this also makes it harder for people to be open about their limitations
I have been in *multiple* friend circles where someone got much more emotionally open/involved in others’ lives to degrees they would have preferred not to because expressing a lack of desire for closeness is stigmatized
And I think this leads a lot of people to “get political” about their personal lives - and again, this definitely includes me - because the idea of just openly sharing about your personal life because you think you’re cool and your life is interesting is pathologized
Like, some people are not people people
I wish anyone other than like two others of you on this website watched For All Mankind, because it has a couple characters who kind of exist to make this point. Some people get almost no emotional reward from most socializing
That’s obviously not me, but there’s a lot of folks who are like that
The kind of people who aren’t on here or if they are it’s to post photos of their Warhammer minis or doll collection or photos of t bf eir car they work on
Or people who really do just love their job
And a lot of those people end up feeling pressure to form close personal friendships and relationships with people in their lives because the expression of a lack of interest in friendship, with a person in particular or in general, is treated as fundamentally *unkind* rather than a neutral fact
Like, people feel bad declining dates/romantic advances, but it’s generally understood that you shouldn’t, that that’s fundamentally about autonomy
This seems to be somewhat less of a clearly agreed upon thing outside of romance/sex, but I don’t think it should be
This isn’t just about not wanting to be friends with people but also like, for instance, to broadly discuss stuff I’ve seen in the past, someone sharing details about their life and emotions and someone else deciding they need to be the kind of friend who can give advice, when they’re not
Like some people are not going to be able to give advice about your failing marriage or anxiety about politics, some of those people *would* like to be your friend as in talk about D&D or football or whatever passion you have, but *it is hard to be the one rejecting someone*
But the larger point I’m trying to make is this would all be easier if we understood and respected that different people have different kinds of needs and different ways of satisfying them; some people absolutely need a lot of attention, some need none. It doesn’t inherently balance out.
Very good threads. It really shouldn't be hard to understand why different people need or feel better with different amounts of interaction and/or attention but it is something that a lot of people have difficulty wrapping their minds around.
The adjacent principle, that you can just not like people even if they're not oppressive or predatory, has come up, and I think they're both really important. It's fine to wish someone well and not care about their kids or their car or whatever...
...and it's even fine to think that Russell from accounting is a grating know-it-all who should eat a hornet, even if he's not A Bad Person (tm). You don't have to construct an entire narrative to justify "ugh, *them*?"
Added, and then I swear I'm going to go be productive: you can even think someone did a kind of shitty thing without having to pass a grand judgment on them as a person. There were many, many breakups where I was like "...yeah, that person was being a dingus, I see why you left," but...
...didn't feel a need to have a grand moral confrontation with them about it or stop being their friend or anything. They were a bad SO to the other person at that point in time, their partner reacted, and it's fundamentally none of my business unless actual abuse happened.
For a very long time my fear/recognition that I am that grating person to many people led me to engage in… idk, normalizing the idea that it’s good to make the idea of who you do or don’t like a moral question
My recognition that *I don’t want to be friends with people who I grate on* came later
Like, I am pretty sure I have come off as socially needy in a way that has led people to socialize with me out of pity
And I really regret that because it makes trusting my real friends harder
To be clear, I know I have this baseline assumption (that Being Nice Is Being Good, the Geek Social Fallacies etc) worse than most people because of my history of my parents treating me being bullied as a crisis as a child but I think in general society encourages dishonest kindness
Again going back to my admiration for the shape of Ayn Rand’s ideas coupled with rejection of her politics, I think what a lot of people who don’t see any redeeming value in Rand missed is that condemnation of pity can spawn not (only) from contempt for the pitied but also wishing not to be pitied
It absolutely does! And conflates not being interested in/liked by everyone with being universally interesting/likeable, which means that a) rejection of the "you are Swiss, I want Limberger" type feels more personal than it is and b) everyone feels awkward saying that.
The point where I realized I'm not everyone's cup of tea was good. It doesn't even mean they're bad people! Sometimes it's more about attitude than anything of substance. Not everyone will like you, but I do.
Yeah it’s great, like the moment when high school proverbially ends is the moment when you stop wanting the things you wanted in high school, which is harder than it feels like for me at least
Like for me this literally was like a switch flipping in my brain, pretty recently
There was a point in my late 20s where I was the center of a Bullshit Scandal, and I felt really bad for a long time.
And then a friend was like, look, if you keep dressing and flirting and generally acting like you do, people are going to believe this sort of thing. Doesn't mean you should stop.
And I am just… I’m never going to have a good time at a party, like the conventional kind, because I don’t do social substances anymore and my sensory sensitivities absolutely make it miserable, and also I prefer one on one interactions
So like I know some people who invite me to parties periodically, and I either go and have a horrible time, or I decline and to me it feels like I seem like I’m blowing them off, since I wouldn’t see them at all otherwise
But it’s just… that’s why I probably will not be friends w/people who need parties to socialize
And like, I will tough out the overstimulation issue to see a concert or a live show or for a party a close friend really wants me to be at
And it feels like that’s spiteful to the ppl whose parties I decline,like oh I deign to share my presence with some people when it’s uncomfortable,lbut not them
And I know a fair bit of this is my own insecurity, but I really do know other people who have felt compelled to be certain kinds of social
I’m one of the people who has high social interaction needs that are hard for other people to meet. I socialize best with small groups, which inherently means that I essentially want more of other people’s time and attention proportionally than the person who wants to attend parties
Right! And I can do some parties, but not big crowds, and also a couple of hours of talking is generally more than enough, even with people I'm close to.
