When good people turn terrible

Post Reply New Topic

How come it's so easy to see that people are deceiving?

My dad taught me this one last year.
Use your superior logic skills. The person you're interacting with is doing unpredictable or unusual things. You are doing your friendly act, but they are not reciprocating. If the equation of basic social interaction - be polite, pay attention, make 'interested' noises, ask the occasional friendly question - doesn't reach a comfortable conclusion, there is something else at play.
This mysterious thing disrupting your meeting, it's usually those invisible building blocks inside that person's head. If your building blocks of life experience mesh neatly with the other person's blocks, you've got a match and you can have a shot at being friends. Finding exactly complimentary blocks is damn near impossible, but you get better at figuring out who has which blocks through subculture studies and experience.
So if your blocks don't lock together neatly, there are things in the way. You get to guess at what these things could be that prevent smooth interaction, but it's best never to hazard guesses out loud - I find my guesses are often highly imaginative and far-flung. They satisfy me, but the other person is usually a bit put off by the guessing. Invisible blocks never get spoken about. Most people can't even identify their own building blocks, let alone what shape they'd be for other people.

So, when things don't work the way you'd anticipated, take a step back and try to see the blocks around you. What are you built up of? What about the other person? How can the difference in blocks make it difficult to reach each other in the middle? Your blocks are just as important as theirs in the equation, so remember to weight them equally.

Blocks are units of common ground, or experience. Your job and the parts of it you perform each day are blocks. Play an instrument? Block. Hobby, block. Build build build. Summer at your grandparents place where you found the creek full of turtles, block. Someone cutting in front of you in the supermarket line, block. Polite 'hello' relationship with the postman, block. Being attached to your favourite pen, block.
So say you're very fond of a particular pen, and someone walks past your desk and picks up your pen to borrow it without asking you first, and this irritates you. You walk over and want your special pen back, but the person is unaware of the big pink shiny block that has 'I LOVE MY PEN!' written on it inside you. You may be gruff, annoyed when you ask for the pen back, and it may come out as a demand. The other person is looking at this, borrowing a pen and now being attacked for it. They don't understand and things may become unpleasant.
Watch out for blocks!

How could you possibly do that when you have absolutely no control over the situation in the first place?

You incorrectly assume that you have no control.
Your portion of control is equal to those you're socialising with. Learn to exercise it - make decisions, decide what you want and then go and do it.
Give yourself permission to be the autistic person. Make the other person deal with it, but make a good effort on the communication. Meet them half way.
I found developing an assertive/dominant set of mannerisms got me enough points to be able to demand others cope with me as I am, rather than hiding my strangeness away.

Autism should have absolutely, positively, nothing to do with this.

Yes, I've met such people before. Appearances can be very, very deceiving; some people are, at core, nothing but the blackest of negative energy even if they are able to hide it with a friendly, cheerful façade most of the time and towards most people, even going so far as to forming social connections that enable her to act the way she does because they are so emotionally bound up with her that they'll automatically see things from her point of view no matter how revolting they might find it if someone else they didn't know did the same thing.

A few people will push things because they can get away with it—like a five year old—hold grudges because they are very stubborn and unwilling even to acknowledge the other person's point of view if it does not agree with their own; find and attack flaws in other people because they believe they are above fallibility and will cause themselves grief just to cause you pain; believe themselves to be entitled to do things they'd be appalled if if other people did them to them; treat people kindly or meanly according to nothing more than momentary whims; feign sympathy, distress, anger, or naïve innocence to minimize their wrongdoing and inspire guilt or shame in you if they can.

Such people screw themselves on a nearly continuous basis by being unable to resist their transient desires that may scuttle long-term plans and their unwillingness to let things go. One can hope they will become more mature someday, but that may a dream and nothing more. Their view of the world is a pessimistic one and certainly not the attitude they present to the open world. They believe people will lie if they can, betray you if they can, and do things for no other reason than just to spite you; and you cannot convince them otherwise.

All we can do is remember when those people were actually decent.

I have a tendency to be quite aggressive towards people, I really get quite easily annoyed. As an aquaintance informed me "Your not really malicious, it's just that you have an edgy or temperament" (or at least something similar to that effect).
I'm easily provoked and I don't like alot of typical stereotyped behaviour- I really should learn to become more tolerant.

You are the only one who can control your own actions. I understand you, and I know you have good intentions, but I really can't say that any better myself.

I wish you the very best of luck.

I once had a friend who used to be one of my best friends but turned into a jerk. I got rid of him later than I should have, but haven't missed him since.

I met him in high school. We were friends for years. He's been a good friend, and had all the qualities that good friend should have: respectful, responsible, loyal, etc. Then, he started becoming a jerk. For instance, he became very irresponsible. He would borrow money, and take MONTHS to pay it back, if ever. He would also manipulate me into doing things I specifically said I didn't want to do. To achieve that, he used the same tactic that lawyers use to badger the witness. Whenever I confronted him about that, he would brush me off but saying: "But you're my best friend". One day, I got so fed up withh all that, I just told him: "You're not my friend anymore; forget I even exist".

A few weeks later, he calls me with an apoligy. But years of him being a jerk wouldn't be corrected with a phrase. So I said: "Apoligy NOT accepted. I don't want you in my life anymore. Goodbye." He seemed really upset, but I hung up the phone smiling. My only regret is that I didn't get rid of him sooner.

Please treat this as a cautionary tale. If you friend, male or female, suddenly starts treated worse than before, confront them. If they give you anything less than a straight answer, and nothing tragic happened in their lives, get rid of them there and then. Stay firm: do not accept any promises to change; they're often as empty as a bottomless barrel. If you must, use a "be a good friend or else" ultimatum, and do not give more than two weeks to time to change.

I think you did the right thing. I'm sorry the situation turned out to be so bad.

That was very good advice you gave. Thank you very much.

I have recently come out of a situation where people I thought were nice and genuine were actually quite nasty people.

I started work in a place I didn't know about 4 months ago. Because I was the new girl, everyone rallyed around me and wanted me to be their new best friend. I thought this was nice as Ive never really had people be so enthusiastic about talking to me before. Everyone at some stage invited me out for a drink with them etc and it was cool. Then I actually started to observe others and I didn't like what I saw and, at first refused to accept it. A small group of them were bullying another member of staff that I'd made friends with. The main perpetrator then suddenly expected me to partake in this bullying. I knew for a fact that if I refused then I would risk him turning his cruel intentions toward me. However, I risked it anyway and refused to participate in the bullying because Im that against it. Guess what? He did turn his bad intentions toward me to the point where he was saying awful things about me and everyone, apart from the guy who was, and still is, being bullied isolated me and I lost all my friends. They all go along with it because they are scared of him. I was so against what happened in there that after Christmas I handed my notice in and I now no longer work there. Im currently looking for another job and I never want to see or hear from any of those gutless moraless lot ever again, apart from the guy who is still being bullied of course. Me and this guy are gonna remain friends.

I think it's amazing that some of you have had similar situations to what I have had.