Offended people are good at keeping track of what general topic is being talked about but not what is said about or how it is being discussed.
Seems to me that instead of specific details they remember a generalization, but the problem is that (at least from the other person’s view) they generalized it incorrectly.
Example: I say that I disagree with something specific that some other person X said. The other person decides to remember that I hate [a large group of people X belongs to]. The specific argument I disagreed with or the specific person X is forgotten.
Offended people easily distort things like time, the number of times something repetitive happened, etc.
Also, they can artificially increase the number of repetitions by recalling the offending topic.
For example, on day 1 I say “X” and the other person gets offended. I apologize and decide to avoid the topic further. However, on day 2, the person reminds me: “you are the one who said X, aren’t you?”. The same thing happens on days 3, 4, 5. At the end, the person remembers that I spent five days offending them.
Offended people write about their own actions as if they are doing everything they can to keep the situation peaceful
Sometimes the proposed peace plan is: “you call off everything you ever said, whether related or unrelated to the offensive topic, and you also precommit to agree with me on everything in the future”. And then the person is surprised how could such a generous offer get rejected.
Offended people [...] stop taking the person’s words at face value and start reading more into connotation.
I would call it: at some moment they start arguing with themselves (with their mental image of The Enemy). You could stay completely quiet or walk away, and the conflict would still escalate. Every word you say only makes the situation worse, because by mere act of responding you legitimize their monologue.
(Meta: Having this experience first-hand could also be an evidence for my low communication skills. Or at least the low skill of detecting and carefully avoiding mentally unstable people.)
Usually my intuition warns me “with this person there will be some trouble”, but I understand that this information is not very helpful. Perhaps only in form: If you have a feeling that this person may cause trouble, notice the feeling and remember it, even if you don’t or can’t act on in.
Specific things which warned me about a person, and later were confirmed; possible confirmation bias here:
There was a new guy at a workplace, and he immediately tried to be friendly with me, spoke about becoming allies in case of a conflict, and gave me unsolicited advice about how to defend or counter-attack in case of a conflict. I was generally polite but refused any deeper discussion. Later he created many conflicts with many people because of his incompetence and unethical behavior, and despite having some powerful allies he was finally fired.
There was a lady I met at a meetup from a different website. We changed contacts and she started sending me e-mails, at least three every day; and if I didn’t respond within a few hours, she sent another e-mail asking whether I was angry at her. When I said I simply didn’t have time, she said I should not lie because she saw me commenting on the website. Then she stalked me for three years and blackmailed me, but I cut off all communication with her, so after three years she gave up.
There was a guy recommended to me by mutual friends, because he wanted to start some computer project, so my friends thought I should talk with him because he is extremely smart and the project may be interesting for me. So I met him. He seemed and smelled like a homeless person, and he started by offending me; but he really was very smart, and I admit that while talking with him for a few hours I learned a lot about programming (and I learned more later reading the list of books he recommended me). Despite that, I wanted to avoid him. My friends kept pressing me into cooperating with him, saying that yes he is weird, but he is so smart the he will become a millionaire soon. At the end I lended him some money for his project. I never saw those money again; the guy gradually became crazy, lost his business, all money, home, friends, and today he really is homeless.
There was a teacher at university who started her first lesson by saying: “I never make problems to students, if they study my lessons carefully.” She did a lot of problems to many students.
There was an older guy on a (non-LW) meetup I organized once. He did not fit in the group, so he focused on me, and wanted my attention all the time. While other people had fun for the next few hours (I suppose), I kept answering his questions about why his e-mail does not work, why his printer does not work, and thousand other IT support questions. At the end I was so tired that I never organized another meetup for the same audience.
There was a girl in my class who said everyone hated her. At the first day I said “Hello” and she said “You probably hate me too”. I said I don’t. I tried to talk a bit, but she reacted offended at everything, especially the things I did not say but she heard them anyway. At the end of the day I really hated her. Then I just avoided her, and everything was okay.
These are the examples that came to my mind quickly. Is there a common pattern?
One pattern seems to be: People who have many conflicts learn to expect conflicts. So if you meet someone who expects conflicts and talks about it, consider that maybe they start all the conflicts. Either by doing something evil, or by reacting insanely disproportionally on normal behavior of other people. They are probably doing this for years, so they are unlikely to change tomorrow.
Other pattern: If something strange happens in the beginning, expect 10 times more strange things following later. So if the first contact felt unpleasant to you, run!
There was a guy recommended to me by mutual friends, because he wanted to start some computer project, so my friends thought I should talk with him because he is extremely smart and the project may be interesting for me. So I met him. He seemed and smelled like a homeless person, and he started by offending me; but he really was very smart, and I admit that while talking with him for a few hours I learned a lot about programming (and I learned more later reading the list of books he recommended me). Despite that, I wanted to avoid him. My friends kept pressing me into cooperating with him, saying that yes he is weird, but he is so smart the he will become a millionaire soon. At the end I lended him some money for his project. I never saw those money again; the guy gradually became crazy, lost his business, all money, home, friends, and today he really is homeless.
Seems to me that instead of specific details they remember a generalization, but the problem is that (at least from the other person’s view) they generalized it incorrectly.
Example: I say that I disagree with something specific that some other person X said. The other person decides to remember that I hate [a large group of people X belongs to]. The specific argument I disagreed with or the specific person X is forgotten.
Also, they can artificially increase the number of repetitions by recalling the offending topic.
For example, on day 1 I say “X” and the other person gets offended. I apologize and decide to avoid the topic further. However, on day 2, the person reminds me: “you are the one who said X, aren’t you?”. The same thing happens on days 3, 4, 5. At the end, the person remembers that I spent five days offending them.
Sometimes the proposed peace plan is: “you call off everything you ever said, whether related or unrelated to the offensive topic, and you also precommit to agree with me on everything in the future”. And then the person is surprised how could such a generous offer get rejected.
I would call it: at some moment they start arguing with themselves (with their mental image of The Enemy). You could stay completely quiet or walk away, and the conflict would still escalate. Every word you say only makes the situation worse, because by mere act of responding you legitimize their monologue.
(Meta: Having this experience first-hand could also be an evidence for my low communication skills. Or at least the low skill of detecting and carefully avoiding mentally unstable people.)
Fortunately, the conflict doesn’t have me in it.
My favorite skill. In fact, this almost deserves an entry into that “Advice” thread that is floating around!
Any particular advice on how to detect/avoid mentally unstable people?
Usually my intuition warns me “with this person there will be some trouble”, but I understand that this information is not very helpful. Perhaps only in form: If you have a feeling that this person may cause trouble, notice the feeling and remember it, even if you don’t or can’t act on in.
Specific things which warned me about a person, and later were confirmed; possible confirmation bias here:
There was a new guy at a workplace, and he immediately tried to be friendly with me, spoke about becoming allies in case of a conflict, and gave me unsolicited advice about how to defend or counter-attack in case of a conflict. I was generally polite but refused any deeper discussion. Later he created many conflicts with many people because of his incompetence and unethical behavior, and despite having some powerful allies he was finally fired.
There was a lady I met at a meetup from a different website. We changed contacts and she started sending me e-mails, at least three every day; and if I didn’t respond within a few hours, she sent another e-mail asking whether I was angry at her. When I said I simply didn’t have time, she said I should not lie because she saw me commenting on the website. Then she stalked me for three years and blackmailed me, but I cut off all communication with her, so after three years she gave up.
There was a guy recommended to me by mutual friends, because he wanted to start some computer project, so my friends thought I should talk with him because he is extremely smart and the project may be interesting for me. So I met him. He seemed and smelled like a homeless person, and he started by offending me; but he really was very smart, and I admit that while talking with him for a few hours I learned a lot about programming (and I learned more later reading the list of books he recommended me). Despite that, I wanted to avoid him. My friends kept pressing me into cooperating with him, saying that yes he is weird, but he is so smart the he will become a millionaire soon. At the end I lended him some money for his project. I never saw those money again; the guy gradually became crazy, lost his business, all money, home, friends, and today he really is homeless.
There was a teacher at university who started her first lesson by saying: “I never make problems to students, if they study my lessons carefully.” She did a lot of problems to many students.
There was an older guy on a (non-LW) meetup I organized once. He did not fit in the group, so he focused on me, and wanted my attention all the time. While other people had fun for the next few hours (I suppose), I kept answering his questions about why his e-mail does not work, why his printer does not work, and thousand other IT support questions. At the end I was so tired that I never organized another meetup for the same audience.
There was a girl in my class who said everyone hated her. At the first day I said “Hello” and she said “You probably hate me too”. I said I don’t. I tried to talk a bit, but she reacted offended at everything, especially the things I did not say but she heard them anyway. At the end of the day I really hated her. Then I just avoided her, and everything was okay.
These are the examples that came to my mind quickly. Is there a common pattern?
One pattern seems to be: People who have many conflicts learn to expect conflicts. So if you meet someone who expects conflicts and talks about it, consider that maybe they start all the conflicts. Either by doing something evil, or by reacting insanely disproportionally on normal behavior of other people. They are probably doing this for years, so they are unlikely to change tomorrow.
Other pattern: If something strange happens in the beginning, expect 10 times more strange things following later. So if the first contact felt unpleasant to you, run!
Is this Richard Stallman by any chance?
When did Stallman start a business?
I figured he might have talked about starting one when he was working on lisp machines.