If someone thinks they are doing you a favor by being your friend, they aren’t really your friend.
And if you treat them as a friend, they will betray your trust.
Category: Uncategorized
When you notice dehumanization
A reader asked:
Okay, but what do you do when you realize you’re being dehumanized?
I’d say a few things:
Notice that it is happening
- Pay attention to what’s going on
- If you feel horrible after an interaction, try to figure out if that person did something you know is dehumanizing
- Keeping a log can help, if your mental configuration makes that possible (for some people, a way that works is to send yourself emails when things happen)
- Telling someone else what’s going on can help, if you have someone you can trust
To the extent that it is in your power, get away from people who treat you like an unperson.
- Don’t hang out with people who don’t like you
- If you can, working for someone who respects you helps a lot
- If you’re living with a person who is treating you like an unperson, and you can move out, it’s probably a good idea
Don’t push yourself too hard to fix it
- Extracting yourself from dehumanizing treatment is really hard
- Sometimes, when you realize that this shouldn’t be happening, it can be tempting to think that it’s your fault for allowing it to happen.
- It’s not your fault
- People shouldn’t abuse you
- And it’s not your obligation to convince them to stop. They are doing something wrong and it’s *not your job* to solve this problem for them by teaching them how to behave. Even if you understand the problem and they don’t.
- And it’s important to get distance from people who treat you this way, but it can be really hard to do so.
- It’s not your fault that it’s hard.
- Don’t beat yourself up if a lot of time passes and you’re still surrounded by people who treat you like an unperson. It can be hard to resist.
- Don’t give up, either.
Try not to help people dehumanize you
- Part of the way dehumanization works is by convincing the targets that they’re not really people
- And also convincing them that all problems are their fault
- And that if they stay out of the way and do everything right, they’ll be almost human
- Remembering that you are a person helps
- Even when you have to do what they want and say what they want, you don’t have to believe everything they want you to believe
- You are a person. Anyone who doubts this is wrong.
Seek out the company of others who treat you like a person
- Any respect you can get helps.
- Even if it’s just online. Or just in person. Or just occasional.
- Even if it’s not particularly intimate. Finding people to discuss your rock collection with who respect your rock knowledge can help.
- And just – not everyone dehumanizes others. Some people know that all people are real.
- Interaction with people who know that people are real helps, both because it gives you experience being treated as real, and because it gives you concepts to notice and object to dehumanization.
Block and ignore people who are mean to you on the internet
- You’re better off without seeing their nastiness
- And refusing to engage with it is good practice for realizing people shouldn’t do that to you in person
About friendship
If someone doesn’t like you, they aren’t your friend, and you shouldn’t be hanging out with them.
If someone is always telling you why you’re not good enough, they don’t like you.
If someone is always telling you how special it is that they like someone as flawed as you, then they don’t like you.
If someone consistently expresses contempt about you to mutual friends, they don’t like you.
Life is better when you spend your time with nice people who like you.
Another thing about friendship
If you find yourself dreading interaction with someone, you probably don’t like them.
Even if you can think of all kinds of reasons why they are objectively likeable.
Even if you think they’re a good person.
Even if you used to enjoy their company.
Even if your friends like to hang out with that person, and you think that’s a good thing.
You probably don’t like them. And that’s ok. You don’t have to like everyone.
And it’s a lot better if you spend time with people you like, than people you don’t like.
About favors/work
It is dangerous to work for someone who thinks they are doing you a favor by employing you.
Because if they think they are doing you a favor, they won’t think that your work is valuable.
And they won’t treat you like someone who is doing valuable work.
And, often, this means they don’t feel obligated to pay you, or don’t feel obligated to pay you on time.
It also means that they’re likely to think that you owe them something aside from the work you’re paying them for. For instance, they might think you owe them free tech support, or to pick up their dry cleaning, or any number of other time-consuming inappropriate favors.
It’s not always avoidable – if you’re in a difficult place, you might not be in a position to avoid working for people like this. But when you can avoid it, it makes life a lot better – and even when you can’t, understanding what’s going on helps.
Some things I think I know about small talk
Regarding professions and names:
- If you are in a college or university setting, asking someone what their major is is considered an acceptable small talk question, and it can lead to actual conversation.
- Asking someone what they do (for work) is socially acceptable in some crowds, but not others. It’s acceptable if it’s perceived as similar to asking about a major, and rude if it’s perceived as an attempt to determine how much money someone has or how much social status they have
- Making jokes or disparaging comments about someone’s job or major is considered boorish unless you have the same job/major and it is also self-mockery. It’s not nice to insult people you just met.
- Similarly, don’t make jokes about people’s names upon being introduced. They’ve heard them all before.
Regarding sports:
- A lot of people like to talk about sports as a primary form of small talk. I don’t really understand this. Maybe some of y’all can chime in?
- In the US, outside of New York, people are likely to dislike the Yankees, and some people find Yankees fans annoying, and some get really angry about Yankees fans. (This is especially true in Boston).
- Many areas, particularly college towns, have intense and scary sports fandoms. If you don’t understand the sports fandom in your area, it’s probably better to avoid wearing sports logo clothing, and this is especially true if there is a game on.
Don’t try to figure everything out from first principles
Sometimes people try to figure out how to act by reasoning out rules from first principles, then acting according to the logical implications of those principles, regardless of consequences.
That level of abstraction doesn’t work, because real life is more complicated. It obscures the real situation. You have to start from what’s in front of you.
This is a reason that social skills classes that try to teach atypical people how to be normal by following rigid rules do a lot of harm.
Staying on topic
In a lot of situations, it’s useful to stick to a narrow topic.
Sometimes, this is true even where there is a broad range of somewhat related important topics that the narrow topic reminds you of.
It can be tempting to deviate. For instance, a blog about explaining why particular patterns are sexist might be inclined to make a lot of signal boost posts aimed at helping to pass a ballot measure aimed at preventing state university tuition rates from rising. This might seem like a good idea because, for instance, high tuition rates make it harder for single mothers to go back to school and still afford daycare.
And signal boosting is a good thing. A vital thing. But sometimes doing it too much can harm discussions.
Because signal boosting can also drown things out. Things that need to be said. And a topic blog isn’t a personal blog. Staying on topic is important to saying things that need saying, especially when the things are hard to say.
Forums can be like that too. For instance, if you’re running a forum that’s about how to communicate with autistic people, it’s important not to let it devolve into a debate about whether Obamacare is good for autistic folks. That is an important discussion to have, but it’s also important that it not be the only discussion that happens.
Many things that should and must be discussed can’t all be discussed at once, and separating where and when they are discussed can make it possible for them all to be heard and discussed seriously.
Trying to detect dehumanization
I’m really good at telling when people don’t quite think I’m a person, but I’m not quite sure *how* I detect this. I’m trying to figure it out.
A good part of what’s in this post is probably wrong, because this is really hard to get a handle on. And *some* of these things are sometimes the result of other things, like communication problems.
But here’s a draft list of things I think that I detect as signs that someone doesn’t see me as a person:
- There’s kind of more of a pause than usual, and then what they responded to wasn’t really in reaction to what you said. They’re reacting to some imaginary person.
- They don’t seem to understand what you’re saying, but they don’t ask any clarifying questions.
- They don’t answer your clarifying questions.
- They look at each other a lot, but not you.
- They try to insist on talking about your feelings rather than the problem or concrete thing you want to talk about.
- They tell you in authoritative tones what you are thinking or feeling or need or want, and they’re not open to corrections.
- They completely ignore you when you say things that don’t fit their agenda, to the extent that you start doubting that you actually said it.
- They go on and on about how smart you are, but they don’t seem to want to discuss anything else with you.
- They expect effusive gratitude for mundane acts like getting something down from a shelf they can reach that you can’t.
- Their body language shifts dramatically when they’re interacting with you; it’s really different than how it looks when they’re interacting with others.
- They have a voice they use with adults, and a voice they use with young children, and they use their little-kid-voice with you.
Thoughts, anyone? Which of these things am I wrong (or right) about? What other signs are there?
I think a good percentage of y’all know exactly what I am talking about, but it’s really hard to pin down.
Another example: conversation
Some people have topics they are particularly interested in or knowledgable about. Sometimes this is perceived as meaning that they’re potentially open to conversation on that topic with just about anyone who wants to discuss it.
Sometimes that is true, but:
- Some people only want to discuss their interest with friends
- Some people only want to discuss their interest with certain friends
- Some people only want to discuss their interest with people who have a certain degree of background knowledge.
- Some people only want to discuss their interest when they have a certain amount of free time available.
All of this is ok; liking a topic or having expertise that intrigues people doesn’t mean you have to discuss it with everyone who is interested.