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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]

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.