Useless Conversation

[Merusk]

Adult life isn't the fucking jungle. There is no kill or be killed, harass or be harassed.  Get on some medication for your aspergers and get some counseling.

Your need to escalate makes you the problem, not them, even if they're a giant asshole. Adults walk away because children aren't worth their time.

[Rendakor]

When someone is bothering me, I believe if I don't do something or shut it down right then and there, then that gives the other free license to hassle me. What precedent do I want to set with a hostile individual? Don't fuck with me.

If an authority is available, then I feel like I'm back at school tattling to the teacher instead of solving it myself. It's like there is no way to win without SOMEONE taking issue and seeking to "correct" me.

Too much bullying, not enough social connection.

That's a fair attitude to have. In middle school.

[schild]

When someone is bothering me, I believe if I don't do something or shut it down right then and there, then that gives the other free license to hassle me. What precedent do I want to set with a hostile individual? Don't fuck with me.

If an authority is available, then I feel like I'm back at school tattling to the teacher instead of solving it myself. It's like there is no way to win without SOMEONE taking issue and seeking to "correct" me.

Too much bullying, not enough social connection.

This is over the top. You aren't on Rikers Island, you're in a goddamn city.

[Maven]

Adult life isn't one universal thing that you can slap on someone and say "This is how everyone should behave."

These are situations I can NOT walk away. Jobs, school, something that prevents an exit response. I am not going around and playing tough guy with every person I meet.

It's so fucking easy to criticize, isn't it?

[Rendakor]

What kind of life do you live that you're getting into altercations like this constantly?

[Maven]

Rhetorical, right?

What makes you believe I get into altercations constantly? I have an incident every 2-4 months. Out of thousands of interactions, they count for an almost insignificant percentage only notable in how the escalate.

I am not financially secure. My future is uncertain, and I live in dread of incidents like these derailing long term plans because I am in such a position of weakness. I have potential provided I don't fuck up, and there's a frighteningly real chance of that.

[Maven]

I don't know how to deescalate.

[Merusk]

Every 2-4 months IS constantly.  Only people looking to get into a mess have altercations that often unless they're putting themselves into those situations.  The last one I had was 17 years ago, working as a bouncer.  AKA: when it was my JOB to do so.  

Adult life IS a universal thing you can slap on someone. That's the social rules of society; expected behaviors of adults. You say you don't understand these and we're pointing them out to you, clear as day.

You're behaving like a child and being petulant because you want to swing a bigger dick than johnny-anonymous. Who's the guy to you that you're so concerned about what they think of you? What's it costing you to walk away? Nothing. Get the ego chip off your shoulder and get help.

As for, "provided I don't fuck up"  You already fucked-up. The best you can hope for is they don't boot you out of school. You'll be on probation if they don't. However, since you say you have one of these rows every 2-4 months, you'll find you're out soon enough if you don't turn it around.

That's the reality of your situation. You can choose to ignore this because you don't like it. In fact, I expect you will because you're already puffing-up with impotent teenage angst against folks trying to tell you to just back down. This will blow up in your face because you refuse to change that behavior.

I don't know how to deescalate.

This is why you need to talk to people about it. Experts who can work with you on it.

Step one is walking away.
Step two is doing one of those 'count backwards from ten' exercises.

[Morat20]

I don't know how to deescalate.

Classroom management books generally have topics devoted to this. So do police handbooks. You can find methods and guides in psychology books and books on communication and interpersonal management as well -- escalation is a feedback cycle between one or more people, and it's quite possible to break it.

It's just generally not intuitive on how to do so. Most people's intuitive response is to feed the cycle, not break it.

[Maven]

Merusk, I disagree with a number of things you've said, and also seeing what I've written twisted or ignored to fit into your patronizing. How do you expect me to respond when, to you, I either can't listen or am too stubbon, but you're still gonna give it try, because...? What?

You want me to shut down? Childish is my McFly Chicken. I am fine 99.9% of the time with how I behave. I'm functional. But I'm an emotional pressure cooker and I am trying to get help, I am medicated, I have been in therapy for 2.5 years, so you can forget thinking I'm some ticking time bomb waiting to go off who isn't doing something about it.

When I share what I have inside it worries everyone, conclusions are lept, and I don't know what to do about that but either lie or shut up and keep it inside. However, if it is to be believed it only makes things worse in the long term.

Morat, I'll take a look but it is more emotional control than anything; either I act on my emotions or I don't, and the theraputic work has been to make the latter the standard.

[Morat20]

Morat, I'll take a look but it is more emotional control than anything; either I act on my emotions or I don't, and the theraputic work has been to make the latter the standard.

Professional detachment (I'm sure it has a real name, but it's that whole "I'm a worker here, I'm not myself, I'm an officer/clerk/teacher/aide") is a really common method. It's how staff deal with angry or abusive customers without yelling back, or police officers deal with angry citizens. Staying calm, professional, and letting it just roll off you as immaterial tends to diffuse things because it doesn't give the other person anything to latch onto.

And it shields you, because they're angry at your role -- not you. Generally they're not even angry at that. They're angry at your employer, or the law, or someone ELSE so it's not personal so you don't really care and it doesn't bother you as much.

It's hard if you have impulse control problems or anger issues though.

A lot of it's little things, like not raising your voice (but you can project it.). Tons of little tricks like that.

[Maven]

OK. I'll look into it. My work is too closely tied to my sense of self ("I am my job"); clinging to anything external that boosts my self-worth. Dysfunctional and no easy fix.

[Chimpy]

Every single response you make towards Merusk cements his point. You come across as more and more of a sociopath with every post.

Go seek professional help.

[Morat20]

OK. I'll look into it. My work is too closely tied to my sense of self ("I am my job"); clinging to anything external that boosts my self-worth. Dysfunctional and no easy fix.

I'd look into communication techniques and interpersonal relationships then. Might give you a decent toolbox of tricks to use. If you're dealing with teenagers, check stuff aimed at teachers. (It's all about not losing your authority OR engaging AND dealing with kids with authority issues as an authority figure).

There's no magic technique. But there's tools, tricks, and body language techniques that can help.

How do you think 20-something, newbie teachers manage to control junior high and high school kids? They're taught this stuff, stuff that works. You just find the techniques that work with you and your personality. (And you learn what not to do, how not to set yourself up to have to prove it if it's an act. Like projecting a hard-ass vibe works for a lot of male teachers, but what happens when a student challenges it? Even if you're capable of whipping his ass, it's not like you can do it and keep your job). People with singing training tend to use voice projection to intimidate.

I knew a teacher who used her ADHD -- she played it up -- and had a reputation with her students as a loveable clutz absolutely dedicated to teaching them. Nobody gave her grief in her classroom because other students would jump their shit. She did have ADHD and was a bit clutzy, but get a few drinks in her and she'd snicker about how the kids did all the work of policing themselves, because nobody wanted to see poor Mrs. So-and-So picked on.

Heck, if you're doing therapy anyways --ask your therapist. He can probably point you to techniques that work with your strong points, and work with whatever issues you have. And even coach you through using them. Therapists are trained in this stuff to -- they've got to get unhappy people to trust and open up to them. They have to forge connections of trust, and do so quickly.

[Maven]

Every single response you make towards Merusk cements his point. You come across as more and more of a sociopath with every post.

Go seek professional help.

It is incredibly frustrating to read "go seek help" and "walk away from the situation" after you have written that you are and you couldn't.

You don't live my life, see everything I see and experience, but you'll pass judgement from afar. Yes, I know responding to him reinforces the combatitive observation and escalatory behavior. I believe I have to defend myself. What is the alternative? Yes Sir, You Are Correct Sir?

I am not the only one involved in this interaction! If I am that obvious, then why poke?

[schild]

You're saying these situations exist but you're not giving examples.

What I suspect many of us are reading is: "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE THUG LIFE IS LIKE."

No, we don't. We're a bunch of white people (and a couple asians and a black dude) on the internet. In our entire life we haven't even had 4 altercations we couldn't walk away from. Except for maybe Sky with bears. And possibly Ironwood with brick walls.

I'm a total jerkoff elitist dick to 90% of the people I meet and i don't even encounter these sorts of situations. So let's start simple: Where in the hell are you even encountering these situations?

[Rendakor]

What schild said. The problems you're talking about literally only happened to most of us as children, that's why we're acting so surprised. No argument is worth getting in a fight, getting arrested, etc. over.

[Maven]

Los Angeles casinos for my old job, Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles for street life, and the recent incident on a culturally and racially diverse liberal arts community college campus with a large international student population in their 20's.

I live in an impoverished Hispanic working class neighborhood because the rent was cheap. It isn't as bad as other areas but is run down. I'm planning to move out of the city within the next year to the San Fernando valley to get away from the city issues into what is hopefully a less stressful environment.

The casino was the worst. Being around the homeless, broken, elderly, It is depressing. I am working to exit this situation and build a life that suits me.

I used to live in Orange County while I was at Blizzard and felt something resembling community at the company, but I haven't felt anything like that since I left.

I am gripping my seat just waiting for a poor privileged white boy comment.

[Morat20]

You're doing the same thing here you were worried about -- you're escalating the conflict. You're doing it over pride, most likely -- the desire to be right, to win, that others acknowledge they were wrong about you. (It's a failing I am intimately familiar with, as anyone here can tell you).

Step back. You got what you needed --- some useful advice, pretty much all everyone's got. So why persist? What's it matter? Nobody's really gonna even remember this in a day or so, nobody here holds your fate in their hands, frankly we're all random internet strangers who basically argue about video games and mock other people's tastes and bitch about developers. And everything else.

Take the advice I struggle with every damn day: Let it go. It's not important. Victim, bully, privileged, not privileged....what's to be gained by continuing to argue? A transient change in people's perception of you? A change that'll last days at most, before it goes down the memory hole?

[HaemishM]

It's like there is no way to win without SOMEONE taking issue and seeking to "correct" me.

Again, you are giving WAY TOO MANY FUCKS. Some people are dicks and don't deserve the time and effort you expend on them in any way, shape or form. The sooner you learn to determine which ones are worth the effort and which aren't, the happier you'll be.

[HaemishM]

What makes you believe I get into altercations constantly? I have an incident every 2-4 months.

That's entirely too many "altercations." PERIOD. Even if you aren't being an asshole, you are the problem if you get into situations every 2-4 months that you can't walk away from.

[schild]

Los Angeles casinos for my old job, Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles for street life, and the recent incident on a culturally and racially diverse liberal arts community college campus with a large international student population in their 20's.

I live in an impoverished Hispanic working class neighborhood because the rent was cheap. It isn't as bad as other areas but is run down. I'm planning to move out of the city within the next year to the San Fernando valley to get away from the city issues into what is hopefully a less stressful environment.

The casino was the worst. Being around the homeless, broken, elderly, It is depressing. I am working to exit this situation and build a life that suits me.

I used to live in Orange County while I was at Blizzard and felt something resembling community at the company, but I haven't felt anything like that since I left.

I am gripping my seat just waiting for a poor privileged white boy comment.

None of these are examples of conflicts.

Also, yes, you're white. There's no reason to grip your seat, you're clearly not self-aware as to how lucky you are.

Give me a single example of a conflict from you could not escape that you could not avoid. A single one. Because I have a strong feeling there's a perception issue here.

[Mazakiel]

I could maybe see that the situation couldn't be escaped from once the police were involved, but that still goes back to the question of why the hell the police were dragged into it in the first place.  If I read it right, he called you names, so you called the cops?

Definitely follow up on Morat's advice.  If the therapist you're seeing now doesn't seem willing to try something different, you might want to find a new one.  If stuff like this is really happening every 2-4 months, that's way, way too often.  Especially if stuff like this is happening over classroom issues.   

[Strazos]

shit be crazy

[Maven]

None of these are examples of conflicts.

Give me a single example of a conflict from you could not escape that you could not avoid. A single one. Because I have a strong feeling there's a perception issue here.

I answered your question as precisely as I could. You asked where I'm encountering situations.

I'm taking Morat's advice. I don't know what this vision of social conduct is that you all have but it is not a normal part of my experience, and maybe it's great I'm entering college and having to learn just what that is, because I wasn't learning it anywhere else.

[schild]

Man. You can learn it from Saved by the Bell. Which is a great one because its exclusively for white people problems.

Im sorry I shifted the goal posts in my previous post. Please to be giving a specific example of inescapable conflict, thx.

[Ironwood]

I have no fucking idea what happened in here, but at least Schild made me laugh during it.

Fuck sake.

'Useless' People !! Useless !!

[rattran]

Leftover IKEA meatballs make a terrible breakfast.


That is all.

[Nebu]

Leftover IKEA meatballs make a terrible breakfast.


That is all.

And... we're back!

[Khaldun]

IKEA meatballs are bad even when they're not leftovers. Better to just go play in the ballpit and pretend you're watching someone's kid.

[Samwise]

I like em fine, but pretty much anything tastes fine when it's smothered in gravy and lingonberry sauce.

[Paelos]

For heaven's sake people, make your own meatballs. It's freaking easy.

Here's a simple recipe. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/baked-meatballs-recipe.html

You can change the meats and if you want spinach. But the idea is the same. Make your own meatballs, bake them, it's easy. Dump ingredients in a bowl, mix with hands, form into ballls, put on a pan, bake.

[Merusk]

The attraction of Ikea meatballs is largely that they're pretty goddamn cheap. I'ts like 3.99 for a dozen.

Which should also be the warning label that indicates, "Hey, don't eat these the next day."

[Salamok]

anything tastes fine when it's smothered in gravy and lingonberry sauce.

Crosses Samwise off of list of people to ask where good places to eat are

[Morat20]

anything tastes fine when it's smothered in gravy and lingonberry sauce.

Crosses Samwise off of list of people to ask where good places to eat are

If you're ever in Houston, I can give you some names. None of which rely on gravy and/or lingonberry sauce. Although admittedly, most of them are a bit harder on the ole' wallet than Ikea. :)