May 14, 2020, 11:50 PM
Tips for not wearing out your welcome
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@Kanye-Qwest said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:
these pandas made me smile and that's good. more than an upvote worth.
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@Groth said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:
@Ganymede said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:
I am repeating because I was probably lost in whatever the fuck just happened a couple of pages before.
Why have you chosen online text-based games as a way to stave off insanity from your isolation?
Online text-based games are one of the more accessible means to learn to become better at communication and social cues.
Not everything is about you.
I was asking A-B.
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I don't have a 37 I just counted wrong, but...
I think tea would be a good 37. A warm cup of tea with honey can make everything seem much better.
I don't mind if anyone uses this list. Most of list is advice other people gave me.
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@kk said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:
I think tea would be a good 37. A warm cup of tea with honey can make everything seem much better.
I think this is a really good rule to add to any future lists.
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@kk Many thanks. If I ever do, will credit it so folks know where it comes from. Can include your note about it just above if you like.
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I want to add my two cents on something @Groth said. MU*ing is not a good way to learn social and/or communication skills. Period. Text is horrible for picking up social clues. You can't really grasp intent easily, at all. Sarcasm is a bitch to pick up on, even for people who are adept at social stuff... look. Someone wants to learn social skills? They need to go out into the real world and interact with people who are more than a bunch of typed words on a screen.
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Any attempt to use MUing for anything more than playing the game(s) is dangerous. It's not like a traditional tabletop game, where you're with the same crew for an extended period that you know (or come to know) and trust. Can bonds form and trust develop? Absolutely. But that's not what they're for, and that's not what other people are necessarily looking for.
There are eleventy hundred unwritten rules seemingly designed solely to trip up "interlopers", since this hobby was founded by outcasts for outcasts in the mists of time immemorial. There are going to be times of error and mistake, this is not a personal affront. If people don't like you, for whatever reason, that is not necessarily anybody's fault and pleading to try and understand why they don't like you is an exercise in futility much of the time.
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@A-B Sorry for the delay in reply. The fact of that particular matter was I did in fact do something toe-steppy, because my anxiety got the better of me, only it turned out that the thing I actually did wasn't what got the other person upset. I thought it was, and so I immediately apologized for what I was able to realize was wrong. Even if I had known then what the problem was, I would have still apologized for taking that action, because I realized in retrospect it wasn't cool.
Am I irritated that I got cut off before I could find out what the actual problem was? Of course. One of my biggest, long standing triggers I've discovered is the feeling I am not being listened to. But I also know that I am not entitled to the other person's explanation or time. So I could choose to seethe, or I can acknowledge or even express my frustration in a healthy way and crack on.
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To everyone - I've read that much advice on here about what I should say about things, and conscientiously taken it all to heart that much, even the bits that don't seem applicable, that everything I say now sounds like a polite lie to me, even when I didn't mean it to be. Therefore, don't go taking anything I say here from now on, including this message, to be true or what I mean. Just think of it as the output of an amusing randomised chatbot.
@Cupcake said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:
@A-B Sorry for the delay in reply. The fact of that particular matter was I did in fact do something toe-steppy, because my anxiety got the better of me, only it turned out that the thing I actually did wasn't what got the other person upset. I thought it was, and so I immediately apologized for what I was able to realize was wrong. Even if I had known then what the problem was, I would have still apologized for taking that action, because I realized in retrospect it wasn't cool.
Oh, makes sense. If you actually do have some idea what mistake you made, or one of them anyway, that's different. It's when you're having to "take responsibility" and admit that you're in the wrong for something that you see no way you could have avoided doing, or that you're sure you actually didn't do, that it gets tricky.
Am I irritated that I got cut off before I could find out what the actual problem was? Of course. One of my biggest, long standing triggers I've discovered is the feeling I am not being listened to.
Me too! (I knew that already.) That may be why I don't respond very much, except to want to scream, to all the advice about "you shouldn't be saying what you mean, you should be saying these things that you don't mean instead". And possibly why I needed to put that disclaimer at the top of this posting. If I'm only supposed to say things I don't mean, what's the point of me being in the channel at all? I might as well just leave them a tape recording of somebody else saying something else and be on my way.
So I could choose to seethe, or I can acknowledge or even express my frustration in a healthy way and crack on.
Will you look at that - it turns out I was right the first time to be hopping mad at being described as "choosing" to be frustrated and to think it was totally unfair, because the thing you did instead, I have no idea how to do, hence I couldn't really have done it. You're apparently ahead of me there. How can you "acknowledge or express your frustration in a healthy way"? That's what I thought I was doing by saying I was angry, and got monstered for it.
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@A-B It's less about you choosing to be frustrated, and more about how you acknowledge your frustration and deal with it. That's not the same as acting out because of it.
I'm only just starting to put this into practice, but the way I imagine it for myself is that it's like a pressure cooker. If I leave the lid on because I don't want anyone to see what's cooking, the pressure cooker is going to explode and nobody is going to be happy. And that's kind of been me since literally my childhood.
I had to learn that it is okay for people to see what's cooking, as long as I gently lift the lid, and understand that not everyone's going to want to smell what the Cupcake is cooking.
And honestly, if I truly feel mired in pettiness, I have people I can talk to, both as friends and as professionals to figure out a better way to deal with that. A support system is absolutely essential.
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@A-B said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:
Therefore, don't go taking anything I say here from now on, including this message, to be true or what I mean. Just think of it as the output of an amusing randomised chatbot.
So while these declarations can help some people, for most of us they honestly don't. I don't have any other frame of reference for what your'e saying than the literal text that's being put down. If you're not being serious I need you to say (kidding!) or give me some kind of clue you're not being in earnest in the moment.
I've got someone I've played with for.... god, seven? eight? years now. We've met in person. I know her like the back of my hand and I STILL get tripped up almost 2/3 of the time when she says things. The first few years we played I put her on @gag soooooo many times. So man. But her RP was always so freaking good that I kept coming back. (It wasn't healthy.) They come off as antagonistic, mean, and hurtful. I have to ask, "Are you serious?" SO VERY OFTEN, and it's only the fact that I HAVE played with her so long that I can take her comments and ask that question vs take her words as god honest truth.
If I don't know you from Adam? (or Eve, or your preferred person suit) Whatever you type and my personal filter are going to decide the emotion behind that unless you specifically tell me otherwise.
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@A-B said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:
Oh, makes sense. If you actually do have some idea what mistake you made, or one of them anyway, that's different. It's when you're having to "take responsibility" and admit that you're in the wrong for something that you see no way you could have avoided doing, or that you're sure you actually didn't do, that it gets tricky.
You don't have to apologize for things you didn't do. Sometimes it's appropriate to apologize for things you did that hurt someone in a way you didn't intend, similar to apologizing for accidentally stepping on someone's foot.
As for "you see no way you could have avoided doing" -- it very, very much depends on what you mean by that. Because if a situation was along the lines of "I got really upset with people because I didn't feel I had the coping tools to stop or remove myself from the situation," then yeah, that's also something people are generally going to feel warrant an apology later.
Me too! (I knew that already.) That may be why I don't respond very much, except to want to scream, to all the advice about "you shouldn't be saying what you mean, you should be saying these things that you don't mean instead". And possibly why I needed to put that disclaimer at the top of this posting. If I'm only supposed to say things I don't mean, what's the point of me being in the channel at all? I might as well just leave them a tape recording of somebody else saying something else and be on my way.
Can you clarify where you think you're being told to only say things you don't mean?
Will you look at that - it turns out I was right the first time to be hopping mad at being described as "choosing" to be frustrated and to think it was totally unfair, because the thing you did instead, I have no idea how to do, hence I couldn't really have done it.
In general, in social interactions, people are going to expect others to be able to regulate their emotions in a reasonable fashion in interactions. "I have difficulty regulating my feelings" can garner sympathy and support in some situations, but not in the moments where others are having to deal with moments of unregulated feelings. The social expectation is that, if you don't know how to healthily regulate your emotions, it's your responsibility to learn. And, generally, people aren't going to take very well to "Well I can't help it because I don't know how" if they've had to deal with being on the other side of someone else's outbursts.
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@silverfox I empathize with that a whole lot. Way more than I can properly express.
Generally: What Roz says is spot on.
Her question is one I have, too -- though I did see where that recommendation was made, it came across the same way to me as it apparently has to A.B. I asked for clarification on it, and none was forthcoming, unfortunately. (This eventuality was exactly why I hoped I read it other than intended and asked for clarification.) FWIW, I do not believe it was intended that way.
Clear communication is a non-trivial challenge under the best of all possible circumstances, and those have never existed anywhere, likely ever.
There's a 'big thing' that is a help, but I need a lot more coffee and possibly some food before I even approach that topic.
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Putting up with somebody's abuse is not a reasonable accomodation.
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@Sunny If any quote, ever, anywhere on the forum, deserved to be bronzed? No, fuck that. Cast this one in solid gold.
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@surreality You are making a mess of things too. You're trampling all over everything in size 15 boots and I just wanted to say that because it's just struck me out of a clear blue sky after spending this whole conversation trying guiltily to believe that you (as a person who isn't me) are right about everything and I'm wrong about everything. I'm sure this is totally tactless but after all I've been putting myself through about it, I don't care. Naturally I'm sure you don't mean to (Aspie-five!) but you've been being at least as incendiary as I was.
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@A-B I'm neuro-atypical in different ways, so far as we know, actually.
I have no interest in doing you harm.
I see a great many things you are doing that are causing you harm, even when your intentions are good.
I'd really rather not see that happen, not just for your sake, but for the sake of the others around you as well.
Trust me when I say you're reading the 'incendiary' into it. If I want to be incendiary, uh... yeah. I will call someone a goat-fucking braindead syphcock-gobbling shitmonster with all the mental capacity of a freshly-licked rock without skipping a beat, k thx.
And this is exactly what I was hoping to address later: reading nasty intentions into shit where they don't exist is a genuine issue, and a completely understandable one. If (generic) you have problems reading people accurately, this is very common, particularly when you are in a cycle of defensive behavior and anticipating attacks or shady nonsense of some kind.
Instead of insisting <person> is doing <terrible monstrous thing>, you actually need to step back and consider it carefully, because it is very possible it is not an accurate interpretation.
Becoming abusive to others -- which you toe the line on in the post I'm replying to now at best -- because of these interpretations is super not remotely OK.
If I was the person you apparently think I am, I would be tearing holes in you that would sink a battleship. Instead, I'm hoping you consider what's said here and stop the negative behavior that is harmful to us both.
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@A-B Just chiming in here. I don't think @surreality was being incendiary. I know from her when she's incendiary and that is definitely not it.
But let's talk about what you just posted. What you just did there is leaving the pressure cooker on to explode. Your wiring is telling you that people mean things in the worst possible way, and you have to find the tools to help you determine if that's actually true.
If I can offer a suggestion? Try this. Any time you are in any kind of conversation with someone where you feel like they are being negative toward you and you legitimately aren't sure, or your initial, instant reaction is to extract the worst from what they've said, stop and calmly explain that sometimes you have difficulty processing people's tone, and could they please clarify their intention? If they are in fact hostile they'll make no bones about telling you, but I can promise you, nine out of ten times? They're not. It's a lesson I learned the hard way.