A moment of screwy social dynamics

[azurelunatic]

Party A: *confesses a vulnerability*
Party B: *makes a tasteless and hurtful response*
Party A: B, that was immensely hurtful.
Party B: WHY IS EVERYONE SO MEAN TO MEEEEEEEEEEE.

Party C: A, you really hurt B's feelings.
Party A: B really hurt my feelings.


IF YOU CANNOT HANDLE BEING TOLD THAT SOMETHING YOU DID WAS HURTFUL, PLEASE JUST. AAAA. YOU ARE NOT EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH INTERACTING WITH OTHER HUMANS. THIS IS A KINDERGARTEN LESSON. INTENT IS NOT MAGIC. IF YOU STEP ON SOMEONE ELSE'S GODDAMNED INFECTED INGROWN TOENAIL, YOU GET THE FUCK OFF THEIR FOOT, NOT CRY THAT THEY SCARED YOU WHEN THEY SCREAMED IN PAIN. ESPECIALLY WHEN LITERALLY THE THING THEY SAID TO EVERYONE RIGHT BEFORE YOU STOMPED WAS "MY TOE IS FUCKED UP, PLEASE BE CAREFUL WITH IT."


(apparently if I don't deal with things adequately at the time, they will sit around in the back of my brain and then ambush me when I'm sufficiently sleep-depped to already hate the world.)

Comments

[karlht]

Ooooooooooof. Yeah, that's rough. Sympathies and good thoughts.

[azurelunatic]

I'm not sure how many years ago this happened, so it's basically all over but the ranting right now. Unfortunately, I neglected the ranting at the time. Fortunately, that can be made up now.

[karlht]

Rant now, while supplies last?

[azurelunatic]

I have hauled the endless supplies of rant, which have passed their best-by date and are now kind of stale, out from the basement.

[silveradept]

Wow, that is incredibly wrong. Are there power dynamics at play where blame will automatically be assigned to A because they are subordinate to B, or something?

[andrewducker]

You will see this everywhere on the internet (and frequently off of it) when people complain about social injustice.

[silveradept]

Oh, yes. I thought this was an in-person type of interaction, which are usually less prone to this particular facefault. On-line, it shows up everywhere.

[mfb]

Hahahahahahah the number of times I've gotten the ol' 'you being upset hurts me!!' from people who were supposed to be close to me.

[vass]

I agree totally that B is in the wrong and needs to apologise, and I also think there's a fucked-up social/structural thing there where C is taking B's side.

But. The whole "you are not equipped to deal with interacting with other humans." and "This is a kindergarten lesson" thing really bothers me. I've heard that before in social justice circles, that if you fuck up (and/or fuck up and then keep digging) then you're not fit to coexist with other people.

And as a person who fucks up, and also a person on the spectrum, and also a person with social anxiety, this triggers the following tape in my head: "See? If you can't behave yourself in public you should just remove yourself from society totally until you can behave!"

And the problem with that is, it turns out that refusing to practise human interaction makes you worse at human interaction, not better. Also, becoming a total shut-in is not really sustainable.

I understand that you're talking about B hurting A, and that A has a right to defend themself, but there is a difference between "I or my group will not include you, for our safety and comfort" and "you shouldn't be around other people at all."

And some adult people have not yet mastered basic kindergarten lessons, whether social ones or intellectual or physical ones, and when that happens it usually isn't because they're just jerks who didn't try. Particularly not if there are people around telling them they shouldn't try becaus their trying is bad.

I understand that this is probably going to come across as a derail from whatever prompted this post, and I'm sorry, but I'm also kind of, well, every time I see "people like that aren't equipped to interact with other people" it sends me to a really bad place. That's all.

[azurelunatic]

I don't feel it's particularly derailing, entirely possibly because it's not a fresh situation, and because while "PEOPLE SHOULD NOT DO THIS THING" is mostly the topic, how people shouldn't is also relevant.

I feel like the people who ought to have had the social training of B, and society as a whole, have failed B, and thereby everybody who has to deal with the results, including A. There really needs to be some structure for B to fall back on to get the training and support in interacting with other humans, and a safe environment to make mistakes and learn, rather than make mistakes and get kicked out. But as far as I can tell there really isn't.

[sithjawa]

Does standard social training include not getting offensively defensive when told that you hurt somebody?

It should, but I'm under the vague impression that it doesn't.

[wibbble]

Standard social training often takes the form of punishment rather than explanation and learning, in that case you would associate 'you've hurt someone' with 'and here comes the punishment', which would lead to attempting to avoid the punishment, maybe by denying the hurt happened at all (or was legitimate, etc).

If social training was more explicitly social training instead of 'whatever fucked up shit happens to you while you're trying to figure out how to interact with the world, usually at a very early age', it might be a bit better thought through, be more effective, and leave less train-wrecks-in-waiting like Person B.