My fear of pissing off and alienating friends or potential friends was, in a lot of ways, much worse in high school (before I started taking meds). I would actually go out of my way to AVOID my own friends (what few I had) b/c I thought that would make them my friends longer. Like, I’d see them in a group at someone’s locker and I would avoid them. I would think, “Oh, if I go up to talk to them, I’m going to say something stupid or annoying, and they won’t be my friends anymore. So I’d better just keep my interactions at a minimum.”

*That’s* pretty odd thinking, IMO. But, in some ways, I still kind of think like that. And it’s, well, stupid.

Schizo insecurity/fear of rejection 101. “So, tell us about your overly sheltered Southern Baptist upbringing where you were taught to feel constant guilt and fear just by virtue of existing … and if you think or act different you are going to HELL … and if you actually have the nerve to “be yourself” around your loved ones, you will be guilted, criticized and ostracized.”

No “mainstream” therapist I’ve seen to date would touch the religion thing, and/or thought it was kind of funny b/c it seemed so ridiculous. Some of my occult friends had a term for being raised by people with these beliefs: Child Abuse.

I want to get into therapy, but it gets better — I have an irrational fear of pissing off my boss and being fired from my job for wanting to leave early once a week for therapy.

Bosses should know better than to do that – unless they want some Americans with Disabilites Act lawsuit on their asses.

I have an irrational fear of pissing people off and having them hate me because we disagree on things. That I’m just one step away from losing my friends (or potential friends) b/c I’m going to say or do something wrong.

Likewise!!

I;ve struggled with all of this stuff for a long time and continue to struggle at times. I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was 15, and sometimes it’s been amazing (when I have a good therapist that I feel a connection with) and sometimes it’s just been annoying (when I have a therapist I don’t like). The “shopping around” aspect is definitley the most annoying part about therapy.

More later, must shower.

Re. red herring, good point … You know what this all boils down to for me? I’m paranoid and likely need to get to therapy (already). I have an irrational fear of pissing people off and having them hate me because we disagree on things. That I’m just one step away from losing my friends (or potential friends) b/c I’m going to say or do something wrong. It’s why I’m a misanthrope, I’ve often found it easier to keep to myself than talking/mingling with a lot of people (who, I irrationally think, are going to HATE me anyway once they get to know me … because we don’t have much in common or don’t see eye-to-eye, etc etc.)

I want to get into therapy, but it gets better — I have an irrational fear of pissing off my boss and being fired from my job for wanting to leave early once a week for therapy. (Need to find someone with evening appts I guess!) I don’t want the boss to think I’m “crazy.” I would feel the need to make up a lie to tell the boss where I’m going — I would NEVER feel comfortable telling a boss that I suffer from depression/bipolar disorder, social anxiety, delusional thinking, [borderline?] alcoholism*, etc. That fear of being ridiculed again. So it’s a vicious cycle.

(*i.e. getting through an entire week without a drink takes effort, going an entire month sounds unthinkable. More often than not I drink to get drunk and always hate myself the next day when I can’t remember what happened, what I said, etc. To compound it, I’m a borderline asthmatic and I like to smoke when I drink!).

Re. expectations … I really honestly don’t have a problem with anyone unless they prove themselves to be an asshole. Are most people stupid? (Can’t wait to read the book “Just How Stupid are We?) Maybe most people are just ignorant? Many seem so willfully ignorant though.

I just don’t want to be ridiculed for *having* one

That’s a red herring. Unless you go hang around those internet cesspools like Little Green Footballs and the like, no one on the blogs *I* frequent, anyway, will ridicule you for having a different opinion. People will certainly speak up when something is hurtful to them, or when a particular word is inappropriate (and provide a better one). But that’s not ridicule. That’s healthy communication.

Re: “spare no prisoners,” it bugs me too, as I’ve said before. I think it has to be taken on a case by case basis though, rather than spoken about as a nebulous general phenomenon, in order to draw any useful/instructive conclusions. It depends on the people involved, how they act in other situations, their relationship to one another, the type of interaction, and a ton of other variables. With a friend, I do not mind explaining something in order to help them understand where I am coming from; in fact, I really enjoy it. With, say, the creepy guys that I was talking about (and to!) on my panel at Balticon? Well, like I said on the panel, fuck if I am going to stick around and be made to feel uncomfortable (and potentially in harm’s way) just to *educate* your sorry ass. My #1 priority will be removing myself from that situation, and I will be giving absolutely no thought to what you might think about that. I am not responsible for YOUR bad behavior.

Also, when having useful dialogue, I find the Charis rights and responsibilities to be extremely useful (which is why I posted them on the Sex 2.0 site as our guidelines!) Note the one in bold:

Can’t have the rest without that one, and vice versa.

Rights:

* To speak (for yourself) and be heard (without interruption)
* To self-identify without challenge or explanation
* To ask questions and express ideas
* To voice your individual needs
* To disagree
* To laugh, have fun, participate, and learn

Responsibilities:

* To listen with an open mind
* To be respectful of others’ voices and experiences
* To avoid making generalizations or assumptions based on individual characteristics, personality traits, appearance, cultural affiliation, race, sex, gender identity, class, age, dis/ability, religion, occupation, etc.
* To be conscious of the space we take up verbally (step back, step up)
* To challenge ourselves and each other
* To be compassionately critical and understand that there may be a learning curve sometimes

Re. Kim’s illustration, I wasn’t saying that the *boss* was being “impolite,” I was saying that the fellow throwing the term “retard” around was the “impolite” (i.e. disrespectful) one, by making himself look like a jackass, and therefore shooting himself in the foot. Before she introduces the story, she says “True story time,” which is where I got that.

True story time:
Go ahead, keep using it, that word.
Keep wondering why your boss seems to hate you, too; why he goes just a little out of his way to make you miserable; why you never get promoted.
Too bad you never knew the person who calls your boss Uncle Jimmy is a “fucking ‘tard,” as you say.
Too bad you used those two words an awful lot.
Bummer for you.

That’s right: “retard” could hurt you.
Who knew?

I have low expectations of humanity. I really do. I think that the masses, in general, just don’t think things through to the extent that people like you and I may (you moreso than me on a lot of things). So it’s probably expecting too much from them to expect them *not* say ignorant things. Not that it’s OK, but, that I just am not shocked when they *do.*

To risk sounding elitist … Maybe part of why (some) bloggers blog is an attempt to educate people. Not that that’s fully my intent, and, of course, it is a *teacher’s* job to educate people and *not* a blogger’s. But, if anyone’s going to get through to the “masses,” I am thinking more in terms of, if I were a student in a class (i.e. a part of the “mass”), and if I gave the wrong answer or just didn’t know something, I probably would be put off if the teacher said “I can’t believe you really think that/could say that — you are really some kind of idiot, huh?” … It puts people on the defensive.

Part of why I shrink from debating/discussing these kinds of things with some bloggers/activists, b/c, honestly, their “spare no prisoners” style kind of intimidates me. I don’t want to speak up for fear of being attacked, for fear of people thinking I’m an idiot. As Mark Twain said, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” Which is why I still toy with just hanging up blogging altogether; but I haven’t yet b/c I enjoy wrapping my head around differing viewpoints. I just don’t want to be ridiculed for *having* one.

I guess, in some weird ironic sense, I *understand* why people think the way they do/say the things they do, b/c, well, people are stupid. Do I have compassion for the stupid? I don’t know, I’m a misantrhope who’s spent waaaay too much time in customer service positions, ergo, spent quite a bit of time around the “great unwashed.” Perhaps I’ve acquired some kind of grinning-through-grated-teeth obsequiousness over the years. More often or not, though, the stupid don’t “cooperate” with ones goal’s (i.e. eradicating some of the stupidity) or get one’s point when they’re called names or ridiculed.

So yeah, it’s not about being polite or not. It’s about compassion, an ability to put oneself in another’s shoes (or at least try), an acknowledgment of the various stratifying forces in our society, an understanding that it’s NOT “all about me” – and if one is incapable of all that, at the very least it’s about treating people with a baseline modicum of respect and decency. E.g., even the people who think “sex worker” is a stupid term – bottom line, I don’t CARE what they think about it, they need to use it, because to not do so is to rob a group of people of the ability to self-determine and self-identify. If they go around willfully saying “whore” instead, they’re being assholes, and that’s all there is to it.

I don’t believe the story Kim told about the guy who was passed over for promotions was true, I thought it was an example. I could be wrong.

Either way? I don’t fault that (real or theoretical) guy. I think it’s unrealistic and overly simplistic to draw a direct parallel between his “impoliteness” for not promoting the dumbass, and the use of “retard” as an insult. This is the same reason it doesn’t work for people to have a knee-jerk reaction to POC pointing out manifestations of racism: “Oh yeah?? Black people can be racist against white people!!”

People are selfish like that. It’s always about *ME.* People ask, “What’s in it for ME?” People pay more attention when they think that changing their behavior toward *others* will do something good for *themselves.” This is probably indicative of my own self-centric mindset, but that’s one thing that really stood out to me in one of Kim’s posts, the part where she mentioned the true story of the person who uses the word “retard” repeatedly and was passed over for promotions and treated like shit by the boss, who had a “retarded” nephew (?). Though, in some self- defense, to not sounds like a completely selfish fuck, I also realize that I don’t like people calling ME a “retard” and realize how hurtful it can be, and since I like polite people, then *I* should take further steps to be kinder myself.