Right, this thread has become a microcosm of exactly what I was talking about, and, to me at least, not surprising really since it just goes to confirm what Bradshaw et al. say about the bulk of us. I am not going to pick holes in anyone else's behaviour for 2 reasons: this time I genuinely CBA and it's an opportunity for everyone to examine their own behaviour in a very mild situation, which thus ought not to generate any significantly scary emotions, and, perhaps at a later date, extrapolate from the mild truths they discover to the potential for more serious issues... lol, one can only hope!
I say "this time" I CBA because it is one of my go-to self deceptive coping strategies to tell myself that I can't be arsed with things which experience subconsciously warns me are likely to generate difficult emotions - in this case stemming from the potential for a proper nob-yelling argument. So rather than address specific statements with tailored responses, I addressed the topic in a more generalised fashion. In case you're wondering, the emotion I repressed was that nigh on impossible for men to admit to, except in very specific circumstances, for fear of losing social status (which is a very real consequence which has uber serious ramifications including our potential as attractive males), which is
fear itself. The fear of ugly circumstances which have started as a simple argument and ended with... here I was about to quote some personal horrors, which are pretty bad in the general scheme of things, in order to justify the fear I just admitted to - lol!
don't feel you have to stop smiling if you see her (but don't look at her and start smiling after you've seen her it's just confusing and I CBA explaining how to turn it in your favour) the more she see's you smiling and laughing like it dosen't bother you she'll want you more and so will other girl's around her!
- As a point of absolute fact it is impossible to control feelings to a degree at which you can usefully instruct yourself to feel or not feel a certain way without the use of mood altering substances. You can, and most people do, try and many believe that they or others have succeeded, but it is simply a fallacy, as any psychiatrist will be happy to tell you.
- Indeed we can deceive others about our emotional state and the more we try it, the more successful our attempts become, until the point at which our target audience does actually believe the charade, at which point we have become accomplished liars. This training typically begins as we begin to imitate our parents, older siblings, and playmates, from about age 3, assuming our primary carer is not 1 of the emotionally functional minority.
- It is true that being able to deceive others about our emotional state is a very powerful tool when deployed consciously for specific outcomes with predetermined consequences, however there are 2 major hiccoughs: 1) it is a very rare person who is sufficiently conscious of themselves in the moment to both understand their real emotional state, so they can hide it, and project a convincing false one on top, while also judging how their performance is being received and adjusting it on the fly to stay focussed on their goals - this is why it takes actors a good deal of training to get good at it; 2) whether it be through education or subconscious experience, we all know that, unless somebody is very weird (psychopath etc.), we all have more in common emotionally and psychologically than we have differences, so if someone knows that, in our situation, they would be hurting, but we appear not to be, then there are only 2 options - either we are a psycho or we are lying.
- Remembering what I said earlier about self deceit being a very common emotional coping strategy, what usually happens is that far from lying consciously for specific reasons, it is an habitual reaction to difficult emotions: we feel hurt thus we are vulnerable, so we fear being hurt even more, so we pretend we are not bothered and tell ourselves that the pretence is actually aimed at getting a response from an/other/s, when really it is a shell to protect our squishy inner selves. This becomes more complex because there is a natural instinct to get back at somebody who has hurt us, but just like deliberate lies, the best self-deception is that which contains a good bit of truth.
- It has to be noted that there are also very few people who are either trained to both take part in social interaction and observe it with something approaching objectivity simultaneously, or are so jaded that regardless of any outcomes they genuinely couldn't care less, so their own emotional reactions do not distract them. It is also true that the younger we are, generally the less trust we place in our 'gut feelings'. So it is very possible to derive 'benefits' from only partially successful deceit, but...
- Without writing an actual textbook, the fruit of the poison tree may fill a hole but it fcuks you up eventually. Being thought of as a 'playa' might get us short term benefits, but at the cost of trust - not just amongst the opposite sex, but amongst our same sex friends who cannot but wonder, "If he can do that, what else could he do? Who else could he do? Sh!t, he's not here, where is my girlfriend?" Of course if we act like something long enough and don't behave in any other way, we actually become it, 'playas', and we do cross lines which we would previously have considered taboo, because it is the nature of young people to test the boundaries, to find what is and is not ok. The trouble is that when we are deceiving ourselves we are robbed of our most important tool in this growing up process, our very own moral compass, and instead we must rely on the reactions of others to gauge sick from actually sick behaviour. Here it comes: but if we are deceiving them as well, how the fcuk can we derive any useful guidance from them?
- Plus, all of this takes a great deal of effort. This is what I meant by "someone living in your head rent free". Our behaviour is being partially dictated by our perception of how someone who has decided they don't want to share any of the benefits of doing things for someone else's sake with us anymore...
Couldn't agree more! After I got dumped I did the whole stiff upper lip thing and acted like nothing happened and the result was my Ex looked far more depressed then I did and was complaining to her friends how I didn't look sad about it
Safe to say I won that bit
Let's examine what was won. Certainly our atavistic urge for revenge is satisfied by visiting consequences upon the perpetrator of our woes in equal measure, plus a smidge more for, we tell ourselves, a lesson not to do it again, but which actually constitutes a threat of dire consequences should the perp decide to make a feud out of it (the self deception here is because these days it is generally felt to be unacceptable to make threats in social situations).
However, taking a broader view, what are we left with? A group of women who believe varying amounts of a few things, amongst which are: we were not particularly emotionally invested in the relationship so we were lying just to get into her pants, or we are lying now, or we are so mercurial that we can go from attraction, and perhaps something like love, to indifference very quickly, which marks us out as either somebody to be shagged but not boyfriend material and/or a psycho.
As young men this is not necessarily such a bad thing, because, admit it or not Adam, we are genetically programmed to seek sex with pretty much as many females as we find attractive and can get access to without dire consequences resulting... What is a major problem though is, as I've already said, it becomes habitual. Years later when we find ourselves with an undefinable emptiness, an urge to do something but we don't know what, we eventually cannot but venture into our own scrupulously avoided inner selves, looking for the answer to the question, "I'm doing what I want so why do I not enjoy it so much and why, during moments when I am not distracted by these dwindling pleasures, do I feel uncomfortable in my own skin?"
And the problem is that after years of habitual self deception, there actually isn't anything real inside us at all. We can do nothing but imitate others in the hope that 'doing what people do' will lead to a fulfilling life... but it won't. We cannot be fulfilled until we know what it is that
we want and we cannot
know what we want until we
know who we are and we cannot know
who we are until we are
someone real...
Well that escalated quickly!
First I was just making sure I acted as if it didn't get to me to try and save face and then I'm beating women :/
Yeah, I jumped from the beginnings of a problem to some severe eventual consequences which can, and often do, result and I've elaborated in exactly the same way above.
But hey, like I also said, the reason I have studied this is because I first lived it. I had problems which I didn't know had a rational basis, but once I did know I wanted what I thought of as "a cure" (lol!). Anyway, the first lesson, which I am trying to define for, and introduce to, you (plural, not anyone in particular - 'the reader'), is that our psyches are such complex spaces/frameworks/matrices/souls/whatever-the-fcuk-you-believe-in-s that even small, seemingly innocuous, meddling with what we perceive as the truth of any given situation has consequences which, given that we are also living within them, cannot be understood very well when it matters, ie at the point of action. Thus our actions become less and less firmly under our conscious control, as each deception adds still more unfathomable complexity of thought, and more distance between such thought and repressed, unacknowledged feelings. We react, controlled by the need to immediately quash emotion, not respond in a considered way, ie feeling as we do, understanding that, taking it into account and, depending also upon our attitude, proceed with whatever we come up with as a plan... unable to respond properly, we are not fully response-able... and yet we have adult bodies and can amass sufficient resources to cause a great deal of trouble!
But hey, as I said, I lived it... so I remember what I was like as a young man. "It won't happen to me...!" the mantra and indeed the battlecry lol!
