[488] Character Assassination

I was recently told that I was not people.

That's the first interesting thing. The second was that no one wants to become a blog. This meaning they apparently don't want to be the subject of mine specifically. While I certainly don't plan to name names, this thing has practically written itself.

I'm currently embroiled in a controversy. The main ideas floated to me have spoken to my propensity to be negative, defensive, argumentative, guilt-trippy, prone to exaggeration, and almost incapable of listening to try and better understand where someone is coming from.

On top of those charges, my responses are assertive, dismissive, belittling, and attempt to dodge or transform the conversation.

First, I must admit, I am attempting to transform the conversation. You'll see it in this blog unfolding. I want the conversation boring. I want it line by line. I want it to feel like I'm trying.

What you have any time 2 people are trying to relate is an, unfortunately often referred to “battle” of their perceptions, and the claims they make in service to them. A white person says “those hoodlums” were “acting shady” next to the expensive car, the hoodlums, incidentally black, immediately protest that person is racist and there's nothing shady about standing around admiring nice cars.

Who's right?

Traditionally, people say it boils down to perception and there is no fix. You can't argue perceptions. You can't ever get them to agree. More than that, it's pointless to try, and only a frustrating spin down the toilet bowl when, against your better demons, you try to anyway.

Non-traditionally, you can separate out where and why there would be points of confusion between the parties. You can introduce context. You can run counterfactuals. You can ask questions that get increasingly specific until you get at the heart of the matter.

How does the white guy define hoodlums? If it's just black people, a “more right” coin can be dropped into the basket labeled “he's probably racist.” Did the white guy see something that could be construed as shady even if it wasn't? If so, place a coin in the basket that qualifies how we define what shady behavior looks like. You can do this all the way down until you describe the physics that hopefully leaves everyone rested and assured that we are all one and language does a terrible job of making us feel that way.

I've spoken about stories and characters before. How a story isn't complete until the last line. New contexts and decisions can do a lot of work in describing everything you think and assume about your subject. You can almost think of an author as arguing with you. Perhaps the same with a movie director. This person is a killer, this person is a rapist, this person is the epitome of evil, and yet why are you rooting for them? Why is the memory of what they did for another character still on your mind while you're watching them slaughter a room? It's easy, in my estimation, to empathize with the complex nature of being a human animal in thinking about our relationship to media.

Now, what happens when we bring it into the real world? Does Tony Montana feel as evil and despicable as your ex? Provided it wasn't amicable, of course not. And don't get lost in thinking it's because one is fiction and one ripped your beating heart from your chest and threw it on the ground. A documentary depicting similar acts will lean your feelings more Scarface than break up.

In the real world, we're very quick to assert the “truth.” Here I feel it important to reintroduce the idea that, somehow, I'm not people. Maybe too often, I'm accused of asserting the capital T “Truth” about a situation. I don't know why this is. One, I think I'm human, and humans are impressive failures at getting things right. Hence why I write. Two, I think people, innocently enough, overlap claims about me or what they've assumed about me with their perception of me. After this happens, it becomes absolutely impossible, in my estimation, to breach understanding. Three, I'm semi-constantly trying to concede what I can while either asking questions, or offering to clarify where I was coming from.

And wouldn't you know it, number three is precisely where I fuck up...because I'm not people.

One thing I will never try to argue is your perception. If you think I'm negative or mean, I'm negative or mean. What I will try to pick at is the underlying assumptions or behavior you're using to inform your perception. Unfortunately, people do not separate the two, and it gets me in trouble.

When I'm told that I'm any number of damming sentiments, as far as people are concerned, I’m told it's best for me to shut up and accept it. The more and the quicker I accept, the deeper friends we'll be. As a not person, I habitually take issue with having my being recited to me while I'm perfectly aware that I wasn't in fact thinking or doing what you think I was. I don't mean I perceived differently than you, say in observing the beauty of a sunset, I mean, when you call me an asshole for not appreciating the sunset, I trust you think I'm an asshole, I don't trust you knew what I was thinking about the light it was providing me to read my book.

It boils down to skepticism. When you root yourself in skepticism, you're not so fast to make judgments about what someone else is thinking or feeling. You're not quick to describe their behavior in terms that automatically puts them in a defensive place. I accept that I often express negative comments and it weighs on people. I do not accept that I'm the only person responsible for any situation involving more than myself.

Here, a conversation about comfort often comes up. I've been told it's hard to talk to me because people have failed in conveying something they had a problem with. There's further decisions or conversations to be had here. Please, program me. Like my friend who didn't like racist jokes, tell me I can't say them around you, when I do, we have a clear and present failure point and you know I truly don't respect where you're coming from (provided it's not just a lapse in memory). We can then depart without mud-slinging and I can take proper responsibility.

There's a deep, deep, irony in what happens when I'm told I don't try. Whether it's try to understand or try to listen or try to empathize. While I certainly have the, likely damaged brain, that can't easily or fluidly express emotion, I do not know who else is willing to ask dozens of questions or write hundreds of blogs in trying to get to the bottom.

It's unhelpful to get into pissing matches about whether someone sounds defensive, is assertive, or embodies some other personality quirk that makes them a tough nut to crack. I literally have no control over how you feel. I can't stop your assumptions. I'll stumble over your particular definitions. I don't know how much slack you'll give me until it's just long enough to hang myself. When I do control things, we're not friends, we're not equals, I'm playing with you. We're going to approach conversations and social situations with different experiences and expectations, but in the retelling and understanding of those things, we can remain clear and positive in our language. We can give the benefit of the doubt before dipping our recollections into judgmental qualifiers. I admit I’m not perfect at it either. 

That deep, deep, irony applies when I'm told I don't empathize. The problem, no one believes I've learned how to fix those terrible horrible feelings that are used to relate all of my flaws to me in ways I won't do back to you. I'll accept what I did or said. I'll accept you didn't like it. I won't easily accept we're agreed on how we should approach the word “negative” or “defensive.” It immediately disavows how I feel while claiming how important feelings are. If yours matter, so do mine, let's stop labeling them and unpack them. Let's stop blaming each other for lapses in self-control.

I want to stress. This is part of the experiment of being in relationships and having friends. When I want to do what Byron does, we won't be friends. If I need to be a happy puppy bot who only says positive and reassuring things, tell me. Then accept I'm now your conventional human robot and we'll be best of “friends.” You'll feel better. I'll stop feeling like I need to defend myself, or patience and clarity, and you'll never feel another fight or challenge from me again.

I think many of life's cliches come out of the hopeless thrown up arms related to conversation. One of my cliches is to say people kinda like me for a bit and then they get bored or angry and disappear. I'm not naïve, blind, or unwilling to change, I'm desperately looking for other people to take responsibility for themselves and lay out what they want of me coherently. I don't want an act. I don't want to be coddled. And I don't want to pretend. I mostly don’t want to be told that I’m liked or accepted or understood when each time that’s put to a test, it fails. It doesn't have to be a fight. It doesn't have to be stressful. I'm not gonna yell or throw things. But it has to be understood. It has to be a mutually beneficial agreement. I don't want to be the king of my friends, I want to be their equally flawed, but equally lovable asshole, until they tell me otherwise.

No one wants to be a blog? Well, I'm a blog. I'm almost 500 blogs of stress-induced pursuing of empathy, understanding, and connection that I didn't have to mold. No word will bust your ear drum, spit in your face, or raise its fist. Everything, every conversation, can be broken down and explored and be made boring so we're not evil manipulative missed connections, but responsible accountants for our feelings provoking a potentially more fulfilling and accepting reality. If we can't play that game, consider me not playing yours.