Do euphemisms get on your nerves?

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i'm sorry if i'm talking over anyone. when i calm down enough to concentrate, i'll go back and read the posts that follow this one.

"collateral damage."

"collateral damage."

"collateral damage."

yep. some euphemisms can make you half crazy, IMO.

So basically.. if someone says "Don't let me keep you" I have no way of knowing if that means that they're worried that I find them boring or if it means that they find me boring, and if I say something along those lines, I have no control over whether they interpret it to mean that I find them boring, despite the fact that I'm always worried that I bother people?

If you don't know them well then yeah, welcome to the strange world of NTs where nothing is consistent.

But yeah it all comes down to individual interpretion of the euphemism, it can mean a variety of things. This is one of the many reasons I take a no BS stance, since some people expect you to "read their mind" when they could have a variety of things on their mind.

Maggie, don't bang your head, you have other elements to complement in the situation and help you decide what the intention of the speaker is. History of your relationship with them, recent attitude they had while talking to you, etc. And if all that fails, PM me and I'll help you decipher it.

Hoo boy, if you liked collateral damage that much, you'll like all the other military euphemisms like sleep management=sleep deprivation, extensive questioning/persuasion=torture, special renditions=kidnapping, undertaking=burial (but that has been widely known now), correctional facility=prison and all that other fun stuff

NTs don't believe anything you go back and say, though. To be "genuine" you must respond to everything immediately, without any thought or funny faces. If something takes time to think of the right answer to, they think that you were trying to think up a lie. Most NTs don't seem to believe the concept that one must spend some time thinking about something before coming to their "true" answer about it. They think that the first thing that comes out of your mouth is the truth and that anything subsequent is excuses to try to get out of it. So if an NT introduces a new concept to me, and I say something about it, I'm stuck with it... even if I think about it and totally change my mind.
And how do you tell their recent attitude? Like, if I start to think that something someone said doesn't really mean what I thought it meant, that that makes any recent conversation suspect, because I could have missed everything. Like, if I find out that someone doesn't like me, than it probably means that anything they said that I took as a joke wasn't... So it would be the question of a current thing that determined the attitude of recent interactions.
Either way.. by the time I figure it out, it's too late!

chuckle.
or "friendly fire."

Maggie, that reminds me of a conversation I had a few years ago with my therapist:

Me: I don't want to go with him on a blind date because I suspect that, because he doesn't have a car, he'll ask me to drive him home after the date and I don't like giving rides to strangers at night.
Therapist: Oh, you shouldn't skip an opportunity to meet someone for such a small detail! You just have to refuse, that's all.
Me: The problem is I know myself, I know I won't be able to think of a way to refuse to drive him without him being offended.
Therapist: Show yourself offended at his request for a ride, make him self-doubt before he has a chance to show offense at your refusal.
Me: So the one who's quicker at making the other self-doubt wins?
Therapist: Of course! Now regarding that[she moves on to another subject with complete naturality, while I'm left stunned on my chair].

WTF is wrong with her?! Like seriously, I'm developing issues with your therapist!

How's about this.. for that example, I think that should be a test. If you went on the date, and he had a problem with the fact that you're uncomfortable giving rides to strangers at night, you'd know he wasn't someone who was going to respect your feelings and boundaries. It's one thing to want to learn the rules of social games to be able to generally cope with the world, work, be productive, etc. Your personal life is a completely different issue. Why would someone who has a general disdain for social games want to start out a relationship that way?

Your therapist is not normal, there is something wrong with that woman.
It sounds like she thinks that it's good to be manipulative! It's just not! It's good to be able to understand it, it's good to be able to figure out what people are saying to you and to be able to tell when someone is trying to manipulate you. The only time that being manipulative is good is if you have to deal with bureaucracy, and that's because the point of manipulating a bureaucracy is usually to make it do what it was SUPPOSED to do in the first place.

That's why I've chosen to remain single since my divorce. I can't match the manipulations of men, so I always lose, it's their way or the highway because I'm not able to be assertive in a manipulative, indirect way. So they either leave calling me "too blunt" or make me a doormat.

My therapist believes, like most therapists, that we have to develop a False Self to live in society.

Another one...

"soften up the enemy position" = "carpet bomb the enemy position"

It is true, to an extent, that to be very successful in a career you need somewhat of a "false self".. most people would refer to it more as formality than falseness, though.

However, your personal life is a completely different matter. You don't want to be offensive to your friends, but at the same time, if you choose to be friends with someone, it generally means that you like them and thing they're good and valuable people, so bluntness is tempered by the fact that you like the person.. like if you tell a friend that you don't think they should do too much of something in particular because there so much better at something else. Yea, some people just want to be lied to, but those are not the people that you personally want as friends. You want friends who will appreciate your honest feedback in the context of the fact that since you like them, you obviously don't think they're lousy, worthless people.

Bottom line.. your therapist is an idiot. To advocate dishonest personal relationships is just asinine. Chances are, your therapist manipulates men, and wants to make it seem normal so that she doesn't have to face the fact that if she can't have an honest relationship, it means that there's something wrong with her. In the workplace, there's supposed to be a certain degree of falseness, but why would you have people in your personal life who you couldn't make feel pretty good about themselves with the TRUTH?

Your therapist sounds nuts.

Doing it her way would be way MORE offensive to me. Because I'm not NT I wouldn't know that it's socially incorrect to ask a woman for a ride after a date. I honestly haven't a clue. I'd rather hear an honest reason than be treated as if my request for a ride was some horrible transgression. So you're just supposed to assume that the guy knows that it's a social faux pas for a man to ask a woman for a ride after a date? Immediately take offense rather than give him the benefit of the doubt? This is another example of NT flawed theory of mind. Basically making assumptions about people without taking all evidence into account and offending them in the process.

Why not just tell before hand that you can't give him a ride home? If he rejects you based on that then that's a good reason not to go on a blind date with him.

marshall, it's not REAL blaming. It's a game, an NT game. It's about who makes the other feel inadequate first, thereby weakening them. There are no REAL assumptions. Remember my ""famous"""thread: NTs DO THINGS with conversation.

I didn't say anything about blaming.

So making an NT feel inadequate makes them want to continue to date you? Only in abusive NT relationships. According to that theory all NT relationships are about abuse and manipulation.

If the goal is merely to get out of giving someone a ride that you will likely never see again then playing the NT game of making them feel uncomfortable makes sense. Otherwise it makes no sense. That game sounds like a bad strategy even if you accept that playing games is sometimes necessary when dealing with NTs.

I did. The strategy is to blame the other first.

And it does make sense, within the realm of acceptable little manipulations to keep the peace and lovethat NTs favor among them, just like white lies and euphemisms. See the movie "lady windermere's fan".