Manipulation.

[xenologer]

People have told me I have good people skills.

Other people phrase this differently. They say I'm manipulative. Perhaps they believe that I'm corralling them into terrible little destiny-destroying social boxes of doom. Perhaps they believe that my political games are so complex, thorough, and generally arcane that they are willing to attribute any misfortune to my meddling.

Sure, I misunderstand you terribly. Sure, the only reason everybody else happens to misunderstand you in exactly the same way is that I have poisoned them against you.

Some people feel that I've used my mistaken understanding of them to twist the whole universe against them. What people don't seem to want to think about is this: I can't manipulate you if I don't understand you.

Maybe it's possible to manipulate a person without grokking them on some kind of meaningful level, but that's not how I operate.

Accuse me of using my understanding of you to tear your life apart. Accuse me of misunderstanding you, and acting mistakenly. Please, though, don't accuse me of these things simultaneously. Your awed and horrified faith in my ability to corrupt and assimilate the people around me is touching, truly, but it's not really realistic.

Maybe you're just an asshole, and maybe I'm just the one who finally made a convincing argument to that end.

I guess it's a painful thing to think about, that someone can understand you and not like you. We cling as long as we can to the desperate hope that if "they" only understood where we were coming from, if "they" only understood what we were really thinking, that "they" would love us as much as we love ourselves.

Not always gonna happen, people. Sometimes people will understand you pretty well, and sometimes... you'll wish they didn't. Who knows, perhaps they'll be wishing it, too.

Comments

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Seems to me, "manipulative" is one of those characteristics like "thrifty" or "selfish", that covers a broad continuum of behavior. A certain amount of it is praiseworthy and necessary for functioning, and it can also be taken to an unhealthy degree.

If there's something you want, how do you get it? Arguing that you have a right to it is manipulative. Offering to trade something for it is manipulative. Appeal to reason, or to emotion, or to ridicule, or any kind of discussion or persuasion, is manipulative. Doesn't make it bad. In fact, most would agree it's a better alternative than taking by force or stealth.

At its worst, manipulation involves fraud, coercion, illogic, hiding the truth, throwing tantrums, threatening suicide, hypnotism, you get the idea. That doesn't seem like it fits you. Seems to me that truth is your weapon of choice and that you're among the most likely people I know to clearly explain what you want, what you're doing to get it, and why. While that is arguably a form of "manipulation", seems to me that's the good kind, the best alternative in a game you pretty much are required to play in order to get by. Harmful manipulators either actively try to fool people into thinking that they're doing something else, or have bullshitted themselves into thinking they're not manipulative.

Seems to me, a lot of people who accuse others of being manipulative may be hiding from the realization that the right thing to do is outside their comfort zone, and don't like it, and are really arguing with their own conscience as much as with the person they're accusing.

PS: This is about him again, isn't it?

[virginia-fell.livejournal.com]

He's just one of many. It's a pattern. People who feel outmaneuvered by very basic skills such as stating what I need and why, or explaining why something bothers me, tend to attribute the disparity to my superhuman mastermind powers instead of their own deficiencies.

[e-mily.livejournal.com]

.....I want to have my recent issues blamed on my superhuman psychic powers.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

It gets lonely at the top, doesn't it? What you see as basic commonsense reasoning and communicating abilities the mere mortals see as supernatural powers from Planet Vulcan.

[ardent-firesong.livejournal.com]

Yes, and the pond scum sees it as the allmighty powers of god, apparently.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

You'd think they'd be a little more respectful and differential to a god...if there's one thing I've noticed about pond scum, it's that they tend to be faith-based.

Maybe they see it as shocking *usurpation* of power when someone other than a white Alpha Male does it...

[ardent-firesong.livejournal.com]

That would make sense.