Same thing but I have girls. I don't want them growing up with the locus of control outside of themselves. The studies are convincing that that is the worst thing you can for a child.
And then I became an adult and life did not go how I thought it would and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what went wrong.
I will suggest that it can be counterproductive to try to hide the ugly truth from children that the world is often not a nice place, that there are prejudiced people and who you are can impact how other people react to you, among other things. I have been slow to take off my rose-colored glasses and get better at handling bad actors in a more tactical fashion.
Girls tend to be taught to worry about the feelings of other people more than their own and to conform to social expectations and to cave to social pressure. Trying to live up to high ideals about all people deserving to be treated well while I was not being treated well by them was something of an Achilles Heel for me.
That seems to generalize. I seem to not be the only woman who keeps trying to find some high road long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage.
This is an assertion many people make without any actual factual basis or proof. It sounds like what we think is true so we believe it is true, but that's often how many societies make their biggest blunders.
>I seem to not be the only woman who keeps trying to find some high road long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage.
Most people do this. In fact this is a teaching of Jesus Christ, to turn the other cheek even in extreme and dangerous circumstances. I'm not Christian, but it's the largest religion in the US, so you could presume most people would learn this trait (wrong or right as it may be). And you could assume that their religious upbringing is more influential on them than some cryptic, unable to pinpoint, way in which "people" teach girls one thing and teach boys another thing about how to be respected.
Do you consciously notice this change in your own perspective? In real time?
I only do this in retrospect. I can look back and see the thing that should have been obvious, but wasn't at the time. All the red flags.
I have found my ability to detect them has accelerated and my tolerance for them has declined.
We are supposed to be tolerant, work hard, do more, stay late, go the extra mile... and, as you said, it's taken advantage of.
At some point, I realize people are taking advantage of my good nature. And so then I just walk away.
But I wish I could not feel bad about it. Guilty somehow.
I feel like my gender still contributes to some people wanting to play the sympathy card and justify their crap. I think they actually know better and they know it's BS but they think I will fall for it anyway for whatever reason.
It gets tiresome to deal with people like that and I think my next big development stage is getting better at shutting people down and finding some way to signal "That's a hard no and stop bothering me. You know better."
Some people will just keep pushing on the slightest excuse or opening and they have very selective hearing where if 98 percent of what you say is no and 2 percent is something that could be twisted into a justification, they are all over that 2 percent. And I think the fact that they are clearly being abusive at that point is on them but as a purely tactical thing I am trying to figure out how to deny such cretins that slight opening.
They are manipulators. Their skill isn't in getting their job done, it's in manipulating other people into doing it for them.
I think for me, it's about boundaries. If someone continually pushes or crosses my boundaries, then that's the biggest red flag. If I push back and they push harder, then something is going wrong.
You giving of yourself should be an act of freewill in pursuit of something greater for all, not to avoid the negative repercussions of saying no.
When I find myself saying yes to avoid being lashed out at, threatened, extorted, coerced, insulted, etc, then it's time to go.
I'll tolerate it once or twice or even more times than that. I excuse bad behavior from others away with "I'm too sensitive" or "I know what they say isn't true" or "they don't understand what they just did."
But after too much of it, it doesn't matter. At some point, the math tips to it being worse to be around them than not, so I won't be around them anymore. In fact, I suppose, it adds up somehow, I don't know the formula.
Like... if someone does something, I let it slide, but if they do it again, then it's not just 1 + 1 = 2, it's more like 1 + 1.25 = 2.25. When it gets to 10, I'm done.
A memory multiplier, if you will.
"You've done this twice now. I laughed it off the first time, but I'm noticing a trend and I don't appreciate it."
Then the third time, it's 1 + 1.25 + 2.50 = 4.75.
Why?
1 for the first strike. 1 + 0.25 for the second strike, because it includes the memory of the first one. 2.50 for the third strike, because 2 memories, plus violating a direct ask to avoid repeating the bad behavior.
Something like that.
I did some volunteer work in town for a couple of organizations that are supposedly trying to do economic development and I was trying to use that as a means to make connections and develop a better income.
I had applied for a job locally and the guy that got it fits your terrific description: He's a manipulator and has no talent for doing the job. He was stealing ideas from me and actively denying me credit, thereby killing my hopes of establishing a better income on the ground locally.
He and other people were loading me up with volunteer work because I was actually getting things done and he apparently wasn't. He measured his so-called productivity in terms of the number of meetings he attended each month.
I quit all my volunteer work last year in May. It wasn't any one thing and he wasn't the only reason. Part of it was the pandemic and I just didn't want to become "the dog everyone kicks" because we are all losing our marbles during a pandemic.
I am absolutely certain that after I quit in part to try to escape his abusive bullshit, this awful guy continued to cyberstalk me and steal ideas from me without giving me credit, like he did when I was doing volunteer work in a good faith effort to help my town become a better place. And I cannot tell you how burned, used and pissed off I feel about his amazingly shitty, abusive behavior. It's gone way beyond the pale for being anything understandable or excusable.
But I think one element of why he was able to get away with his crap is that I did a lot of volunteer work when I was a homemaker and a number of people involved in these organizations are married women doing volunteer work themselves (mostly retirees in this case). And I think some of these people failed to connect the dots that I was obviously very poor and clearly trying to improve my income.
I think some of them just sort of mentally lumped me in with other women there who weren't there with any goal of improving their own income because they have enough.
That one guy who was stealing my ideas and intentionally screwing me over -- his behavior is outright unethical and wholly unforgivable. But I have mixed feelings about the part other people played and I can see where some of them just sort of assumed on some level that I was a comfortably well off homemaker whose man was taking care of her even though that clearly was not true.
And that's partly because I am a former homemaker and likely behaved a lot like these other women who have well-heeled husbands and don't need to network to try to establish an income. I "read" as being enough like them that kind of on autopilot they failed to get the memo that "I'm here because you people are supposedly doing economic development and I'm dirt poor and need more earned income."
Like you, I also take time to gather information and make a decision based on context and patterns over time. Abusers, like the guy stealing my ideas, like to interpret that as "She's put up with it this long. She will keep putting up with it."
That seems to be a key difference. Decent people seem to be more aware that "I've got two strikes against me already. I need to get it right from here on out or I'm through." and abusers are like "They let it slide twice. They will clearly let it slide again and I can count on this indefinitely." (And then they actively try to con you into "just one more chance...just one more chance.." ad infinitum.)
And it's a case of "I know you actually know better and are intentionally being abusive because you keep trying to take more from me even after I've tried to cut your sorry ass out of my life, you piece of shit of a human being."
This is far beyond "I gave freely and he just was too stupid to realize that I expected him to actually do his job and help me improve my income." He's not qualified to do the job. He knows that. He obviously knows that and has zero plans to actually do the job and had zero compunction about actively denying me opportunity -- in direct contradiction to his duties -- so he could pretend to have ideas of his own and pretend to work just enough to keep his paycheck.
Keeping his paycheck was his only real goal and he doesn't care that he's not only crapping all over me, he's crapping all over this small town that is paying him to make the town better.
He's basically a vampire. I think he absolutely knows that and isn't at all bothered by it. He has zero ethics or conscience.
They have an advantage. Lauded in silicon valley, politics, corporations.
Sociopaths and psychopaths. I don't know what the solution is. I don't think they can be fixed. Sometimes, removing the leeches causes more damage. They come after you and come after you. They are relentless in their defense of ego and pursuit of undue fame and fortune.
Most of the others are cowards, who won't stand up to them. Afraid of the abuse. "Is that the hill you want to die on?"
"Why are you causing conflict?"
Just go along with it.
Keep your head down.
Tall poppy syndrome.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
We are in real trouble.
The facts are clear. We can look at them and see what reality is. But we are intentionally choosing another path.
Why?
I don't understand why.
I think we've relied on a formula for human interaction that seems good for a little while. Stable. Beneficial. Suddenly collapsing into chaos.
Unethical, unconscionable people slowly gain power until revolution erupts. They will not. They refuse to give up any power. They shape the the violence and conflict to profit from that too.
We are still driven by primitive emotions. Fear. Lust. Those emotions are used to manipulate the unconscious masses into poverty and powerlessness.
A society built on a set of rules that benefits attributes of human character we resent in the individuals around us can't lead to good attributes.
That guy was wrought full of greed. He would steal your ideas. Lie. Cheat. We hate those character traits, but reward them handsomely.
It'll never work.
We have to think of something new. Sadly, it's probably too late. We've predicted it for thousands of years and seen it happen countless times without changing our ways.
Why now?
Following the rules is a disadvantage. Integrity is an evolutionarily disadvantageous trait. Honesty is the worst policy.
Ulterior motives. Plotting. Conniving. Betrayal. These will always win the game against someone playing by the rules.
Whose rules?
I don't know. I don't know what the rules are anymore.
I'm going to be good anyway and hope it rights itself. Someone is going to have to clean up all the rubble and feed people and give them shelter.
Who is that going to be?
Look for the helpers.
It's a small town. I post online under my real name. There's limits to how much I'm willing to say for the sake of an argument with an internet stranger.
You have a great day.
The serenity prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
This is going to cause issues with a whole generation of kids until we realize the damage it’s done and ban it.