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Why are people nicer when you treat them like crap?

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Moog
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31 Jul 2010, 6:13 am

Joe90 wrote:
I have been assertive with friends before, and I lost them for it. When I was leaving school, my friend wanted me to stay on another year with her in the sixth form, but I said I already had arranged to go to college to do this programme which will help me build up some social skills. But my friend kept on and on at me to stay with her, but I said no. I didn't want to give in, (like I normally would). I tried to be assertive and stand up to myself. I was 17 years old then, and I knew I had to make up my own mind what I wanted to do with my life, and I wanted what's best for me. In the end, she fell out with me. She didn't want to keep in touch or anything - and I wanted to go to college and still be her friend.

Then I met some friends in college who seemed nice. They wanted me to meet up with them on Saturdays - which I was really excited about because that didn't normally happen to me. But after about a year, I got a boyfriend who I loved, and my friends wanted me to go out with this other boy who they knew. I said I didn't fancy him, and that I already had a man. (My boyfriend was a lot older than me, and this boy who they wanted me to go out with was my age). I kept saying, ''no thank you, I already have someone.'' But then I started getting bullied by them after that, and they wanted to get my boyfriend involved (who didn't know them), and it was awful. All because I stood up for myself and said ''no''. So people tell me to say no more to people, but then I loose friends for it.

You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't when it comes to Aspies and friendships.


I guess that if people can't tolerate you being assertive and doing what you need to do, then they aren't very good friends.


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Booyakasha
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31 Jul 2010, 6:19 am

I experienced it as well - make yourself available, nice, at service and they will eat you alive! But when you lose the nerve, play arrogant, hard to get, "cool" :roll: all of sudden you become interesting and respected. Cat string theory, the law of scarcity at it's worst!

This deliberate withdrawal can be described a set of social withdrawal tactics predicated upon cognitive biases and logical fallacies. Stated axiomatically, "We pursue that which retreats from us" - refers to the belief that disinterest promotes attraction. Cat-string theory can be restricted to specific logical fallacies or cognitive biases, each a species of this generic axiom, implicating a variety of tactics. Each tactic is centred around building attraction through withdrawal. (Quoting RSD WIKI).

When someone makes themselves overly available to a person they are attracted to, especially in the beginning stages of attraction, this over availability can cause the opposite desired reaction to occur. Someone overly available has lower value than someone not in such abundance - just like prizes of grocery items rise in the case of scarcity. And yes, that means that human beings are treated like grocery items. :?

Nowadays I couldn't care less about such people who are available as long as you are not, who care about you as long as you don't, who exploit your every weakness in order to boost their own sense of worth and importance. Dunno who writes the social book and how they intuitively (or purposefully) play it along - but I don't want to be a part of it.