Mind Games

[DrFaroohk]

Here's one I experienced from my childhood a couple of times. I like to call it the "It's not about me" bait and switch. The idea is to make an accusatory statement or gesture toward someone, but when they defend themselves or apologize, claim it's "not about me it's about you".

Example: say a teacher wants to confront Billy about his grade. She goes over and says "Billy! You got the lowest score on the test!". Billy apologizes, but the teacher than responds "Well don't apologize to me! It's YOUR future!". The thing is, if it's not about her, why did she make such a stink about it? Surely Billy is aware he got the bad grade so why bring it up to him? And why act like you're taking it so personally?

We must've grown up in the same town!

I was Billy a lot, and my sorry was usually met with one of three things. The first is your example, the second is "Well sorry isn't good enough!" and the third is "Well you're just sorry you got caught. You're not sorry."

Or, when Billy gets called out in front of the class and tries to defend himself, the teacher all of a sudden backs off and puts her shields up*, thus further alienating Billy and making him self conscious and insecure because now he's wrong again.



*shields up - those magic phrases that make you impervious to harm. Such as "Well that's just MY opinion". Or "Hey, I'm just trying to help you why are you getting so defensive".

[HYHYBT]

Most people notice this and leave me alone except to say excuse me. Every once in awhile people will come up try to speak to me. I ignore them. They start waving their hands in my face. I ignore them and I continue to ignore them and then they start huffing around offended because how dare I ignore them..

From here, it sounds like *you're* playing mind games in that situation. After all, you *could* respond with a "leave me alone."

[DrFaroohk]

From here, it sounds like *you're* playing mind games in that situation. After all, you *could* respond with a "leave me alone."

Unless it's a habitual thing. They know she wants to be left alone, the statement was already there. If saying it once didn't work saying it twice won't work either.

I do that with Faroohk Jr. a lot. he hasn't learned about interrupting yet, even though he's been told, so frequently when he's interrupting someone else talking we just ignore him. It's kind of funny how stubborn he is about it sometimes. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. MAMA. MAMA. MAMA. MAMA. MAMA. MAMA....

[Mytical]

Though I don't do the silent treatment, I am a very emotional and sensitive person. Sometimes I need to just be left alone for a bit.

One of my favorite peeves is "You should know what's wrong." So..I am now suddenly psychic? To me that is a mind game *shrug*. Tell me what is wrong, and then I will discuss it or try to make up for whatever. I don't play guessing games.

[DrFaroohk]

Though I don't do the silent treatment, I am a very emotional and sensitive person. Sometimes I need to just be left alone for a bit.

One of my favorite peeves is "You should know what's wrong." So..I am now suddenly psychic? To me that is a mind game *shrug*. Tell me what is wrong, and then I will discuss it or try to make up for whatever. I don't play guessing games.

That's good to a point, but I think as I said earlier, some people you expect to know things about you. For instance I know that my wife wants a footrub after her long shifts at work. It's very rare that she has to ask for one, because I just know. I pay attention and i know she likes footrubs. If I suddenly just decided no more footrubs, I'd expect her to get a little pissy about it too.

[bara]

I love the Silent Treatment.

Depending on who it is I consider this a blessing.

My neice tried this once, I think I told her to do the dishes or something equally dastardly.

It was nice being able to hear the show I was watching.

[blas87]

Oh, sure. The silence is kind of a blessing. It's just the game itself and the expectation that I should "know" what I did wrong that drives me nuts.

[jackfaire]

From here, it sounds like *you're* playing mind games in that situation. After all, you *could* respond with a "leave me alone."

How so? It's quite obvious I am doing my own thing. I have head phones on and am reading.

I used to try the, "Look could you please just leave alone tact"

Which often led into long conversations about how it is rude for me to not want to socialize with that person.

See the problem is that it's actually often seen by people as more rude to acknowledge them for the sole purpose to let them know you will be ignoring them.

Try an experiment have your friend go over and talk to someone who is obviously in the mood to be alone and to keep hounding that person until they acknowledge your friend's presence then when that person inevitably says, "Look I am trying to relax could you please just leave me alone"

9 times out of 10 your friend will come back in a huff complaining about how rude the other person was.

It's a social VS nonsocial thing. I am a nonsocial person in that I am not always on. I don't need other people to validate my existence I don't start to freak out if people aren't paying attention to me in some small way. I don't feel entitled to the attention of others many of these people do.

[blas87]

There's one person whose silent treatments, I look forward to and relish every moment of.

When Brown Noser gets pissed or is depressed, whether it's work or home related, he won't talk for hours. Once, it was two days.

The best work days of my life. No babbling, rambling, and contradicting and going on about how great he is.

I need to find new ways to piss him off so he shuts up more often.

[blas87]

Bumpity.

Just thought of another one.

I hate people who, especially when you don't get to spend a lot of time together, choose to spend the little time you have together arguing with you or picking a fight or doing the damn "shoulder shrug" answer to everything. Or the people who you really only can talk to via text or phone calls, get mad at you for whatever reason and choose to ignore you or send you rude or short messages when you could be spending that precious time talking like normal. But hey, no big loss for me. More time to skim here and CS and clean my apartment and not have to worry about your whiney, needy self.

Or, when you're having a wonderful time together, for no reason, they have to bring up "So why did you say this to me three weeks ago?" (say you had a disagreement or something). HELLO? We just had a wonderful dinner and movie date, we're cuddling, and you're picking a fight with me?!

I understand a lot of people want the other person in a decent mood when they need to talk about something possibly a hot topic, but that's just almost entrapment right there. Talk about a cheap shot.

[HYHYBT]

When would you prefer they find out why you acted in what they perceived as an out-of-character manner? Surely not when you *haven't* calmed down.

[blas87]

I don't get what you're debating with me here. I think it was pretty clear, I don't like it when someone decides (when you barely see each other as it is) to take what little time you have together, to take up grievances with you, and I also hate when people ruin a perfectly good time by randomly bringing up things you've fought about or something that will cause a fight.

No one should be "buttered up" before they are talked to. You got a problem with me, or we need to talk? Then tell me. Don't wait until we've had a great dinner, seen a movie, and are cuddling lovingly on the couch to bring up "So why did you ask for my help with this and then go do it yourself?"

And if I only see you in person once every few weeks or so, don't you dare wait until the little time we have together in person to start something with me.

[HYHYBT]

It's not necessarily "starting something." (Well, unless the person being asked absolutely INSISTS on making it so.) OK, Past Event is over... but I want to clear the air, see where things went wrong, and avoid something like that happening in the future. When *would* be a good time to do that?

[jackfaire]

. When *would* be a good time to do that?

See in my family if you had beef and you wanted to talk about it you lead with that.

It was considered bad form to have a perfectly pleasant evening and then ambush the person with that.

Because that's what it is. Obviously if the person is bringing it up then it's not like it just occured to them a second ago they have been thinking and dwelling on it.

Which leaves one of two options

1) They have horrible timing when it comes to discussing things.

or

2) They were trying to get you into a vulnerable position before attacking you.


The thing is people should discuss a thing that's bothering them as soon as possible. No later than the next day. Even if it has to be done in a form other than in person. Hell not doing it in person can even help.

But no starting a fight, which yes if your bringing up a heated topic from the past your starting a fight, during a nice evening is not right. If it's a new fight fine but it's not suddenly okay to do the

"Well I am still mad about this thing" Because it's a guy.

How many jokes are there about women bringing up old fights.

It's not right when either gender does it. If you didn't address the fight when it was an issue then get over it.

Unless you think the President should ask, "Hey France you remember when you came over and helped us fight the British? Did that mean you wanna go steady?"

[blas87]

I agree, that was much better put than what I said.

It's bad form. Ambushing a person, or taking advantage of a particularly nice or rare quiet, enjoyable evening to jump on someone with "So why did you tell me the other day that I was fat?"

It's a bit of a cache 22. It's never a good time to "start" anything with someone. It's always difficult to find a good time to bring up issues. Holidays, birthdays, obviously are REALLY bad times, but it's also not fair to someone to ambush them when everything is going so well.

I forgot this one on page one. I don't know how I forgot. People putting words in others' mouths. I HATE it.

Like recently, I called someone out on stereotyping people who go to the gym for being muscle bound assholes. I said that I have a lot of friends who like to work out, and it's a hobby and no one should be made to feel bad because they enjoy getting into good shape.

The retort? "So, I'm in bad shape?!"

No, I NEVER said that.

Some people's insecurities are their own detonators that completely destroy friendships and relationships. Sometimes, it's best to shut your damn mouth and quit assuming people are calling you fat or stupid when they aren't even talking about you at all!