| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 12:10:13 PM | Well, Ace.... The whole premise to me of this topic is security... and confidence.
I just watched a movie last night that hits close to home for me. It's called "I Love You MAN" with Paul Rudd For those who haven't seen it, it's about a guy getting married... but has no guy friends. I'll leave it at that.
But this is me. I have always seemed to get along better with women, and since I moved around so much I never really made any friends... close friends. Hey... going to 5 H.S. in 3 years in 3 states... well... you might can understand. But like in this movie... My ex's had their girl friends and their girls night out... I didn't have the guy friend thing...
When I get to know people I can open up and have fun... but in most cases I find myself in the same place you were on that night Ace. By myself... with a bunch of strangers... and I believe perhaps a lack of self... keeps me from being more approachable. For those who have met me, you may have seen this... but I do clumsily try and assert myself... Hey... I jumped in the pool first... so unlike me. And Ace, I can so relate to the water thing...
Joking is usually a way to go for me... the only problem is... Most of the time... I'm the only one who gets my joke... and I end up putting my foot in my mouth. But another issue when I go out that I notice about myself... is that, since I don't know people... and usually this forum is the only source of my outside world... when I do get out and it is rare... I seem to find myself talking about myself and what I do... It's like I find a need to share things with people... So, I notice myself doing that... and that will get me to close off... and get out of conversations with people.
Anyway... Just could relate to your situation... and thought I would blab about myself.....  | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 12:59:02 PM | Right on JD. Nice when it gets real in here.
My sense of humor is pretty bad overall. Nobody gets my jokes unless I make them about myself. So that's what I do--make fun of how badly I fear I must be coming across right then. Those jokes hit every time and soften everyone up, 'cuz everyone else is afraid of coming across badly too. I just wasn't on my game the other night. It's a game I'm just learning now (you can teach an old dog new tricks), but with a bit more practice I'm going to be great in any social gathering whether I know anyone there or not.
I've seen you in a couple of different contexts. In the bar situation, you were stiff as a board. I would have joked around with you, but I got a "back off" vibe from your body language. At the party, you seemed a lot more comfortable and very approachable. You were the first one to give me shit about being the token liberal as I recall.
When you're on, you're great. I really wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Tall, rugged, and fun. You could say _any_ stupid thing and get away with it. Don't you know that? | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 1:54:50 PM | The best way to fit into any social situation is to get past yourself and just ask a lot of questions and let people talk about themselves. I pretend that I am Barbara Walters interviewing someone for an important piece. It is fascinating to find out what makes people "tick".
I have been put into many kinds of social situations with groups large and small, with CEO's to homeless street people, and I always seem to fit in and be accepted rather quickly. I just put on a great big smile, walk up and introduce myself, ask their name and then ask them a question about themselves. I find most people are shy and just waiting for someone else to break the ice. The more I can get THEM to talk, the more they think I am a great conversationalist. Try it.. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 2:20:12 PM |
I just watched a movie last night that hits close to home for me. It's called "I Love You MAN" with Paul Rudd For those who haven't seen it, it's about a guy getting married... but has no guy friends. I'll leave it at that.
GREAT movie.
Loved it. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 4:58:04 PM | yep ... the new kids don't make deep and forever loving friendships ... if they're always the new kid ... I went to 4 elementary schools, a junior high and 3 high schools growing up ... and probably lived in 16 or more different houses while doing that ...
to compound THAT scenario, my father gave me what I considered to be a goofy name ... so everyone including teachers referred to me as "the new girl with the funny name!"
what the perpetual new kid DOES learn is to be as a leaf, floating along the top of the water ... ebbing along ... trying not to hit the rocks or sink to the bottom of the pool ... just go with the flow, dude!
the new kid learns to get along with almost everyone on a superficial basis ... you're never there long enuf to get to know anyone's inner-most secrets ... you come in ... smile, do the princess wave ... and leave ... and you re-invent yourself at the next school ...
at my last high school reunion, we were all having breakfast and one of the men there who had been Mr. Popularity in the last high school I went to said ... "I finally GET YOU! you didn't bother to be nice to us because you knew you'd be on your way somewhere else within the next few months! you weren't really a snob ... you were just tired of moving!"
that made me feel as tho I wish I'd tried harder to be more friendly and open ... ahhh well ... maybe next time ... | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 5:11:27 PM |
I went to 4 elementary schools, a junior high and 3 high schools growing up
Exactly like me.... I'm sure that happens a lot... but probably isn't the norm. With me, I played all the sports... so I was kept busy... made friends with guys on my team... just didn't get that aquatinted to stay in touch after I moved on.
I feel like it has helped when it comes to adjusting... but not when it comes to settling down.... Now don't get me wrong... I'm a One Woman Kinds Guy... and would like to live in one place longer than a year... actually have done so a few times in my life... But 6 mos. seems to be the norm...
But thats not it I don't think... completely... My creative side... gets me all wrapped up in things that before you know it, life is flashing by... Focused isn't a bad thing.... but it doesn't make... for a good type to get to know I suppose. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 5:31:34 PM | | Molly, I relate to the unusual name syndrome. My name is "Aletha" which is actually Greek for Truth, though my mother did not know that when she named me. As a child and a teenager, I was made the brunt of jokes and picked on a lot because of my "weird" name. No one had ever heard of it before. As a result, I had a strong sense of inferiority and hated my name. One day, as an adult, when I introduced myself to someone, they responded with, "What a PRETTY name". I had never thought of it that way. Then a while later, because people have a hard time understanding what my name is over the telephone (not Alethea, or Althea, or Loleta, or Ophelia), I started saying "Aletha, like "A Lethal Weapon" and immediately got a laugh on the other end of the phone. I have been introducing myself that way ever since. It breaks the ice and totally changed how I see myself. It's cool having a different first name because I never have to tell them my last name. I am the only Aletha they know...LOL | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 6:55:37 PM | It seems that social situtations are as awkward as you allow them to be. The golden rule applies, people should treat others the way they would like to be treated.
If someone is unpleasant, has a bad attitude etc, then I would avoid intereacting with them. Some people are very clannish, and don't let "outsiders" into their inner circle.
I figure that is their priviledge just as it is mine not to engage them. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 8:09:39 PM | Forgive me for taking the thread on a tangent but I have a pet peeve with the topic of childhood trauma as life rationale. Case in point. My college sweetheart was the daughter of a famous national politician, and she had what I regard as a charmed life. She graduated from a private HS at 15, a college grad from a private college at 18, a masters at 20, a Ph.D from an Ivy school at 22. We've had a tempestuous 40 year relationship, seeking each other out after divorces, breakups, down times, etc.
Only in the past few years have we actually talked about what it's all meant. some of the things she's said have been painful and troubling and frankly make me angry. For example, she: I've always had a rebellious streak because my parents held me down". Me: what are you talking about, you've been out in the world accounting only to yourself since 15, you went to the Sorbonne for 2 of your years of college alone? her: I always knew I'd be unlucky in love, so I concentrated on my career. me; so I'm the guy who plays catch me when your life script plays out?
Now I'm not angry at her, I'm angry at the thought someone who might have been told to stay home and study on a few Friday nights could decades later be acting like some teenage girl who crawled out her bedroom window.
You were at best oppressed for a few short years, to let it unduly impact your life is a crime to you and those around you. And by the way, don't whine cause I didn't exactly grow up on an orchid ranch and know all the stories. Your childhood stories are mostly an excuse, that includes women who graduated from HS before Gloria Steinem, guys who had working class families, or religious nuts, etc., get over it, gain strength and pride from these tiny obstacles compared to many, many who escaped south east Asia, Russia, Africa, etc. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 10:31:47 PM | good one, Aletha!
I had a friend long time ago named Letha! I wonder if it had been Aletha and she dropped the "A" !!!
I was always jealous of all the girls named Karen or Kathy or Susie or Judy ... Diane, Linda, Nancy ... ANYTHING normal!
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 10:57:20 PM |
many who escaped south east Asia, Russia, Africa, etc.
I suspect the very reason those people overcome so much, so well, is that they're not mewling their lives away pouting about every trivial thing someone did to them as a kid. Seeing an adult be mad at the world, like a pouting child, is sort of disgusting. I don't trust people who go around angry and resentful because they consider themselves victims of something or other. They tend to feel their victim status gives them a license to hurt other people. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 11:08:58 PM | They tend to feel their victim status gives them a license to hurt other people.
Yes. That unresolved rage can create a sense of entitlement and urgency that is very inappropriate in an adult. Some people go on taking it out on others. Some go on taking it out on themselves. Some do both.
There is a difference between acknowledging what went wrong and getting on as best one can, vs. using what went wrong as an excuse to stop doing one's best. Nevertheless, the things that went wrong can be a limiting factor in a person's success, which is why I'm still working on my social skills at my age.
For those who consider themselves survivors of spiritual abuse, speaking out about it is something they do to help stop such abuse from being carried out against the next generation. If that puts you off, you'll just have to be put off I guess. But I hope you have better sense than that. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/2/2009 11:52:12 PM | The reality is we are ALL victims of some kind of abuse, be it spiritual, verbal, physical, emotional or sexual. Who among us got through grammar school without being bullied at one time or another? We all get wounded in the process of being a human being. The human race is not kind to its respective members. Children can be especially merciless to each other without any sense of how they are wounding others. We learn, we grow, we survive and if we are fairly healthy, we get over it. If not, we go to therapy! LOL
But using the wounds you received in your youth as an excuse to wound others is sick behavior and perpetrates the pain to future generations. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 12:03:46 AM | I have noticed that some people tend to get better with age, while others tend to get worse.
I have a goal for my old age. I want to love this world and everyone in it so intensely that my body simply cannot contain that much energy and fries out completely. I hope to evaporate all at once in a cloud of smoke. What a way to go! | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 3:06:15 AM | So true. I totally agree, northern California is so diverse and mixed up that anything goes. I just moved from northern California to southern California. I do notice this.
At least there are a lot of Persians down here, which is nice, but I'm used to hanging out with all different kinds of races anyways. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 7:56:33 AM |
For those who consider themselves survivors of spiritual abuse, speaking out about it is something they do to help stop such abuse from being carried out against the next generation.
The only thing Ace.... What if what you found as abuse when you were little when it comes to this spirituality is based on certain things that happened to you... your, or your parents choices.... and for you to think that by you discouraging other to go through the same thing.... thinking you are keeping them from being abused... in fact is just you keeping them from doing what's best for them?
Our experiences can not be put in a bottle and understood completely... I grew up in the same family... household as my brothers.... We grew up in the Mormon religion... They are happy Mormons... I am not... I'm not disgruntled... Just choose to be Spiritual not Religious... But the point is... what we learned as kids... taught us a lot of good... As adults, we have chosen our own paths... I don't knock them or any religion... But I also don't let them tell me what I am doing wrong either.
So... Because made my choice my way... I will not tell others they are wrong in making theirs their way... It isn't abuse to grow up in church... The abuse is allowing yourself as an adult to let it hurt you for what ever the reason.
And I know things are different... somethings are more excessive... and harder to over come.... But this doesn't mean we have to save the world from a bogey man you felt you ran into.
We can't put on others... those things that got us down. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 8:18:04 AM | What if what you found as abuse when you were little when it comes to this spirituality is based on certain things that happened to you... your, or your parents choices.... and for you to think that by you discouraging other to go through the same thing.... thinking you are keeping them from being abused... in fact is just you keeping them from doing what's best for them?
Maybe it's just me, but I cannot see how terrorizing children, or giving them the impression that their emerging sexuality will lead to the destruction of their soul, could ever be a good thing. If you want to try justifying such abuse as "for their own good," good luck with that.
The abuse is allowing yourself as an adult to let it hurt you for what ever the reason.
This is like telling someone who has lost an arm to get get their damned shoes tied already. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 8:45:22 AM | Why can your parents push your buttons, because they installed them.
We all have good and bad buttons and just because we know we have them does not mean we can or should fix them.
In the words of the immortal Captain Kirk, " I need my pain, it makes us who we are."
Growing up an only child and some what of a loner I find that I don't have the need to be entertained by others which makes me kind of stand offish. But I generally have no problem in social settings unless it some place I just don't want to be.
It is a natural thing for people to stick with there own, no matter what the commonality is that brings them together, its not good or bad it just is. This is the part the that the Social Engineers don't want to accept. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 8:58:03 AM | You've got a good head on your shoulders, fz.
This is the part the that the Social Engineers don't want to accept.
Which ones? The ones who advoated the melting pot in which every American would renounce their backgrounds and become homogenized? Or the ones who advocate the tossed salad model, where we all complement each other?
My point? There are conservative social engineers too. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 9:14:54 AM |
My point? There are conservative social engineers too.
You're absolutely correct.... But the point is to live your own life... work through your experiences... when I say your... I'm saying me... us... everyone.
When I was a Scout in my youth.... I had an issue with my scout master that ended up making me quit two merit badges from Eagle Scout.... This was a decision I made for myself, for my own personal reason... due to some abuse... But, I won't tell my son.. or any other kid not to join Scouting... It is what works for us individually.... Later in life, I joined the Air Force.... Now, I loved being an Air Traffic Controller... Thought it was the greatest job.... But the military life was not for me... I don't color inside the lines very well.... Would I want to tell my son not to join the military.... probably... But I won't... It is a decision he would need to make for him.... A lot of people like that structure and way of life... But sure... I will give him my pros and cons.
We have to remember that our circumstances are our own... They are not the same as others... We can't project our misfortunes onto others. We also cannot project our successes onto others... and knock others for struggling... What is easy for someone... is more challenging for someone else... and visa versa. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 11:58:56 AM | [quoteIt's a way of life here in Southern California, people just aren't that friendly
The valley I live in is very friendly. We are a comparitively small, issolated area and feel it is important to be neighborly. When newcomers come into my store I always try to give them local information about their interests.
The bar scene is a planet unto itself though...lol
sidebar: In a interview with Roddy McDowell on the movie Planet of the Apes, he said during breaks the different breeds tended to gravitate to each other. All the apes lunched together...etc. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 12:37:22 PM | "it's really just about insularity in general. I've seen the same thing happen when everyone was of the same race but had different political viewpoints, were dressed differently, or were just there as part of different groups."
Come play in my dive bars .. both karaoke bars I hang at accept everybody and we are all likely to mix and visit with each other throughout the evening. Newbies do take time to assimilate. It does take time to get to know people. If we encouraged someone to dance with us and they withdrew then their withdrawal would hurt us and we'd be less likely to risk it again. But, over time, we'd get to know them.
I can only think of two occassions when people got themselves rejected by the regulars. One was a jerk who was negative about an old guy who had a bad voice. Hurt the old guys feelings and that didn't go over well with the rest of us. Other one was an anti gay person whose comments caused a couple of our regulars to stop coming for awhile. Luckily the anti person stopped coming and our friends have started coming back.
Now do we all politically, religion or social structure agreee? Heavens no. grins. Everybody seems to just be live and let live people. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 1:05:48 PM | "The reality is we are ALL victims of some kind of abuse, be it spiritual, verbal, physical, emotional or sexual. "
97% of us ... it is a bimodal curve of each form of abuse ... neglect or extreme. I actually met a normie or two... that 3% whose behavior is healthy in all situations. At the time I knew them they were living through the short life of a child with infant death syndrome. 2 years with their daughter before she passed. Learning by observing them was a moving experience. They happened to be active Mormons. The only ones who practiced a religion of attraction rather than promotion. They totally changed my view of Mormons .... others in the religion have not given me good experiences. I think I can say that about all religions. Some good; some bad.
The point is to be able to bring the experience into the light of day. To speak of them. Share about them. People who hide their hurt, pain, wounds and scars need to know that they can speak up about them. That they are not alone. That they were not the one that was wrong.
90% of what my parents did raising me was good stuff that has benefitted me as an adult ... even some of their mistakes have strengthened me as an adult. Some of the basic information I got on 'being' in this world allowed me to survive as a child, but don't work as an adult. It takes talking about it to figure out which parts those were.
I do not believe those of us who speak up are doing so to wound anyone. On the contrary, most speak up with the goal of promoting healing amongst those who share our common experience and amongst those who do not even realize until their hear others speak up that what was done to them was wrong. | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 2:07:56 PM |
97% of us ... it is a bimodal curve of each form of abuse ... neglect or extreme. I actually met a normie or two... that 3% whose behavior is healthy in all situations.
Is there any scientific basis for those figures? With words like "bimodal," it sound like it. What, exactly, is this graph supposed to be measuring--i.e., what variables do the points on these curves represent? What grounds are you using for defining what's "normal" behavior, and what's not? | |
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| Why people stick with their own
Posted: 11/3/2009 2:28:53 PM |
There are conservative social engineers too.
Who, for example? Social engineering is the very opposite of what conservatives favor. It involves some form of government coercion to bring about a desired result. That was a preoccupation of FDR and his circle, as it is with this administration. People must be made to do whatever social science "experts" recommend as best for them. And by repetition of this process, in thousands of different variations, we will arrive at the utopia of the secular, totalitarian state. To which we then, of course, owe our allegiance. All that is for the power-hungry and the arrogant--it's anathema to any true conservative.
As someone who went through a pretty good planning program, I can't recall any public planning schemes that weren't the work of socialists and communists. The plans that have worked best are local or private, e.g. the "City Beautiful" movement, private communities laid out by architects, and land use schemes that rely on buying up development rights in certain areas. | |
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