unhappiness - is this discourse between you and your partner not a positive thing?

I have always said that no one can see me for this reason. If they are trapped in the game, if they are capable of lying even to themselves, how would they see me? They can't even see themselves.

You wont ever get through, is the fear. The mask is plastered forever. You fell in the trap and others havent and theres no way to think yourself out of that state of affairs. More than anything it was a post that said: im sad, and i think you get why, im pretty sure, but im skeptical that what youre selling helps. — csalisbury

This is too fatalistic for my taste, it concedes into a state of 'oh well' like someone who admits 'yep, I am a coward!' when they are proven to be wearing a mask. Why or why did I not take the blue pill? You can get through the fear. How? There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.

Society and all the rest - makeuped girls, testosteroned men - thats all part of the same self talk that characterizes bpd and its cousins. Kardashians and The Rock - theyre the [vague threat] which has to be defended against (against abandonment.) the bigger you make the threat, the larger abandonment looms and the more you play the same game (while decrying it elsewhere.) society is much less monolithic than Society, especially a personally inflected Society. — csalisbury

The threat itself is overcome through society; when a person is told that they are wrong, they immediately go on the defensive to this 'threat' and usually try to mobilise other people to take their side. It comforts them, takes away that insecurity and heals them from the terror that the collapse of their own narcissism would cause. Someone like you would distrust what I say since what I say hits home in a very uncomfortable way. So, I must be wrong.

Property rights, eh? Let's hope no one talks about divorces.

Why would you want to be frozen?

I wasn't flustered. I was angry. If it were someone else who was being discussed that way, I would have been much more aggressive than I was. If women were being talked about that way, I wouldn't have stopped until the discussion was shut down. I hope you know that's true. — T Clark

You do not need to be more or less aggressive, that is the point, and while there is nothing inherently bad in your actions, your remarks that had women been the subject the thread would have been immediately shut-down is clearly unfair to both a woman and the only female mod. As if I would let something like that remain unchecked only because I would enjoy the anti-male stance and I would have easily torn his argument to pieces had I actually known about the thread until I reached your correpondence. Let's not forget that you yourself have said to me that despite being a strong woman who supports the rights of women, I never do it at the expense of men. Yes, we do need to stand up for each other, but don't pretend that there was no underlying intention in creating this thread.

Anyway, it looks like it is over now so maybe we should let it rest in peace.

I PMd Baden and told him I was going to start the thread and asked if he had any issues. He was online at that point. I guess he didn't have a chance to read it till later. I asked you for your opinion, but you were not online. There was nothing wrong with the thread I started. I didn't want to flag the post. I didn't want it deleted. I just wanted to discuss why it was ok to say those things about men but not about women. That's beside the point - if that thread had been about women, it would have been off within five minutes, no matter who was getting married or flying to Timbuktu. — T Clark

You were impatient because you were flustered and I should say that "online" does not necessarily mean actually online. Sometimes we are logged on but we are very busy or doing other things, as mentioned we are ordinary people volunteering our time.

For you to claim that "if that thread was about women" is a gamblers fallacy and personal opinion that you cannot verify, because I can assure you that had it been about women and I had seen it, I would have still left it and openly discussed the subject. I have experienced a huge number of sexist remarks against me by many people who are still on here and still pestering me. So, you have no right to make that claim.

As mentioned, we do not tolerate sexism and sexism is not gender-biased.

Wait, you can't fine a person points, can you? There is no contest, Buttercrack, our discussions are to ensure accountability and it undermines our capacity because the reason why threads like this are started is because you think we are not doing what we should.

Boy, here's a bad idea for me to respond to this. But anyway. You all let him say those things about men. No one spoke up. I've always spoken up when I feel someone, anyone is being treated with disrespect, but none of you did. I feel betrayed. I love you people and you let him say what he did about me just because I'm a man. How could you have let him say those things. Is that what you think of me? You wouldn't have let him say that about anyone else but me. — T Clark

T-Clark, everyone in the world is not awake when you are awake. Some people work full time. Some people have families. Some people are getting married, others are preparing for international travel. If you are upset about a post, all you need to do is flag it and be patient, which I understand can be difficult when the subject is so controversial, but this thread you created only undermines our capacity as moderators. We will delete threads once we have had the discussions about whether it is in contravention of forum guidelines and sometimes we independently make those choices depending on the seriousness of a number of factors. You do no need to blow the trumpet like this as a little child would scream and bang his hands on the floor because he was refused ice-cream and forcing his mother to give him what he wants just to keep him quiet.

You of all people should know that I am very level-headed on controversial subjects and would have taken action had I known about the thread, as would have all the other moderators. If you felt alone, you are wrong - very wrong - for thinking that. We did not let him say anything and if you disagree with that, if you really do believe that there was some injustice here, do you really believe this thread is the best approach?

Granted, people yell when they feel like what they are saying is not being heard. Like they are not listened to. But you PM'd me asking me to look at that thread not considering that I was asleep. I would have been on your side and taken action, but you did not wait and trust me. Or us. It was inappropriate for that reason.

Oh well. I'm still not convinced that Jake was being entirely serious, but I have to admit he sold it well and put some real effort into his views, however naive (imo), as did others who contributed. — Erik

We all have a responsibility toward how we respond and react to posts that we may or may not agree with and being a virtual platform does not give anyone - whether a moderator or a poster - the entitlement to behave irresponsibly. I appreciate and respect your opinion here as well as @Bitter Crank and wanted to advise that while Jake is new to the forums and did not adequately articulate his point of view on a subject that naturally arouses controversy, posters should flag posts that they do not agree with and patiently wait should there be no immediate response because for one we each live in different continents, and two we discuss with one another prior to deleting a thread to ensure a level playing field.

In this instance, that decision was made without me and I respect the decision and hope that Jake will reconsider his opinions and reformulate his suggestions. We do not tolerate sexism and sexism is not gender-biased.

Ok. Enough.

What gets me scared, or sad is: I don't think a lot of people are playing the game, or at least playing it to the point that they would immediately agree, like I did, that not playing the game is itself a way of playing the game.. — csalisbury

This is because people are vulnerable, reality is scary and while spatially we are sharing our experiences, ultimately we are alone and this separateness can inspire an inner anxiety that we are programmed to avoid since our motivations naturally prompt us to pleasure. Anxiety is not pleasurable, but the consequence of consciousness or our awareness of things that we try not to be aware of through various layers of communication.

For instance, from a hermeneutics angle parables attempt to highlight our moral responsibility using fictitious stories that are intended to teach us about our own behaviour yet without it being directed specifically to us, because most people are self-defensive. They automatically react when you tell them that they are wrong or that their thinking is wrong. We formulate alternate exemplums that communicate the same intention - to tell a person that they are wrong - without prompting their defensive reactions. Symbols or non-verbal forms of communication also inspire comparisons as long as it is not specifically about them.

Pretend for a moment that I am aware that you have borderline personality disorder and that you therefore lack empathy, present almost pathological symptoms of severely low self-esteem and social isolation that makes you resort to self defence mechanisms that are hostile and aggressive. You may not be aware that your reactions are causally linked to these distorted psychological responses, which perhaps even further is caused by your upbringing and social environment, but I can use my awareness of your condition to try to work within the game to enable you to understand these responses. It is a tool to communicate.

The problem, however, is how these vulnerabilities can be used for the wrong reasons, from a socioeconomic perspective marketing and social behaviour capitalises on these broadly influenced notions of beauty or masculinity, telling us what to think that our motivations - being pleasure (popularity and power is a type of pleasure) - prompts us to parallel our behaviour to the faux notions that therefore makes us want to buy tonnes of make-up or drink steroids or crush people on our way up to the top. There is an absence of moral substance, a lack of awareness of this 'game' as though one is instinctively driven and when people are not playing along with this game (they do not look a certain way for instance) vulnerabilities are given to them. You can suddenly threaten someone not because you actually want to but because the fabric of society enables you to since you seek power and popularity.

We exist because we bend the field in a local way. — MikeL

I am assuming that you believe all particles are merely the excitations of a field and our existence, which in the physical world is the body, the organs, the cells, the proteins etc, until we are simply electrons, but this misrepresents what a field actually is. At fundamental level, fields themselves are regulated by universal laws and the properties have well defined characteristics, particularly with how matter interacts with one another. If the field is responsible for the excitations, at rest mass the energy required must be an addition quantum to the field in order for the particles to function. Quantum field theory does not really explain why fields exist.

It is interesting particularly when explaining the universe i.e. scalar fields or higgs fields, but it is really an effective field theory that attempts to explain interactions.

I'd need a cite for this because it makes the specious claim that traditional male role modeling is objectively unhealthy — Hanover

There are a plethora of studies that indicate a connection between male suicide mortality and masculinities.

Here is one and another but I am on my phone so access is limited.

Look what I stumbled upon on my way to an inspection of an ugly apartment. :groan:

Having said that, I should admit that in the relationship with my wife, she is far stronger and more capable than I. She's smarter, better looking, more willful and social, better educated, and she makes more money than I do. — praxis

That is why she is your wife and I think she depends on you too because the love between two people is not about those things but about the people that you are and how compatible you are. I really liked a man who was younger than me and I did not care if he was less educated or whatever because I liked him, the very person he was and his presence made me want to be a better person. You need to admire who you want to be with.

The toxic concept of masculinity has strong causal roots that prompt many young men to suicide - or at the very least experience major depression - because these men parallel their identity to socially ingrained concepts like being the breadwinner or being professionally better or even more intelligent and women are often used as the tool to enable this. Men who like women that are older or better educated are suddenly small in comparison because of these stale, archaic concepts of masculinity, they become "whipped" or whatever derogatory overtones are implied by others to force them to conform.

So, instead, these men are often surrounded by people who are not as professional or intelligent than they are, partners who are socially acceptable because of age, attractiveness, popularity etc, but there is actually no love between them at all. The dependence is more social, like a pat on the head would suddenly make them a 'man'.

But please, I am not responsible for Timeline's coquettish improprieties, and our contacts, such as they are, have at all times been both public and well chaperoned. Young ladies are sometimes prone to flights of fancy, which should not be taken seriously, or repeated as if they are factual. — unenlightened

As Jane Austen once said, 'The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation.

I do in fact put effort into the things I write. — VagabondSpectre

Yeah, awkward moment.

Mocking the peackock is easy but it takes balls to strut, and mockery is an essential part of the game. — VagabondSpectre

You are not a peacock. If you were a peacock, I would be mesmerised, your feathers would attract me to a dizzying point of hypnosis and I would be compelled to give you all that you desire without even knowing why. Right now, all that I desire is to eat a hazelnut sundae in a massive bowl with chocolate sauce and wafer and crushed whatever sweet thing I can find in the cupboard before crying myself to sleep.

You're more like a shaved bird sitting awkwardly in the corner chirping.

Ah, TimeLine, now farewell, adieu,
To God I pray to prosper thee,
For I am still thy lover true,
Come once again and love me.. — VagabondSpectre

Ok, bye.

I'm anxious to hear back from my muse — VagabondSpectre

What exactly did you expect to get from me? The post that I wrote against you was about this very thing where you and Agu where writing page after page of nonsense. Sorry to break your heart, but dude. :mask:

I've never been talking about "profound psychological and emotional fear." I'm not talking about abused women. I'm talking about more or less regular, more or less normal men and women in their everyday lives. I'm talking about feelings that affect more or less regular, more or less normal human relationships. That's what I always wanted this thread to be - As I said previously - "Men, Women, What's up with that?" — T Clark

I know, which is why you need to reconsider how you articulate your position as the ambiguity led to misunderstanding as though you were some monster. You are about as monstrous as my pair of fluffy hedgehog slippers. The fear you are speaking of is that discomfort one feels when they need to check what they say, maybe stay silent or feel otherwise unable to be themselves and that is just personality differences, like how an extrovert has a forceful presence that could make some people feel uncomfortable, or maybe even just an indifference like I can't be stuffed wasting my energy on this person. The fear that one feels when they are threatened or coerced is completely different.

have a woman friend who feels the same way you do. If her husband bought her flowers on Valentines Day, she would not respond favorably. I, personally, don't care about Valentines Day at all, but I know my wife does and really loves flowers. Why would I not spend half and hour and a little money to make her happy? Why is this some kind of big principle for you. Pick your battles somewhere else. — T Clark

I like flowers, I love flowers. But why buy it on Valentine's day or where there is some reciprocal reward for this gift exchange? Why not give me flowers some random day when you simply just want to see me happy, or a way of telling me that and not because of any underlying motive where you benefit.

I am quite surprised that people want to be safe in relationships - like having a pet with benefits. Or a discussion forum where we talk about the weather. For better or for worse, life on the line, climbing the mountains, is a relationship, and there is only safety in the grave. — unenlightened

:heart:

I wish you were younger, and maybe not married.

Every special day is contrived and commercialized, which is why you should resist the urge not to go along with it to some extent in the full knowledge of that element of absurdity. A fear of the absurd suggests an absurd faith in the non-absurd imho. — Baden

I remember a friend who was punishing her partner for not getting a Valentine gift and he spent over a week grovelling and trying to make it up to her and the entire thing just made me nauseous. It is an unwritten game they are playing with each other to prolong ignoring whatever is wrong with their relationship; there is no actual communication and they rely on these designed activities to declare something they are unable to do within the intimacy of their mutual understanding (or lack thereof).

The point about Valentines day is a declaration of mutual affection and this declaration should be intimate since love is a decision that we make as one individual to another. Do something randomly, not on a specific day with specific things. What the heck has it to do with anyone else? A wedding is different and I understand that since it occurs only once you want to share that celebration but in an intimate backyard setting with some close friends and family and not by spending $50,000 and inviting people you don't really know.

People are disingenuous and they need these inauthentic practices to maintain the game.

The exchange of Valentine's Day gifts is not a good example of a meaningful condition for the relationship to continue forward, and I would doubt many real relationships end for failure to remember the day.. — Hanover

Valentine's Day has zero value other than economically. It is just an archaic exchange of objects that is largely borne from a self-interested obligation and not because there is any authenticity in the exchange. Society tells you 'this is how you show your love' and people oblige thinking that buying a box of chocolates proves some romantic unity. How is this love between you both unique and real if you are doing what everyone else is doing? Valentines Day reeks of globalisation. It is economics.

I would rather a guy buy me breakfast and tell me he is only doing it because he knows I like porridge and wants to shag me later. This is what friends would do. Whereas without friendship, there would be this awkward tension as though if the guy forgot Valentine's Day then that shows he does not love her and he has to apologise and make it up to her or whatever the fuck people do in these strange rituals, because their relationship is just sex and economics and such activities keep them facing the fact that there is no genuine love between them.

There are real ways of loving someone and expressing that love and Valentine's Day is not one of them.

Romantic relationships are complicated by deeper dependence and there is a pragmatic conditionality to them, which requires fidelity and specific contributions to continue forward. There are also firmer commitments in romantic relationships where the notion of breaking up exists in a far more real capacity than exists in non-romantic relationships, where there are less distinct beginnings and endings. — Hanover

I understand that but these special conditions that make this love and bond authentic has nothing to do with society or other people. It is distinct and personal. The contributions that are required is a mutual understanding, that deeper love and inner need to have that person near them as well as trust. Love is not an enlarged egotism where one loves only because they are loved, neither is it forming attachments and feeling dependent because of a deeper loneliness and fear of being alone.

Just like we meet person after person in our day to day activity until we suddenly meet that one person who we 'click' with and friendship, laughter, sharing all seems natural, that is what we should be seeking. It should be effortless and known.

“When considering marriage one should ask oneself this question; 'will I be able to talk with this person into old age?' Everything else is transitory, the most time is spent in conversation.”

I was disappointed in your response. Did you recognize frank’s quote as my response to one of your posts? You kept encouraging me to tell everyone what I thought. Then you come back with a bullshit response beating your chest like a (male) ape. “I’m not afraid,” “That’s fucked up.” Did you even read what I wrote. — T Clark

I was responding to what Tiff wrote which included a comment about a violent intimate relationship that ultimately resulted in a great deal of difficulty for her. I think you are confusing the profound psychological and emotional fear one has when threatened with violence with some type of fear you have disappointing or saying something that may offend an authoritative figure, the interpersonal checks and balances that makes us conscious of our behaviour.

I believe in equality through and through and the idea of someone controlling me makes me swell up, but despite this men do have that authoritative presence. I want to impress him, I want him to like me, so I watch how I behave. When I say that I am not afraid of most men, it is because most men do not have that authoritative presence over me (a kind of respectful indifference) and my eyes light up into flames of rage when a man attempts to impose that authority over me. O hellll no. However, if such a man attempted this and had no empathy, that the more I responded the worse he became, a man without a conscience and no consciousness of his behaviour, his aggression and ego becomes dangerous and even life-threatening. That is when I stop and feel fear.

You are supposed to feel safe at home, your partner is supposed to protect you and admire you so this little jab at me is really your silly little ego, and being my virtual uncle I am sure you know that I know you are an emotional little mushy thing if ever there was one.

Perhaps it is a uniquely male theme; we measure ourselves against one another to appropriately divide reproductive access to the females...

Men are fighty, women are picky, and I'm risen here to combat your peculiar sexual conservatism that would mock these ancient and sacred games we play... — VagabondSpectre

Women are not picky. We are confused, mostly wondering why all of a sudden that guy at the gym is flexing his chest muscles as he stands in front of us to try and get our attention, doing some random groin stretch where he thrusts his crotch about before getting up and walking away in slow motion, his arms protracted out like he is carrying two sheep in between them.

Call me peculiar, but I like a guy who makes me laugh. As in with them, and not at them.

My feeling is that once I meet someone, from that moment on, I have a relationship with them, shallow or deep, long lasting or just a "Hi" in passing, they are now part of my life experience. Not all become close to me, in fact I let very few people in life close to the real me, because those I allow close have an ability to toss a question into the heart of who I am and I am eager to entertain that thought and if it is someone I trust, they can challenge who I am fundamentally. Those close to me make me look inward, when I thought the answer was within another or my failure to not have what it took to make the relationship work. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

This is fantastic and I agree (some of this should go on FB :wink: ) but I see friendship as an activity that is invaluable to this parallel between us and the external world because we mirror special duties that we must possess in order to form mutual meaning and respect, some teleological behaviourism that characterises a harmony where we hold responsibility for sustaining our friendships that we communicate objectively. The ethical dimension vis-a-vis the patterns of purposive responses is the root or beginning of our understanding of moral value and thus where empathy is formed. Our capacity to feel love is rooted in the activity of friendship, a combination of personal choice and social implications where we consider others or they hold an important concern for us and yet there is no reciprocal necessity (although there are some tensions here as to the distinctions between the pleasure it can produce and virtue).

Sexual relationships (as distinct from friendships) on its own is only sex and economics, thus to maximise the pleasurable and meaningful experience of sexual intimacy one must form an honest friendship, as an absence of which would make it this bleak capitalistic transaction with false "games" or social requisites (hey, i'll buy you chocolate on Valentines day, that must mean I love you :roll: ) in order to play 'house' or pretend that there is some meaning other than it being sex and economics. Friendship between two lovers makes the relationship real, it generates the conditions that produces a consciousness of ourselves and our place in the world, or what meaning and goodness is through the interpersonal experience.

Relationships exist once they are formed, we meet someone and our energies mix with theirs and if we are lucky there is synergy created between the two of us. That synergy needs nurturing and attention or it will fade away, not completely but just out of view. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I once tried to joke with that guy and he glared at me with this vicious look like I was the stupidest thing he had ever seen. A friend does not do that, you laugh even if the joke is stupid or you muck around with them and tell them they are silly because there is a lovingkindness and gentleness in this interaction, an absence of that coldness and calculated responses.

This is why I said that I wish I could have been friends with that guy because what that would mean is that he would have had that 'switch' turn on, that he would not have been so cruel and callous but rather he would have stopped and become conscious of me and how his behaviour is hurting me. The love in friendship is what makes one understand and care without any ulterior motives other than wanting them to be happy. He did not have any empathy and friendship enables empathy or moral consciousness, that 'switch' that makes one understand others and ourselves, the importance of our behaviour and our responses.

Not necessarily. I for one am fearful of men because I have witnessed abuse of my Mom by a step father and even though I have done years (2.5 yrs to be precise) of one on one therapy to figure out what the fuck happened. It is because of my history that I am fearful, not the situation I am currently in. Although when things get heated and I keep pushing, I worry he will push back so I don't get physical. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I am not afraid of men, I am afraid of some men, the type of men we have been communicating on this thread about who lack empathy. You cannot reason with them. This is purely instinctual, that such men have the capacity to hurt and we are naturally afraid of what can hurt us. If such threats occur in intimacy, it is unequivocally fucked up, no woman should ever feel fear of her partner, it is a bond, a connection and not a Master/Slave relationship.

I can see how you would feel that way Timeline. Ironically, I see it more as a future self trying to advise a current self. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I am not sure Hans is entirely aware of just how offensive it is to tell me that I am in love with a man who treated me so badly and that speaking of him and trying to understand him equates to having those feelings for him. The rhetorical landscape that we find ourselves traversing may ultimately lead to some errors in communication or misunderstandings - particularly when I speak of love which I see as moral consciousness and not romantic or sexual love, to be morally aware and care for all people - and being told that I am romanticising my understanding of moral consciousness is clearly a misunderstanding of who I am. In addition, people often project their own experiences and feelings and forcefeed it to others claiming that this is what you think rather than actually attempting to understand what they are trying to say. I am aware that what he said to me was completely wrong, so I can only conclude that he is the one feeling that way.

Maybe he is having a hard time moving on?

It is a bit absurd that I am even having this conversation with you because you have clearly missed the point. I feel that what you say is something that you want to say to yourself.

I get that, there is no romanticism because this thread is about the games we play, that lack of honesty or authenticity and a bully is cold and lacks empathy. He is calculative and unable to relate to people and I want to get inside his mind and find out what motivates him, what makes him act in such a brutal way, whether there is a chance to feel empathy for others. I would appreciate you stop with this 'this is what you think' because I know what I think and I think about him because he had a profound effect over me and not because I want to squish up next to him in bed. It is a universal love, but his presence overwhelmed me in particular because he also did a lot of wrong. I don't want to reiterate that explanation again.

You still love him. Notice the period at the end of the sentence. He occupies your thoughts. Get him out of there. He doesn't love you. Commit to dedicating as much of your day thinking about and ruminating about and writing about him as he does you. Zero. — Hanover

I don't love him like that (that would be fucking weird) but that I am a loving person. When I say that I still have hope or wish we could be friends, it is because friendship is the enabler of empathy, it draws one away from narcissism and teaches self-reflective practice through our interactions. I believe in higher virtues, in humanity and I see in him that brutality and coldness you see in war. I want to believe in peace, that people can change and improve and so I am sad because I know now that "zero" thoughts about me exist on his part, that he likely does not feel remorse. Also, when one is repeatedly threatened - even if they are empty threats - it can have some pretty profound psychological aftermaths and I was very much confused for a long while that articulating it and making sense of it was necessary for me.

Well I'm glad going into the role of the bully was helpful. The brutality of my delivery was probably game like, a facsimile of approaching such things with integrity (both senses). I'm interested though, and want to admire my hair in the mirror, what did you find disturbing about it? — fdrake

I think most of all I was sad because I have - and still do - hold onto the hope that he would feel remorse and find the courage to be honest, which I think you showed to be impossible. It breaks my heart that he and I will never be friends.

I saw him through you, a glimpse into what he was thinking and feeling (or the lack thereof) and that made me uncomfortable as it made sense of why I thought he was dangerous. You were very cold and calculated. Your descriptions of killing a bird, perceptions against weakness, and your friendships with the wrong kind of people brought to mind a book I read on the nature of violence where young men with high testosterone levels associating with deviant peers themselves become conduct disordered. It made me feel hopeless as though nothing was going to get through to you because of the solidity of your perceptions and your almost robotic identification with the external world that lacks any responsiveness to the cultural and creative, that you have no joy enough to see humour as pointless save for it being a tool to hurt others, that I would need to watch what I say so that you don't get offended or retaliate with aggression, everything that I was feeling with him several years ago, but that I never really understood.

Our understanding and cognition is evolutionary and thus our interpretations of our past and memories are continuously changing as we are. A person who loves - as I do - attends to her past by accessing and attempting to analyse the emotional responses that I have and why I am having them, which then leads me to a network of possible past experiences and physical causes that could have propelled this reaction and piece together a number of possible factors that leads to that aha! moment. I am being brutally honest too but my disposition is highly empathetic and loving. I see virtues of loving-kindness and respect to be paramount to the human condition. Someone like you is calculated and logical, seeing emotional responses as devoid of any rational substance and so analyses the past as though it were an irrelevant document to be filed away.

Thank fuck you are approaching this with a game-like stratagem :lol:

A couple of weeks back, I stayed in this beautiful cottage with the open sea out the front and lush rainforest behind, I thought I was in heaven. Only a walking distance from the local (and quaint) township with everything that one would need, the crackling sounds of a woodfire and the birds outside :cry:

Imagine sitting outside all snug with a hot drink, talking about endless somethings that make you feel good, later checking out the stars with your Saxon 8 inch. I'm so sad today.

Yeah, the way I used weakness in the previous posts is probably a retrojection. A better summary might be that targets are contemptible. Or perhaps they become contemptible because of the series of decisions to victimise them. At that point it makes sense to brand them with weakness, since they're victimised. That will get fed back into the bullying feedback loop, something like 'your responses are over-reactions and will be met with understandable scorn', to reference a previous comment to Hanover. I'm pretty sure that the target has to respond in a certain way to make themselves a tempting victim for continued psychological assault. This isn't to blame them, it's to say that only certain responses would be a turn on. — fdrake

That guy I mentioned had some deep resentment to his mother, but he could never admit that. How can anyone, you are not allowed to have those feelings. She left his father and his father eventually passed away and I remember him telling me how he would go off into a shed and beat a boxing bag until it ripped apart. She still seems to control his behaviour and decisions and he does what he is told and adheres to them, including the people he should associate with and so he has never learnt to think for himself, to take responsibility for his own behaviour. It is like he is safe from that responsibility as long as he does what he is told, resorting to aggression for this deep and unknown resentment because of his impaired understanding of his own emotions. He was angry with me because I was his mother, an anger he could not give to her.

In his heart, he probably wanted to get close to me but did not understand the emotion, the affection that he probably felt. It was his and he has no clue of who he is. He felt like he wanted something, but in his mind - being impaired - he could not separate the him with what he is told to do and so could not understand how to change his life based on what he wanted. His partner has the approval of his mother and I have seen her feed him this strange emotional control by telling him that he is happy with her, that he thinks this and thinks that as though she is telling him what to think but in a manipulative way. He doesn't want to make her unhappy or garner her disapproval, so it meant that he could only be himself without their knowledge as though I was a part of his secret world, a world that shouldn't actually be a secret because it is real, him, the person he was not allowed to be. And, obviously, because I am a human being with thoughts and experiences, as part of healthy interpersonal relationships, it was something I don't want; I don't want to be a mistress, I don't want to be hidden and seen as a temporary object, but he took that as rejection considering his inability to understand his own responsiveness to his emotions. He doesn't understand me.

This falls back onto the fact that while he may not feel empathy and it is parallel to extreme narcissism, his pathological inability to connect with others vis-a-vis atypical reactions and responsiveness to his own feelings of distress is mostly because of some deficit in understanding his own emotions characterised by some dysfunction in interpersonal relations stemming from childhood. He was told what to think that he does not know how to do it on his own, and in that forms a kind of 'numbness' that as he gets older and his cognitive capacity gets more mature, a conflict arises that he just simply cannot understand.

So, because I understood him and what he was going through, I forgive him. I just could not tell him and guide him to this understanding because he was too aggressive and frightened me that I was left trying to protect myself rather than trying to help him.

As much as it's tempting to paint me black all over, a person who is constantly predatory and looking to be cruel, I'm a lot more compartmentalised than that. I imagine most people who have been bullies are compartmentalised in this way. It'd be difficult to maintain a positive self image if there weren't some extenuating circumstances or means of forgetting. Most people have done (or neglected) things that are difficult to square with their sense of identity. — fdrake

I am thoroughly surprised that so many people find this thread to be distasteful because, like your friend who could not accept - despite the clarity - that he committed a serious wrong, it is as though our self-defensive mechanisms initiate a subjective fear that forces us to turn away from our vulnerabilities.

As children we are taught that if we are honest after we have done a wrong, we will be punished, some consequence will occur and so we need to protect ourselves from this consequence. I find that to be immature and lacks reflective practice that stems perhaps even from a type of cowardice. The worst kind of person is one who openly accepts he is a coward to ensure continuity in his self-deceit rather than honourably face the punishment. That is why one of my favourite movies is Dead Man Walking.

Despite the fact that much of what you say has disturbed me, your ability to articulate your past as a bully has given me insight into my experiences with one and that is how change or improvement can be made, as well as forgiveness. You could have bullshitted your way through this by portraying yourself in a more morally acceptable light as is often the case socially, but you didn't and while it is brutal in its honesty, I am one of the very people out there that wants that and not the whole 'people play games'.

Your problem person sounds like a particularly nasty mix of (1) and (3), and that's a lost cause. Someone who's right no matter what they do and an asshole at the same time. Their actions are in a continued state of exception and never aggregated into their persistent sense of identity. You are a thorn, they are pulling it out. You are a crawling ant, they will destroy you without a thought. — fdrake

What I can tell you is that he is miserable and my unhappiness gave him pleasure even to a point of giving him meaning as he compared my weakened state as evidence that his life is so much more better. There was no honest pursuit or attempt to form a bond with me and he made sure that his decision to do this was the right one by making me appear crazy and worthless. I was just an object he wanted for a few weeks to then discard and go back to his actual life (he cared nothing about me as a human being, my identity, my values) and since that did not manifest, like an angry child who did not get the toy he wanted in the store, he lashed out.

His aggression helped relieve his misery and strengthened his relations with his girlfriend who joined in following his slanders; he made it out like I was chasing him, and he would ask me to come into work early or lure me in other ways so that he can pretend to others that we had some secret thing going on while protecting himself by constantly talking about his girlfriend. He had a secret. He really wanted me despite having a partner and so he was at risk of being caught; he used it to his advantage and got her involved instead.

He created the whole thing all by himself, influencing others, indirectly threatening me, everything was created in his own mind and such was his persistence. I just could not get him to stop. I did not want to believe that he was a lost cause, but again and again and again until I gave up. I still wish you are wrong, my loving nature really wants to believe that he could feel remorse or something, to try and be a friend. It is almost like his ability to achieve this would make me believe in humanity.

That is not the kind of person to martyr yourself to for any apparently philosophical ideal — fdrake

:yikes: If I don't need to help good people, then isn't he the kind of person you try to help? In the bookThe English Patient, it said: “If you take in someone else’s poison – thinking you can cure them by sharing it – you will instead store it within you.” That is what happened. I am no martyr, though, I am lot smarter and well equipped than most think. Hence why accessing your vulnerabilities and articulating your emotions is actually empowering.

Hm. I suppose this is part of blaming the victim for how they're treated. Responsibility's absolved from me because they deserve it, or are somehow asking for it. I don't actually think there's much reason for it, at least when I've done it. It's like identifying as a cat playing with the baby bird, pushing it around on the ground until its legs buckle, wings snap and it eventually bleeds out. That I could catch someone in a moment of weakness that I created legitimated feasting on the all the horror and inner torment I caused. It was certainly fun. — fdrake

This is about you not about them because your actions is a type of relief for you. People who self-harm find relief in such behaviour as a coping mechanism for the emotional pressure that they feel, only in your case it is projected outwardly as though the animal that you torture is an inanimate object inasmuch as the person that you bully has been dehumanised. Just like when one clenches their teeth and becomes physically tense that aggression and violence helps relieve that tension, words can be just as violent as it damages a person psychologically. Violence does not need to be physical; ostracising, slandering, threatening (particularly indirectly) are all forms of violence, as well as the whole bystander/gang behaviour where the more people you have your side, the more justified your actions become is a form of aggression. What better way to get people to side with you when you make a joke of the person.

You would not act if you felt nothing and so you are imagining weakness as a tool in as much as thinking there are threats and insults that are prompting the necessity to retaliate. You would believe anything that would enable you to act and all this is caused by your own emotional volatility. You intentionally seek the vulnerable because you are assured control over the situation, because being vulnerable implies a lack of control, and aggression is a way of rehabilitating those vulnerable sensations within.

Those who have Borderline Personality Disorder - whilst lacking in empathy - have embedded deep feelings of insecurity and the ego responds against these intense feelings through impulsive and aggressive behaviour. There is no switch in the brain to feel empathy and it likely has developmental beginnings where there is an absence of any conditioning to recognise the responsibility of their own behaviour. That is, they are completely oblivious of how others perceive them and cannot relate because there has not never been any communication fostered or interpersonal relationships as a mechanism to develop healthy patterns of social behaviour.

All three have the capacity to be rooted in something deeply psychological or traumatic. Or perhaps they aren't. — fdrake

It does not need to be rooted in something deeply traumatic, but that most of our behaviours and responses are conditioned and thus bullying behaviour is fostered and formed from a very young age. Romanian orphans that were left in the same place and never felt the warmth of affection neither had any adequate sustenance and play actually had profound physical and cognitive effects. Parental styles such as using threats, ignoring behaviour that often goes unchecked and a lack of interpersonal interactions such as having friends can have a negative impact on a person' behaviour.

So wrong, and yet I can't look away.

What you don't say dear Princess is that you felt bad about what you did and so here you try to pretend they sort of deserved it. — Hanover

These are attractive men, they have muscles in places I never knew existed, popping out everywhere like a balloon full of walnuts, the type of guys who iron their shirts while they are wearing it. In our culture here in Australia, these 'jocks' are not visibly nasty because society contains and controls their behaviour; they get tattoos, pretend to care about some charity to make themselves appear moral, paste "the thinker" type photos all over Instagram with some ridiculous quote (some women do this face where one of their drawn-on eyebrows are raised and puff up their lips with a slight nose flare and write some feigned story about self-love), and yet underlying all that remains this hostility, this sense of entitlement and superiority. It is all games that people are playing with each other. There is no substance, they offer nothing that is real. I did not anticipate their reaction and was genuinely surprised because my joke quoting Dracula was hilarious, but in doing so kind of revealed who they were that has thus enabled me to write this. So, no, I did not feel bad at all and they are only really nice to me because I knew more people than they thought I did and that made them look bad (society contains and controls their behaviour).

There was this girl at work. I'll call her Megan because that's her name. She tole me this story after we got to know each other later on. She would walk by me in the hall and say hi to me and I'd not say hi back. She then started not saying hi and just staring at me to teach me a lesson. I still didn't respond. She thought we were in this big standoff and that she was getting the best of me. Once she got to know me, she realized I had no earthly idea of the battle that had been waging. — Hanover

No, I don't think you are bestial and should stay away from children you malignant twat, it was a pretend example to verify my point about humour and power-relations. There was no lesson in my head. Weird, how is it that you write what she was apparently thinking if there is nothing in your head, hmm? Bet you got your kicks into provoking her, the type of guy who tries to make his girlfriend jelly by flirting with other women.

Is it because your love now is so deep it's time for the big reveal or perchance you have abandoned it for a new playbook, like maybe if you talk all silly hip and drunk and shit maybe you can get Hanover to do the same. Hellz no you can't. Shit don't work wid me no way. — Hanover

*Files nails.

My intent would always be to be funny, but some people who I might expect to get it, won't, and they'll be like "fuck you" and I'll be like "doubly fuck you" and I'll be joking, and they won't, and then no amount of splainin works. — Hanover

We all can act without knowing why and in this instance you may genuinely believe that you are simply joking back, but what you are really doing is responding or reacting rather vindictively with the intent of hurting their feelings. They hurt you and you are reciprocating, but you think he was joking when he showed that you're a dumb-ass and so you are doing the same, only it is not about tolerance or a threshold to these jokes but rather he was exposing a truth in a way he knew you may least be offended with and you were not. It is just a misunderstanding of the intent. Those guys, by the way, reacted negatively to my joke, deleted it and stopped talking to me for a while; how dare I not tell them they are beautiful, amazing people, two men doing what millions of men do in a machine called the same shit as everyone else. They quickly regretted their reaction because I am awesome and I know a lot of people at the gym and everyone who read it thought it was funny and thought the guys were overreacting jocks, so they're all be like sniffing around me now and saying nice things about my hair and clothes, and I be like whatevs.

Of course, because Michael tends to get it, as does Sap and Baden, but others not quite as much. So if I tell Baden I accidently had sex with his stupid fucking dog last night thinking it was his mom, he'd respond in kind, whereas if I told some other people that, they'd be sort of pissed off, like why is this moderator telling me he fucked my dog and is insulting my mother. I'm proud of that example of a good joke, by the way. — Hanover

They prolly in a bad mood. You're so sensitive. In saying that, I sometimes intentionally disregard your jokes not because I didn't laugh or I didn't find it funny, but because I cant be fucked since my only chance to be on here is late at night when I am sleepy and in bed. You're so exhausting, always 'TL TL, look at me look at me, pick me pick me" I be like whatevs.

However, it also does open potential discussions about power-relations here, too. My dismissal of your jokes, for instance, is a type of power over you, a mode of discourse intended as a rhetorical strategy to control for my own benefit. I transform a joke into a truth and in doing so make you directly responsible; you are now committing bestiality and our children need to stay away from you because you are bad person. Likewise, people use 'serious' attitudes intended to overpower those who have a sense of humour by reducing their intellectual aptitude to a lower class as though their lack of seriousness purports a lack of intelligence. It is only because they seek power.

Perhaps he was unreflective and regurgitating things he's seen before, perhaps he knew what he was doing was wrong but continued anyway because, at least, he knew what he was doing was wrong. Perhaps he was frustrated because you'd shown him the limitations of his power; and how humiliating that a simple 'no' suffices to destroy a persona. — fdrake

I think he was embarrassed at himself or his approach towards intimacy that he resorted to aggression because this feeling emasculated him, so he was on the defensive only because of his ego and he was telling himself that I was worthless to avoid the emotions. Indeed, I am intelligent and you could see he was trying to 'beat' me and you could see him trying to overpower me in a number of ways, but this stemmed from his perceptions that men ought to be better, stronger, authoritative over women and equality defies masculinity. I don't think anyone who does a bad thing is aware that they are doing bad and that is why I wanted to help him see that, to feel remorse and to become friends with me (showing me the respect I deserve).

I think this thread exemplifies just how uncomfortable men are talking about themselves, as though emotions are vulnerabilities that are a weakness and instead post highly articulate and factual ideas that defines perfect intellectual masculinity. It is not weakness, but they tell themselves that it is and so avoid it. Many bullies themselves were bullied and so they became that way to protect themselves from becoming the object of ridicule and are likely more emotionally invested then they attempt to convey and covert the emotion by pretending it is not there. If it was not there, one would not be compelled to act.

Did you take actions to avoid being bullied or did you allow (he made?) his bullying to become a twisted intimacy between you? — fdrake

I think he may have thought that, which is why I continuously articulated that I hate playing games, but I did care for him because I could see the conflict he was experiencing and the emotional mess that he could not contain. I caught him pulling out paper I threw away from my rubbish bin once and in his mind he probably wanted to believe he would find some useful personal information about me, whereas I saw a strange moment where a man was going through my rubbish bin and pulling out an irrelevant piece of garbage. I tried everything I could, from being kind to being dismissive, to helping him and to ignoring him, but such men are one dimensional and as I said to Hanover, think they have a right or some sense of entitlement to behave badly and as such kindness is seen as a weakness or being firm to them gives them entitlement to be aggressive. The problem is the psychology of the bully.

This is no different to Othering, those that dehumanise people based on skin colour or religion or gender that ultimately makes it justifiable to ridicule and hurt. When I was in Israel, I went to the holocaust museum in Jerusalem and obviously there was a lot of disturbing content in there, but one thing that struck me and very deeply too was a before and after image of a Jewish woman standing rather frightened surrounded by German soldiers all of whom were laughing, and then the same Jewish woman after she was raped by them. The person no longer existed, she was just an object of amusement and I think this lack of empathy vis-a-vis the right to be vicious gives immorality a means to act. She deserved it. How is that any different from bullies like yourself that seemingly think you have a right to ridicule? Why is it that if you don't like something or someone - which is normal - that you feel justified to act out as though seeking a social means to enable reasons for behaving badly? There is clearly an ego here but also a sense of entitlement that stems from a lack of empathy.

Perhaps, but this is over generalized and non-contextualized. It is possible the person was just joking. In The Office video posted above, those in the office were truly joking, and the real response they were looking for was for Andy to have played along, to have thrown back a figurative punch at them (not a literal punch into the wall). It was playful, non-malicious wrestling to them. To Andy, it wasn't. I'm not declaring who gets to decide the truth here, as both confidently have their perspectives, but mean humor is a thing, but it's not meant to truly be mean. It's meant to be funny. Know your audience I guess. — Hanover

These are the dimensions that make it difficult to ascertain what is funny and at what expense; thinking about bux parties and other pranks. A couple of guys that I know posted this black and white picture of themselves at the gym looking all serious and beautiful with a philosophical quote attached to it. The quote was completely unrelated so it was obvious they missed the point about what it meant and I found that Instagram caption thing hilarious and tedious at the same time, so I responded humorously with a quote from Dracula. It was a joke, but underlying it was an intention to explain that I found them funny and to undermine the seriousness of the picture. They were seeking praise and I refused to give it to them but I used humour to articulate that to avoid the sensitiveness and hostility that could arise if I were to explain what Aristotle meant and why it is irrelevant and why on earth do they have this black and white picture of themselves looking all serious and beautiful at the gym, affording me protection so that in the instance they pick up on the fact that I am actually mocking them, I can simply say "I'm just joking!" I actually was, but there was an underlying reason behind it.

Both you and Michael did the same thing when I chimed in about BMI age. It was not meant to be mean in anyway, but the intention is to downplay the seriousness and to expose the ridiculous. The point is what you find ridiculous and whether you have any right to say anything. You're video was not a joke, it was a problematic interaction just like those terrible singers who go onto a singing show and are told they are terrible singers only to flip out and start getting all defensive and attacking the judge for being a fool. It is malicious in the instance where the person does sing well but is told by a bully that they have a shit voice, just as much as it is funny when jokes are said about weirdo princesses singing to magpies. The audience is irrelevant, it is isolating the intent.

I've been finding the discussion disturbing. I find myself wanting to turn away from it. I guess that means I find it stressful. — T Clark

Embracing your vulnerability is a sign of strength. "To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind. Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of mankind."

The hardest part of all this is that what you do may not fit well with who you think you are. — csalisbury

"Unsettled hearts promise what they can't deliver". I was once like this, but not anymore. The clarity of my motives is aligned with my actions because I know who I am. When I had no respect or love for myself, what I did never really reflected the person that I was, torn between pleasing people and doing what I wanted, feeling guilty and feeling angry. I feel none of that now.

It gives you power, right? What I get from your post is that you were coming from a position of powerlessness. That's where I came from too. Humor and philosophy, both, provide a sort of power. Words too. They're a kind of mesh, if you can access it, that lets you pull yourself out of whatever you were in. People respond to this as well: If you can can master these tools right, people will take you at your word. This is a weird thing: If you're sufficiently smart, able to do things with language, people will believe what you tell them. — csalisbury

This is interesting, actually, because it explains the dichotomy of how humour can be used as a mechanism to affect both coercive and rewarding feelings of power, however power itself is ambiguous and it also fails to clarify power relations and the sharing of joy. I am still rather determined to believe that humour is not intended as a tool for control and abuse - just as some people think they "love" and yet are violent and abusive to their partners; it is not love, it is something else - feeling empowered does not mean some indulgence of evil or a lack of empathy, but rather to counteract that evil. To say that one is not inferior and that there is a joy and beauty in life. It is like non-violent protesting, a gentle resistance to the cold and almost brutal landscape where efficiency overwhelms our humanity.

Everything, including words, can be used as a tool to exploit the vulnerable and mockery is a type of manipulative tactic that devalues humour itself and disorients the audience and the victim without appearing responsible for the cruelty. "I was just joking!" Humour has a function for joy, but the dimensions of this function are accessed and exploited by a manipulator to coercively influence authority. Essentially, it is all about intent and our individual motives and the culture or social conditions must provide the platform that is conducive to good behaviour as much as it is responsible for the bad. There are bad people making bad jokes, but we do not eliminate jokes to eliminate the bad. We challenge the motives.

I don't buy a lot of what you say about yourself. I think you're probably much more interesting than how you self-present (which is, frankly, boring.) I think the qualities that attract people (and posters) are ones you cover up when you talk about who you are. — csalisbury

You're the first person who has picked up on that. I tell people that you can never really know who a person is when they write online, and to be honest, sometimes it feels like a threat when someone becomes interested without first forming a friendship with me. I like distance. I need to observe. It takes time with me, which is why friendship is paramount. We build walls to protect ourselves and we protect ourselves because we know how terrible it can feel when our trust has been betrayed. I give hints here and there, but the question is what exactly do you want? And why from me? Do you say the same to your male counterparts or are you suggesting that I need to give you more than just the words that I write? In saying that, I am nevertheless brutally honest about my past. It has no power over me because of it.