Surviving a Special Snowflake’s Meltdown
When I was in college, I had a professor tell
me, “Write what you know.” And then, “You should write about being an outcast.”
I was not a social person in general, not into
keeping up appearances, focusing on depth over so-perceived “shallow” attributes.
I spoke my mind, refused invitations on outings, and did what I wanted to do
artistically despite the naysayers. I had my qualities and my flaws, but I
definitely was not part of the social group of our theatre department.
Over time I started to develop (organically and
intentionally) a better balance in my life. I had realized that gaining trust,
and thereby gaining support and certain freedoms, was an important part of
being able to do what I wanted. Looking trustworthy and being trustworthy are
two very different skillsets. For example, I needed to emote more—to force my
typically reserved inner dialogue as viewable manifestations. I needed to use
facial expressions and body language to tell people who I liked I liked them,
to laugh at jokes I found funny, to respond externally. I am typically inclined
to react in my head instead of out loud, and that doesn’t help others
understand your emotional state.
We are admired by society for lots of different
reasons, some of them superficial—Do you make money? Are you pretty?—some of
them less so—Are you interesting, friendly, and ambitious? People who achieve
their goals, especially goals that most people aspire to, are highly valued.
Writers are often, though not always, outcastes
who hope to illustrate their point of view in life. But writing is an extremely
respected part of society, and becoming a successful writer, even modestly,
garners you respect and acceptance that you may never have had before. I think
authors most commonly experience the sudden difference between being ignored
and being noticed.
The problem with acceptance? Those who are
accepted by society are pursued for acceptance. They become a target for all
those who need validation. Perhaps you suddenly got beautiful, or your
accomplishments took fruition. Maybe you are just older and more confident. Who
knows? But most people have a point in their life where they stop being the one
begging acceptance, becoming the one begged for it.
An author on Facebook shared this conversation
just now:
“Bizarre!” all her commenters said.
“Bizarre!” I told her.
“Bizarre!” she agreed.
Except it isn’t, exactly.
His behavior follows pretty typical patterns in
someone seeking validation.
The Insult.
This is a throwback from my teenage years, and
when I taught high schoolers. When you think someone else is confident and
successful, you don’t curb your words or opinions. Teenagers are less likely to
throw punches period, but when I was younger, I distinctly remembered the epiphany
that adults didn’t always respond well to being told they were wrong. I don’t
remember figuring out Santa Claus isn’t real, but I remember comprehending the
compulsion of criticizing someone just to show I knew what I was talking about.
I often offered suggestions of alternative ways
to do things simply to say I’d done it before, not because there was anything wrong
with their decisions. Teachers are inclined to encourage that, but once you
start to interact with coworkers and peers, you see the ramifications of
uninhibited divulging of opinion.
There was one girl in my college who did this
constantly. She would always, always tell
you you were doing something wrong to later inform you when you did it her way
it was also wrong. “I can’t be better than you if I agree with you.”
People who haven’t been in a position of
acceptance or power are more inclined to insult those who are, unable to see
them as real humans. Sometimes it’s not malicious, just offering up ideas more
frequently than you would with a peer (which can be incredibly frustrating
especially if that person is naïve to how things are actually done). Other
times, it is very selfishly motivated.
Negging is form of come-on in which a man
(typically) approaches a woman and gives her a backhanded compliment,
criticism, or outright insult. The idea is to lower her esteem and make her
want your validation instead of the
other way around.
Even if this “critic” wasn’t intentionally
negging her, the process can work in a myriad of situations and we can pick up
on it subconsciously. You can scare people into pandering to you, especially if
they aren’t confrontational. You can make people crave your acceptance by
demonstratively not giving it to them. For many, the more you reject them, the
more attention they give you.
The Brag.
Bragging feels good, especially if the other
person responds well. It’s easy for me to understand the compulsion to insult
someone and then brag about it when you’re hurting, it’s more difficult for me
to get why someone would actually go through with it—and expected it to go over well.
Many commenters did Google him, and he is a self-published author with two out of
print books created three years ago. He has one Amazon review.
Does he truly believe that he’s as important as he
acts like he is?
That too is something fairly common. Many
writers, myself included, assumed at least at one point (if not perpetually) we
were destined for greatness. In some ways, it’s a good thing; I’ve met truly
humble but talented artists who recognized their insignificance in the world,
and they didn’t do much with it. Not a problem if that’s what you want, but in
these specific cases, I knew they wanted to have more respect and freedom than
their current situation allowed for. A certain self-importance can encourage
you to do great things despite the odds.
I remember when I was younger asking myself why
no one respected me. Why did my fellow students blindly follow my professors
who insulted and sabotaged them? Why did they prefer to listen to someone who
belittled them in public and ignore me when I said he did that to everyone?
That he was bitter and reaching. That it was meaningless. Why did I get argued
with constantly when I had thought, and thought, and thought about what I
believed while my professors got away with, “You’ll learn with experience.”
Why didn’t people realize how great I was?
In hindsight, I maintain I was right about my
professors. No one should have listened them. They threw around unhelpful
criticism like it cluttered the place: “You’re too fat.” “You’re not white
enough.” “Your blonde hair won’t light on the stage.” “You’re a character actor
and there’s no parts for you until you’re fifty.” They lied a lot for selfish
and lazy reasons, they had all or nothing attitudes, they liked what made them
look good. I may be wrong, but even to this day, six years later, I still
believe they were motivated by malicious goals.
But as for why they didn’t listen to me
instead? Well that’s more understandable.
It’s a daily complaint. Most of us have felt
unfairly neglected by people who have no reason to pay attention to us. And by
those who should, even.
A lot of it falls back onto the issue that “looking”
like you’re something isn’t the same as “being” something. Convincing people
you’re a great storyteller requires professionalism, presenting a clean and
vibrant visual imagery, while being a good storyteller requires an abstract emotional
comprehension unperceivable from first glance. Two totally different skills.
I have said it myself. I have been asked by
many more. “Why don’t you just trust me, random stranger I’ve never met before?”
“I am not ‘people,’” he said. I am important. I have an opinion, I have
the right to say it. And if you were smart, you would realize that I am important
and so is that opinion.
Some people want you to sense their inner
greatness without them needing to prove it. They want your trust without giving
you any reason that they’re trust worthy. They feel entitled to respect and a
chance.
Then they insult you.
The Different Narration
According to the author, this stranger asked
her for free samples of her poetry. She told him that he could find some on
Amazon. He returned with the above messages.
“I will not buy or read it even if it is given
to me for free.”
“People send me their work like every day.”
“I will never message you about how I don’t
like your work.”
He later posted and deleted:
I’m sure, in his mind, by directing him to
Amazon, she did request him to read
it. In fact, I would give him a little leeway and think maybe he believed that connecting
with other writers was done by discussing their books. Many people promote all uncensored
honesty (verbal diarrhea, as I call it) as constructive criticism, and stand
behind every comment a person can make, even ones done passive-aggressively,
rudely, or naively; even those done as personal catharsis.
Now he has helped her to not be so “cliché.”
Was that what motivated him in the first place?
I really doubt it. I think he was lashing out for attention. But does he
believe that now? Certainly.
What is so insane about this conversation is
his seemingly complete separation from the truth, but I feel they are
understandable conclusions brought on by a lack of self-reflection. He probably
has no idea why he said that. He never thought about it. Now that she isn’t
responding well, he runs through the situation and sees what could have been
done differently, but rather than take control over his own actions, he
pinpoints how she could possibly be in the wrong and calls that the truth.
She’s being overly-sensitive. He won’t do it
again. Let’s be friends.
The Compartmentalization
A few weeks ago, I was harassed by a
quintessential asshole. He had been messaging me ‘Hey’s and ‘Hi’s for some time
now, and finally I was fed up.
“Yes?” I said.
He started cussing me out.
A friend of my ex’s (who had started hitting on
me long before we broke up), I knew very little about him, but I would have
never pegged him for someone so filled with venom.
He demanded to know what my problem was, why
did I care if he talked to me? When I told him I knew that he was hitting on me
and that I wasn’t interested, he laughed in my face—“Ha! If you say so!”—and
started swearing at me again.
Then: “Why aren’t you interested?”
I decided, instead of blocking and seething in
my anger like I normally do with jackasses like him, I would explain to him
exactly what was happening, hoping maybe having a conclusion would allow me to
drop it. As the conversation went on, me telling the full truth including the
parts that weren’t about him—“I’m not over my ex yet and am not looking for
anything physical or romantic with anyone.”—he
decided that my engagement was a sign of forgiveness.
He asked me out.
In text messages, it’s easy to follow an
argument from beginning to end and you start to see this lack of consistency in
their goals, foolishness in their arguments, the lack of listening. One minute
they’re trying to save their pride by embarrassing you, the next they’re trying
to make them like them. Outright denial is common.
“I wasn’t mad,” this Prince Charming told me.
“‘What the fuck is your problem?’ isn’t mad?”
“I can say that without being mad. LOL.”
“Pretty rude for a calm person.”
“Now I feel like shit.”
I’m not much of a liar, for a fiction writer,
and I’m surprisingly gullible. I tend to take people at their word—or, at
least, think they believe what they’re saying. This makes it incredibly hard
for me to relate with something that so completely separates from the truth
that possibly be that delusional, but my speculation is this:
Some people react on an emotional level and
then forget that emotion the second they don’t feel it anymore. They compartmentalize
as a defense mechanism. They don’t dwell. They are more impulsive (both a
quality and a flaw) because they don’t spend too much time worrying about their
past thoughts or feelings. They’re focused on the now, reacting to the ramifications
now. They don’t know what they did or
why they did it, but it’s over, so why does it matter?
So let’s move
on. “Did you have your dinner?”
There’s not much you can do
for it, but be prepared.
The more I find happiness with myself and my
accomplishments, the more often someone approaches me in hostile hopes for my
attention. It can be difficult to respond in kind—because you know they’re
already hurting, because you want to be professional, because you don’t want to
start shit that’s going to weigh you down for a long period of time. It’s
difficult to ignore someone who really just wants to talk to you. You certainly
can’t get them to understand where they’re coming from. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll
absorb it and accept it sometime from now, but that won’t sooth the anger until
then. You explain your side of things, they cuss you out. Too nice, they think
they can go back to harassing you with their unsolicited comments.
I tell this story not because I have the answers—uncharacteristically—but
because truth is stranger than fiction; this insanity is pretty common. Be
prepared for it.
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