This post is about a problem that I face in just about all my relationships.
I will be with one of my friends. We have spent a few hours together, and we are relaxing and enjoying each other's company, or so I think. Then it begins: frowns and sighs from them. I ask what is wrong. They imply that I should know. They drop all sort s of "really obvious" hints. I can always pick up on the fact that they are trying to tell me that the situation is my fault, but I can never pick up on WHAT they are trying to tell me. And so I sit, waiting to be told what I've done wrong. I become more and more tense by the second, as I didn't have any intention to hurt my friend. And when they finally tell me what I've done wrong, it's always something really obvious. Things that an idiotic five-year-old could have picked up on. And I end up feeling stupid and like a horrible person for the rest of the week.
An example: I was at my boyfriends place last week. I was already on edge because of an incident with his laptop (I had been searching for the power cable. He had told me that it was in the front of his bag, and I could not find it because it had not occurred to me that the bag might be backwards, making the front into the back. (When you do cognitive tests and score in the top 2% of university students, those kind of mistakes really get to you.)). He had been unhappy for a while, but I had presumed that it was his usual depression. I had been asking what was wrong for a while, when he stood up and said
"What's wrong is that you have absolutely no compassion for me!"
"What... what... umm.. what are you TALKING about?!"
"Well, how long have you been here..."
"..."
"And you haven't asked how I'm coping with the funeral I went to!"
(Apologies from me.)
Now, my neglecting to ask about the funeral was because I was operating under a false set of assumptions. It was for the wife of a co-worker of his. He is extremely introverted, and does not associate with many people outside of work. Also, he has almost no female friends. For these reasons, I had thought that he had not really known the person. However, it turns out that he both knew and liked her.
While my mistake was a mistake and not due to a lack of compassion, I still should have thought to ask about the funeral, JUST IN CASE it was affecting him.
I became upset for the rest of the night.
Situations like this can be avoided by people SAYING WHAT THEY MEAN IN THE FIRST PLACE.
"I'm not coping with the funeral, and I could do with some support."
"The laptop goes in the OTHER pocket."
"Could I please get a glass of water?"
"You forgot to dry the dishes, could you please do them now?"
So much better than:
"You have absolutely no compassion for me!"
"I'm not a happy camper..."
"You have no consideration for your guests, can't you even remember to offer us a glass of water?" (You guys had no consideration for me, can't you even remember that it throws me completely off balance when people turn up unexpectedly and expect a warm welcome?)
"You are lazy, you do nothing to help around the house, we drive you everywhere, look, you can't even keep your room tidy, you can't hold up a conversation, oh, stop crying, you are just doing it to get sympathy, you can turn it on like a fountain..."
How hard is it to just say what you mean? And how hard it is to say things in simple words that do not imply that the person being spoken to is trying to upset you?
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2 comments:
hum. it sounds like someone has no compassion for _you_. such things are nice when they happen, and as they are oriented around oxytocin circuit which is in limbic system, one learns them best like all other emotional things - thu copying behaviour of others. so if you are in warm, compassionate environment you don't even notice when you're becoming compassionate yourself.
Problem begins when you are unable to feel compassion neurologically, then this can be very difficult task, and people will never actually consider your actions being honest. this might happen with either sociophatic or autistic people, and they will not really understand that they hurted anyone's feelings.
yet if someone knows about such disablity in someone 'uncompassionate' then again, there is no point to expect it...
problem is it's not visible on outside. hopefully recently i've found out that earlobes can tell easily if one has autism , autistic spectrum, or sociopathic traits (there are at least 4 genes involved, each showing up at different part of earlobe).
before that finding i often assumed autistic person has actual _purpose_ of hurting my feelings, and i had hard time to understand why.
hum. it sounds like someone has no compassion for _you_. such things are nice when they happen, and as they are oriented around oxytocin circuit which is in limbic system, one learns them best like all other emotional things - thu copying behaviour of others. so if you are in warm, compassionate environment you don't even notice when you're becoming compassionate yourself.
Problem begins when you are unable to feel compassion neurologically, then this can be very difficult task, and people will never actually consider your actions being honest. this might happen with either sociophatic or autistic people, and they will not really understand that they hurted anyone's feelings.
yet if someone knows about such disablity in someone 'uncompassionate' then again, there is no point to expect it...
problem is it's not visible on outside. hopefully recently i've found out that earlobes can tell easily if one has autism , autistic spectrum, or sociopathic traits (there are at least 4 genes involved, each showing up at different part of earlobe).
before that finding i often assumed autistic person has actual _purpose_ of hurting my feelings, and i had hard time to understand why.
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