[overflow] Re: GHHS

[Mat Butler <winged@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, Lee Gold wrote:

> Michelle & Boyd Bottorff wrote:
> > 
> > I dunno, it might well be the only thing you have to do.
> > If making friends was easy for EVERYONE we might not have any bullies.
> > 
> > Er, how DO you go about making friends with people who are only
> > interested in stuff you aren't interested in, though?
> 
> Maybe a list of suitable pastimews (the positive version of Berne's
> GAMES PEOPLE PLAY).  
> 	Complaining about mutual annoyances:  the weather, the 
> teacher, the textbooks
> 	Praising mutual pleasures:  flowers, blue sky, artwork,
> a local winning sports team, fireworks
> 	Compliments:  the other person's hair, clothing , 

And what about the tongue-tied teenager who's had very little in the way
of positive reinforcement about themselves, much less being taught that
it's actually okay?

I remember when I was in junior high and high school (twice total over
those years) the "IALAC tag" concept being taught.  (IALAC == I Am Lovable
And Capable.)  The essential attempt of the teaching was to rouse feelings
of empathy between kids... "I hate it when I feel this way, thus they must
hate it when they feel that way."  Trying to teach the Golden Rule.

The problem is that a LOT of kids understood that concept far too well,
and became even better at figuring out what made other people feel really
bad... and used it, to frightening effect.

> I've got fairly high standards for "friend," but this is the way
> you stay on good terms with acquaintances.  And I can do it fairly
> well with adults.  I couldn't do it well as a child.  I don't know
> why really.  Partly it was because I didn't have glasses back then
> and so couldn't recognize people well and so didn't know their
> names, and they felt insulted by this.  

Was this in an era when vision screening testing wasn't mandatory?  (When
did that come into effect, anyway?)

> > My mother says I make friends like a man, and that I'm supposed to be
> > interested in the people themselves, and not care whether we have
> > anything in common.  But I can't even conjure up an interest in the
> > day-to-day trivia of my own family, let alone that of the people to whom
> > I am only connect by merit of happening to own a house next to theirs.
> 
> The stereotypical man doesn't make friends.  He makes alliances with
> people he's thrown together with, and drops them when he moves on
> to another class or job or project.  This is obviously NOT true of
> all men, and fans are, as always, rather different than non-fans.

Sometimes I find myself playing that game... and it annoys me, sometimes,
because I honestly do want to stay in touch with these other people I meet
at my places of work.

> Barry was surprised when I explained to him that his parents would be 
> glad to hear each time he got a promotion or commendation at work.

(Lee, thank you for breaking this paragraph out for ease-of-quoting :>)

It's quite amazing, I think, that we're never taught to open up, to be
open... we try to take our cues from what other people do, and try to make
as much sense out of it as possible.  We're always taught not to be
"posers", always taught to walk the talk... and we learn the talk from our
peers.  Which doesn't make any sense, because older kids have different
priorities than younger kids, who look up to the older kids and want to be
respected by them.  And the older kids (at least in the male circles -- I
wasn't enough of a queen in JH/HS to be one of the girls) generally try to
outboast each other.  From the "base" sexual conception of the male in the
last century came a trend of younger and younger sexual experimentation...
which leads to the problems of possessiveness and hatred and intolerance
of today, when mixed with a self/jealous-centric worldview.  (In the
1950s, you had the occasional bully beating someone up, but they didn't
have to go to the hospital, usually [though I may be wrong].  In the 1990s
and 2k-oughts, you have kids who don't know how to deal with jealousy, you
have kids who don't know how to deal with any kind of negative emotion,
you have kids who don't have any kind of previous exposure to
solidly-based, loving relationships... you have a severe lack of grounding
to teach any kind of unselfish empathy.

(</rant> ... sorry 'bout that.)

> I just read an article about a man with Asperger's (a form of 
> autism that is often accompanied by high intelligence) who had to have
> it explained to him that it would make his wife happy if he randomly
> but frequently told her that she was pretty, announced that the
> moon or flowers or blue sky was beautiful, and otherwise faked 
> having an emotional life even though they both knew that he didn't.

We all want to feel comfortable... which comes from having our emotional
selves shored up every once in a while.  I kinda pity Asperger's
patients... it's amazing the stuff that we take for granted, but which an
Asperger's-afflicted person has absolutely NO basis for comprehension
of.  (it's a kind of birth-blindness of higher emotion. :/)

> > > It does argue that there is room to teach interpersonal skills in schools
> > > however.   Some basic psych stuff is covered in social studies now.
> > 
> > And is knowlege of basic psych actually useful in making friends?
> 
> For those of us who have to approach things from first principles or
> they don't make sense, yes, it probably is.  

I'd also argue that knowledge of basic psych would most likely (in the
first seven years of deployment) lead to more emotional peer abuse, the
same way of the IALAC example above.  (And I'm not saying this to combat
the idea that it should be deployed, I'm just wanting to get some ideas on
how to combat this particular problem with the deployment?)

> My parents once left me with my grandparents for a month while they 
> went on a cruise.  While they were away, I got too close to my
> grandmother's hot stove after being warned to stay away, and she 
> grabbed me away, spanked me, and told me, "I love you even when I
> spank you," while I wailed.  When my parents returned, I told my
> mother proudly, "Grandmother loves me even when she spanks me."
> My mother, horrified, said, "I do too.  Don't you know that?"  And
> I wailed, "But you never SAID so!" and we both cried.  Every kid
> is different, and some of us have to have things spelled out.

The problem is that psychology is even less of an exact science than
dentistry or health care... there's no way to get to a zero-principle
state with it, as everyone's actions, choices, values, and beliefs are
completely different, and there's almost no chance of being able to get
everyone to the same initial state for learning.

> I do wish people would stop yammering about "friends" though and 
> start explaining about how to be on pleasant terms with casual
> acquaintances which is what school kids need.

That's a tall order, and I know that I could use a LOT of training in that
particular science/art.

-Mat Butler