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[flamingsword]

Bless LJs save draft function! I'm writing this from a computer at the public library, because the laptop is down, probably 'til this weekend. Most of you have my cell number, if you need me.

[saved lj post continues]
Now, since I couldn't read or sit up for longer than a half hour on Thursday, I had lots of time to think. Yes, I am only just getting to the typing it out part as I am easily distractable. Have a look at some of my thinky thoughts!

Some of you have this mistaken belief that you can take care of your social network without being taken care of. Let me draw up the charts and graphs that illustrate how very wrong you are! :D Pay no attention to my own history behind the curtain!

So first take this out of your own perspective and make it impersonal. Person A likes to help others but doesn't like to be helped, person B can do either and likes both reasonably well, and person C likes being helped more than helping. These three people are a tiny network of friends, a microcosm of interaction. If person C gets hit with a big life event and needs help, C will tell A and B, they will help, and everything is okay. If person B gets hit similarly, A will help. If person A gets hit, nobody will help unless A tells someone which may not happen. Now factor in the way that life works. If A is still staggering under the last hit when B needs help, C will have to step up despite not liking to do so.

That seems fair, right? We expect that friends go out of their way to help keep everyone taken care of, that C should have to do some sharing of the burden to make sure the situation works out better? If so, then A should suck it up, too, and tell the network of troubles and let them help. I don't care if you A people don't like my logic here. Your reticence is potentially just as damaging as C's unhelpfulness.

When one person does all the work in a relationship it gets thrown out of balance and it stays that way. If those doing less work are lead to believe that the A types are okay then we get complacent with thoughts of, "What an amazingly self-sufficient band of friends I've made!" And then we B types get used to doing nothing. It trains us all to be lazy. You encourage interpersonal apathy when you deny your network access to your troubles. Greedy bastards! We LIKE to help, and you're keeping all the potential helping-out away from where we can see it. It's like hiding the donuts in the company break room in the bottom of the fridge: serious asshole maneuver.

Meanwhile you are sometimes NOT okay, and are hiding this fact from us which is lying. Lies of omission are still going to make everyone, even the Cs, feel bad later because you didn't trust us to step up and take care of you, or you didn't want our help. Using us to make yourself feel better by taking care of us is malicious altruism. It does not qualify as friendship nor good networking behavior.

So think of it like a finacial organization, what we have is revolving community credit. It's not that any one of us is accepting charity as it is that we're taking control of some of the excess capital until the next person needs it. We nurture the community nest egg, and then pass it along.

(And to those who don't trust their Cs: if you don't believe in them, why are they your friends?)

Comments

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

*cat-burglars in to steal problems*

*also take a cookie and a bucket*

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

I will be at the club Friday, and may have Sunday afternoon/night free to hang. You got my #?

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

If only it were as easy to put into practice as it is to agree with the theory!

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

If it were easy to be awesome, everyone would do it.

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

Trouble happens, though, when the A speaks up with a problem they'd like help with, and nobody makes time to help -- or, if they do, they make A pay for the help three times over in coin of guilt. There's only so many times A will open the door and say 'I could use a hand here' if all ze ever gets is excuses, and promises that 'next time, for sure! You know I'm there for ya, right?' before ascertaining that no, the B's and C's are NOT there for them, and it's all a case of 'what have you done for me lately?'

Not to sound jaded or anything... but there's usually a reason why A's don't trust other people to back them up, and it's usually to do with a statistical pattern of people NOT backing them up when it counts.

[tanniynim.livejournal.com]

This.

[lifeblender.livejournal.com]

If they still keep giving, there's still imbalance, and I think one of her points is that it eventually hurts the people they try to help by training them poorly.

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

Indeed. If you keep supporting people who don't support you, the system doesn't work. Not telling a dysfunctional network about your problems is still not helping create a stable, functional group dynamic.

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the problem is that you need a new network. I know, I love some unreliable people, too. But I know what they are, don't rely on them, and call bullshit on them when they pull it. You call bullshit on people you don't like, but I think maybe you were raised not to 'be mean' to your friends. You and Tim both have some of that pattern, and I get that you've been burned. I know it's there for a reason.

But now you have this confirmation bias that will show you greed and unconcern where it doesn't exist, and that's eventually going to be a whole separate problem.

[tanniynim.livejournal.com]

"(And to those who don't trust their Cs: if you don't believe in them, why are they your friends?)"

They aren't. But I still remain in communication because their daughter is fantastic and needs good role models.

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

I try to be there for my cousins and second cousins who are too young to understand how backward their being raised. I try to give them some support that doesn't come with conditions and disclaimers and agendas. How this will turn out, I am unsure, but *shrugs* it can't hurt.

Strangely, I love a lot of people that I absolutely cannot count on. And while it bothers me, at least I know what they are. I don't feel the emotional need to pretend that their my friends even if I'm related to them. Not everyone can do the Zen of Not Caring thing. I feel for you guys sometimes.

[marilla82.livejournal.com]

I just always feel horribly GUILTY about asking for help. Usually so much so that I it's not worth the asking.

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

I hate to point the 'you've got issues' finger at anyone, considering my history, but it IS a problem. And it's not something that natural to humans, it's a learned behavior. All babies cry. All children ask for help when they need it.

But if you keep making that child feel guilty for the things they need, or not giving it to them, or keep denying they need it . . . eventually people just stop asking. We have our reasons, but as a behavior it's always pathological. It is never a good thing to feel bad inside for being what you are. Any time you feel bad for something that harms no one, question WHY you feel that way. Then fix it.

Life would be a lot more beautiful if we could all throw away the boxes we were taught to live in.

[franceschina.livejournal.com]

Actually, I didn't cry as a baby. My parents were really scared a couple of times, because I was so quiet.

Of course, a lifetime of reinforcement does kind of, well... reinforce that type of thing.

And just for the record, I don't personally think that assistance is the only "currency of friendship." Your mileage may vary, offer not valid if shrinkwrap removed, please see your doctor for possible side-effects.

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

My cousin Jayden would fuss and whimper, even if he didn't shriek. He was the quietest baby the family had ever seen.

He asks for anything that takes his fancy. He doesn't pout if he doesn't get it, but he will ask for any and everything. He lives with his grandmother, who doesn't exactly spoil him, but she gives him anything she thinks he should have. He asked if he could have my laptop when I saw him last. I thought 'this kid has a future in charity work. or possibly politics'. I said no and he shrugged and asked if I had any Nelly songs on it he could listen to. Odd kid. Definitely related to me.

A, B, And C...

[nyyki.livejournal.com]

The A's have C's in the social network because they like to help but don't like to be helped, or have some aversion to putting themselves out there to get help. So trust isn't really needed, because the C's are fulfilling a function for the A's -- someone to help. Chances are good that the C's need a lot of help. So the A's can enable the C's. It's not a healthy dynamic, but it is functional in its own twisted way. (And this isn't a healthy twisted, either)
Also remember that extroverts tend to collect friends like skanks tend to collect STD's, so they may not feel the need to trust everyone because they have a large social network.
What you're really describing here is the pendulum experiment from an Acoustics lecture that simulates wave propogation. Take two pendula and link them, and then set one in motion. The motion of that one transfers to the other one, and that one stops. Then the energy is transferred back. Link in another, and the energy is transferred down the line and back again in something of a wave. When I saw this in Acoustics class it hit me that there was something deeper in the experiment that dealt with something metaphysical, but it took some time deliberating while I was lying in the hospital losing my sight to figure it out. (Ironic, that, as my inability to ask for help when needed is one of the reasons I lost my sight in the first place) This kind of energy transfer is important for the following reason: GGrab one pendulum, arresting its energy flow, and th entire system stops. This is true even if it's the currently static one, as energy transfer to it will arrest the entire system.

[rens-sanctuary.livejournal.com]

"Thank you, no, I require nothing at this juncture." Except aspirin, my head hurts. :( And open-minded friends of the IRL type.

-hordes everything.- :P

[flamingsword.livejournal.com]

*hands you the headache meds* Here you go. Moving to a city any time soon? You won't find freaks and open-minded culture in the countryside.

You know, Dallas is quite nice this time of year. I'm just saying.

[rens-sanctuary.livejournal.com]

:D

[raasalhayya.livejournal.com]

Right on!