Is manipulation always bad?

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So as far as dishonestly goes that's nothing that I go for, neither is yelling, getting angry,I never threatening, or would want to do anything that could cause harm to other people physical or emotion.

But I started this thread because in another thread people brought up to me that I manipulate people. Their reason being that I practiced reading emotions, expressions, and other people's way of thinking so that I could act around them in the way that would get the best result. My result would usually be an enjoyable conversation for both people, and in cases when I want something, because I know how to say it to people in the best way for them, people are generally happy to give me what I want. I also consider myself a kind person and generally help people out when they ask me too.

I guess my question is, is manipulating to get positive reactions for both people a bad thing? I never thought it was because I didn't see myself doing anything immoral, but I could be wrong and that's why am asking for other opinions. Thank you in advance

Also just as a reminder I am confident saying that I know when people are genuinely happy, I studied emotions pretty in depth and can tell the difference between happy and fake happy. I was only saying this for the people who thought I may be delusional about my reactions.

Other edit: people also didn't like that in my examples I "categorized women" "used steriotypes" along with other things like using pop psychology. I know this has nothing to do with my question and I have my reasons and explanations for those things, but I wont post them on this thread because I don't want it to be about that. , but this could also be why people were mad and wanting to call me manipulative?




Edit: oh and if any one of you are ever "acting" in public, you are also manipulating other people to belive your natural personality is something fake. So if I'm not going to be acting natural anyways, might as well act in the best way for me, that's why I don't view it as lying, just because I act everyday anyways.

Last edited by theredcore on 16 Jun 2014, 5:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's bad to hurt people. Including yourself. So long as it stays enjoyable including for you, doesn't seem like there is anything wrong. Just be careful not to lose yourself from over focusing on others.

But why are people saying you manipulate others? Just about everyone past newborn age does to an extent even if it's just being polite to avoid an escalation when one is angry or hurt. And do you agree with this characterization?

I suppose a good line comes from Mass Effect 3.

"Life is a negotiation. We all want. We all give to get what we want."

"Manipulation" is bad when you try and work a person to get something WITHOUT giving something of equivalent value in return...especially if it means bringing undue emotional or social pressure on them to accept an otherwise one-sided deal.

If, however, you "manipulate" someone by offering X for Y, it's not bad because you (1) give the other party something of worth that costs you value and (2) they are always free to say "no."

It's usually always enjoyable for me as well as them, that's why I never thought it was bad. guess I agree with being manipulative, I wish there was another category for morally manipulating because that would fit me much better.

I feel like I don't have a natural way of being social anymore, I still say what's on my mind and express my opinions, but always in a different way depending on who I'm with. I'd like to think that I have a great perception about other people and have learned after observing how to almost make a map of their thought process logically know the motives behind the emotions they feel, so from that I'm great at imitating and acting like anyone (with practice to know lines and get speech patterns right) I'm actually kind of happy that I don't have a set way of expression, makes me feel more free and I think it could be an advantage in life

Oh. And people called me manipulative because I said a websitetthat is used to learn some of those things so I was labeled as a "worker from them" or something like that. After a long in depth thread filled with replies they determined me to be a bad manipulative person

Wow, I love that line. Maybe my new life motto lol. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that way, I guess it can just be socially unacceptable to talk about it with other people.

There'salso the one from the wolf of wall street " the aim of the game is to get the money from the clients pocket to your pocket" I kinda liked that one because it showed determination by whatever means, but didn't like that it could mean harm to other people. So yes I like your line better

Are you a sociopath?

If I am understanding correctly, that means if you go online or read books to develop your social skills with the aim of being better liked, making connections, making a friend, getting or keeping a job, asking for a raise etc you are being manipulative?

I feel manipulative reading and trying to change how I act because it doesn't seem like I'm being myself. But the only point at which I think it becomes negative is if you intend to take advantage of others by pretending, do take advantage, or most pertinent from my point of view is losing my perspective from trying really hard to consider the perspective of others.

Otherwise the professionals tell me social skills are about making others comfortable through assessing where they are and adjusting to them, acting calm, not being too direct or too me....it's exhausting. And that's bad when it hurts me. Maybe I'm just missing your point....it seems like all social skills development then would become manipulation?

I don't think I am, I feel emotions as well as are anyonene else does, I can just logically pick and choose when I want to express them, I've seen no use for sadness, guilt, anger, or jealousy and would only choose touse them if the situation was extremely enough and called for me to have to express those emotions. It's the easiest thing in the world to not feel my emotions if I don't want to, but I've always liked that because I enjoy being happy and enjoy not having emotions I don't want to feel get in the way.

I feel very moldable, like I based my desicions and when to react emotionally on a moral high  ground. There is a part in the movie Sherlock Holmes 2 where Sherlock is in a theatre trying to disarm a bomb, he thinks it is up a small flight of stairs and as he walks up the stairs he throws a a innocent person of the stairs to the ground without remorse, regret, or guilt. He did that because he knew that person would slow him down and the bomb could kill thousands of people and time mattered. I feel I think similarly to that, if there is moral ground at the end of what I'm going for then I can do things without remove or regret as well. If someone tried to rob me with a gun, if I saw the right chance I would take the gun from them and fire at least 3 of them aiming to kill, I would never lose a bit of sleep over that either. Also I've noticed (because I've been in them) I don't get scared or emotional in lv scary situations like that. (there is still that adrenaline rush though. And no I've never killed anyone, I would like to keep it that way as well.

Last edited by theredcore on 16 Jun 2014, 6:41 am, edited 2 times in total.

no your pretty much right, people called me manipulating because I did that in an extreme and ssome people felt that seeing to far into private details that people might want to be hidden (like me knowing that someone acts a certain way because of a type of child abuse or being neglected, even though they had never told me and if we had just recently met) they felt that I took basic observation to a level that invades the privacy of others

It's hard to know where the line is between others' private and public thoughts when you're needing to consciously consider rather than it coming naturally.

I hope it's ok to ask this. Do you really have no negative feelings (guilt, sadness, shame)? Or are you alexithymic?

Commenting or drawing attention to some of those details is the faux pas. Everyone is manipulative, just perhaps not as consciously. Those more successful at it would be considered "charismatic", which frames things in a different light.

I feel those emotions on moral scales, I'll do my best to explain.

If I said something hurtful just for the sake of being hurtful I would feel regret and remorse because I would have felt that I had done something that wasn't of good morals. I would feel no regret, remorse, or guilt in choking out a drunk friend (if it escalates that high) and taking away his keys, if he was determined to drive and was reacting hostile.

I used to manipulate people when I realised I had the ability to do so.

Through studying human behaviour, I learned to see certain patterns, like when to apply 'reverse psychology', when to start 'fogging', when to turn the whole topic of conversation back on the faults of others so that they cannot see mine...I learned a lot of little 'mind games' (maybe to make up for the fact I couldn't read body language for s**t).

However, the two things I didn't take into account is that body language often goes hand-in-hand with this and also, it doesn't work on some people who know what you're doing right from the start...most don't, but some do and they freaking 'clue-in' everybody else then.

People don't appreciate me being 'inside their heads'...they just go on the 'defensive' then and deny they ever said or did what they just did and what I caught them out on.

In the end, human self-denial makes this all a futile exercise.

That doesn't really sound like manipulation specifically, more like putting on different roles....it could be used to manipulate people. Then again all kinds of normal forms of interaction could be considered manipulation since all the term really means is doing something that changes something else to create a more desirable result essentially. So if you compliment someone to make them feel good in a sense even that is manipulation because you are doing something to try to effect their mood. But in the negative context it more refers to trying to sort of trick people or act a certain way to get what you want at their expense and it doesn't sound like you really do that.

As I mentioned before (in your other thread), abuse is - unfortunately - a fairly common occurence, you could tell a lot of people that they have been abused and you would probably be correct in many cases.

I stand by my statements in your other thread, you classify people according to stereotypes and put them in little boxes (especially women it seems), but humans are much more complicated than their appearance and/or a few observable actions. As I said, to use one of your stereotypes again, one person could have tattoos, smoke, and drink, and be a good person, while another, who also has tattoos, smoke, and drink, could be a bad person. Same goes for the person who is the opposite of this stereotype. These stereotypes are just that, stereotypes, they don't tell you anything about a person's true personality nor deep thoughts.

Also you don't seem like an autistic person to me at all, I'm sorry to say you sound a lot more like someone who is very able to manipulate people (at a large scale, not a simple instant manipulation or simple lie), and you also don't seem to realise at all what is wrong in what you are doing to others (your admiration and/or approval of a guy like the Wolf of Wall street is also very telling, how would you have liked to be one of his victims?).

If you still wonder whether what you are doing is wrong, go to the girls you have manipulated into telling you private information about them, and go ahead and tell them what you have done to them, see how much they appreciate your actions, you will see whether they think what you did was right or wrong.

I also find all of this very amazing, since you have been telling us that you are married and happy, but you seem to be spending a lot of time in bars manipulating girls rather than enjoying spending time with your wife.

However ... to answer your question, the answer would be no, manipulation is not always bad, there is situations where it can be used for something good, for example if you were a police officer, and were able to convince someone not to jump off the top of a building (like the scene in Lethal Weapon).

1) you don't know how much time I spend talking with other girls compared to my wife, don't assume things. We are happily married and both of us know that just because you are married, it doesnot mean the rest of the world is magically unattractive. As long as love, sexual touching, that remains only for my marriage. We have a trust based relationship and we trust that the other person won't overstep boundaries.
2) I said I liked the determination from that quote of wolf of wall Street, don't just take half of what I said and twist it around. I said that I didn't like how he hurt other people.
3) you are right about me being a "long term" planner/manipulator, but you said I don't realize how it hurts people. Please explain how I hurt people by finding positive outcomes for manipulation (I'll just call it what it is " social skills") that help both sides.
4) I never said girls with tattoos who smoke and drink are" bad" don't put words in my mouth. I said girls who take alot of risks and do risky things are more prone to make risky decisions with other aspects in life as well. All I said was a girl who shows alot of traits that tend to show justifying, multiple tattoos (especially if they don'thave a meaning and wwe're a spur of the moment thing) smoking, and drinking, and swearing, and blaming other people shows that that person copes by justifying decisions. By taking her coping mechanism and applying it with see (a controversial topic for women) I can assume that she will also justify sex "it's just sex everyone does it" and she would have a mindset that it is more of a fun thing that moves a relationship forward rather then sacred. I am NOT just taking one or two stereotypes I see and labeling someone, I have to take in everything I see, compare results, which leads to making a very detaled analysis of a person.
5) I do have aspergers and I'll take it as a compliment that I've learned and development enough understanding of the world that I can fit in as an NT if I want to. To me aspie thinking can be a huge advantage in life, but I had to find how to properly communicate to ensure my best chances of advancement in life