DMFParadox
Posts: 1405
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyNTrainer
To clarify, I am referring to the methods you have described of conscious manipulation, deception, misrepresentation, misdirection, etc. What would you prefer it be called? Your modus operandi?
The 'ugh' was for how hung up you are on your outrage. Not for the appellations.
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyNTrainer
While I groom professionally when it is appropriate, which means makeup for pro sessions and business clothing for vanilla presentation, in my personal life I am simply me, plain and honest.
Oh. Ok. So all the other women who wear makeup, do their hair and dress up for a date are being dishonest.
In my opinion, it's an area like any other - if you've got talent for it, or it's fun, do it. If not, don't. I don't necessarily feel like I've been cheated by a good makeup job, but I'll wince at a bad one.
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyNTrainer
I am most comfortable simply being me, being totally transparent and direct with no artifice or bullshit. Nothing is hidden, everything is real.
You are certainly not alone in your assertion.
And therein lies the problem.
Besides, any claim of 'completely honest' ignores the limitations of any system of logic. Truth always, without exception, reaches a place where it becomes falsehood - and I'm talking physics and math here, not just language. But that's antinomy and the Incompleteness Theorem of proof theory; a completely different topic.
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyNTrainer
We are transparent to one another and share a high level of trust and honesty, because that's how all of us function best. None of us cope well with the typical social games of deception and artifice that seem to be the mainstream standard. We're all on the same page and very happy together, and we have been for some years.
With years of understanding and work, I can see that. But I think you've forgotten what it's like to be single and looking.
A good analogy I like to use here is the cellphone industry... cellphones, when the technology first came out, were practically pyramid schemes. Companies had to pull all kinds of tricks to pull customers in; because a lot of the benefits of the service only kick in once you have a reasonable level of custom. Before then, you were overspending for your individual benefit.
As time progressed, the nonsense got shaken out of the system. Companies became far more interested in providing service and value than in advertising and infrastructure.
These days, the American public is completely sold on the idea of cellphones. And it's hard to find people who remember how dishonest the industry used to be, because the reality eventually matched the promise. But that promise depended on a certain level of participation, and to get it, companies created long-term contracts with misleading terms, hidden rates, misleading service areas... And grew into the job. It could not have happened without this chain of events.
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyNTrainer
Are they by any chance on the autistic spectrum? Not saying that it's a prerequisite for being fundamentally an honest person, but it seems to be a fairly good indicator.
No.
In my experience, autistic folk are bad liars, but not necessarily good at being honest. I worked at a nursing home for a couple years, so I'm not completely drawing this from my ass.
Complete honesty requires time to shake through your own illusions, and autistics have as much trouble with that as anyone else. Just in different places.
Think of some of the painfully obvious things that, shall we say autistics of 3 or 4 standard deviations from norm experience trouble with.
They only seem obvious to you and me because our natural mental habits don't jive with them. So the importance of Judge Wapner being on at 3PM just doesn't matter to us.
We can see this from the outside... but struggle with the idea of trying to identify with the logic.
The same holds for autistics that are more mainline, but some of them reach a point where the differences and the similarities make no difference.
If I had to estimate, I'd say I fell on the opposite side of that curve... I'm far more intuitively able to grasp motivations and subtle signals. Though not perfect at it, I'm better than the average bear. So it's like dealing with a world full of autistics.
I have to slow down, hold their hands and say, "Ok, we'll fucking watch Wapner already." Doesn't mean I don't think y'all can eventually be trained better. It's culture as much as anything else; "God grant me the courage to change the things I can..."
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyNTrainer
In my experience, neurotypicals can't be, but autistic people actually can; we tend to have a very hard time being deceptive or perceiving other people's deception. S'why I only date other geeks and nerds.
Fucking hilarious link. I smirked. It was a real moment.
Kind of like Dihydrogen Monoxide, in a way. --> dhmo.org
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyNTrainer
Actually, this touches on one of our fundamental mindset differences. You're right; it's a waste of time, and probably socially inappropriate, to ask a neurotypical person if they are capable of being honest or dishonest with an intimate partner. You will never get good data. That's clear to me now that I'm actually thinking about it, and now that you're pointing it out. But this is one of those things that doesn't natively occur to me because my mind doesn't operate that way.
You're getting there, but you're not there yet. Try to conceive that such data is intrinsically resistant to disclosure; a kind of natural entropic loop.
You might enjoy this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28information_theory%29
Information theory is fucking fascinating.
Anyway.
Different behavior sets work for different population sizes. At a population of 1 man/1 woman, alone on an island, only the islands where the two find an accord of some kind will produce children.
Imagine how having just one more man on those islands can change behavior. Don't try to think of it in terms of humans; think of it in terms of game theory, a la Nash, another interesting autistic. Also a paranoid delusional, but I digress.
A tribe is where things get interesting. Please note that y chromosomes don't play nice with girl children; unless a man has a son, his y is gone... forever. The same holds true of mitochondria inside the woman's eggs. But women have an advantage: they know exactly who their children are. Men can't. Think on how this affects jealousy, dominance, competition, etc., etc....
Now fast forward to a society where you can literally encounter thousands of people in any given week. Hundreds of single men, looking. Hundreds of single women, trying to weigh options. The signal to noise ratio is appalling.
Most of that 'noise' is: Be yourself; Be honest; be funny. This is repeated over and over, but for those men searching, it doesn't work.
I can give you an example of using 'honest' dishonesty. A few years ago, I was with a few friends and went to a favorite coffee shop of mine. I walked in, saw a girl sitting at the table -- looked like a writing group or something -- we walked in and sat down on the other side of the place.
I sat with my friends for a few minutes, then said "Watch this" and got up and walked over to the girl. Stopping right in front of her, I modified my body language to display complete confidence. Lie. I said, "I just wanted to say that I thought you were the prettiest girl in the room." true, as far as it goes. "I couldn't help myself" Lie "I just had to do this. Hope you can forgive me."
I went back and sat down.
Before I went up to her, I made a point of having a loud, friendly conversation with the barista, who I already knew. My friends were there to back me up and 'congratulate' me. Which they did with no prompting. The stage was set. Manipulation, pure and simple.
The writing group started to pack their bags and get ready to go. At that point, the girl wrote something down, got up and came directly to our table. It was a note with her phone number and said "call me sometime" with a heart drawn on it.
My buddy "Mick" looked over and said, "Dude, you are my HERO."
Now let me ask you this. Did I lie? Yep. Fully aware of it, too. Did I manipulate? I sure as hell did. Do I feel bad about it? NO. Do I think I did wrong by that girl? FUCK. NO.
This, I think, is where you're getting your definitions mixed up. This was a simple example, where most of the elements were already in play and I only had to nudge things a bit; but imagine I'm walking into a restaurant cold, never been there before, and I'm completely alone. What will I do?
I'll ask the cook to come out, or the manager, and compliment them. If there's a bar, I'll stand there and 'wait' for service and strike up a conversation with the trucker next to me. Then I'll tell him "Watch this" and go hit on the girl. With the waitress smiling at me because I already told her I was thinking about doing something like that.
Are we on the same page yet?
If I can't generate social proof, I won't try the grandmaster approach. What I'll do is go ask an opener question. Then go through the process where I 'accidentally' demonstrate how much I rock, then demand (in not so many words) the girl prove to me that she rocks too. Then we'll begin a mutual appreciation society on how awesome we are.
But If I do this: If I just go up to a girl and say, "Hey, I'm single and looking. You probably don't meet my standards but I'd like to find out if you do. Are you game?" I'd be being completely honest, and I'd fail almost every time.
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyNTrainer
It's a "dog ate my homework" moment. The first time an autistic hears that expression they are very likely to respond by explaining that canines are primarily carnivores and do not consume paper products. It takes at least one more hearing, some clear explanation or a lot of hard thinking before we figure out why someone would choose to communicate that way, and exactly what they are trying to communicate. The first time we hear it, we'll take it literally and respond the same way with a factual dialogue. Obviously this is neither appropriate nor productive when dealing with people who think "normally", so we have to learn better strategies.
You could ask me that same question and get a serious and thoughtful answer about the circumstances under which I might be prepared to be either honest or dishonest. I made the mistake of projecting my own mode of response onto people who fundamentally don't think like me, and you're right, the results are illogical.
And no, I wouldn't ask for references, though that would probably be the only way to get good data on the subject. I would be more likely to avoid an intimate relationship with a neurotypical, because I agree with you on the "everybody lies" thing, and I'm not wired to deal with it.
O.k.
< Message edited by DMFParadox -- 11/3/2010 5:40:07 PM >
_____________________________
bloody hell, get me some aspirin and a whiskey straight
"The role of gender in society is the most complicated thing I’ve ever spent a lot of time learning about, and I’ve spent a lot of time learning about quantum mechanics." - Randall Munroe
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RE: How many times should one make a request. - 
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