Dear Myles:

You wrote: “I try to be as polite as I can be and they interpret this as me …”-

my point: no matter your behavior, some people will interpret it incorrectly. You have no control over how people will interpret something you say or do. Their interpretations, most often, have more to do with their prior experiences in life than with what you said and did.

All you can do is focus on your responsibility, which is your participation in every interaction. Your responsibility is not the other’s participation in the interaction with you, what he/she interpret, says and does.

If you are in a good relationship, you ask the other person what his understanding is, you check with the person. And he can check with you, so you correct your interpretations when need to be corrected on an ongoing basis. In many interactions you don’t get that opportunity because of their fleeting nature. Or because although you are willing, the other person is not willing to pause and evaluate their interpretation for accurateness or inaccurateness.

In your daily life you have many opportunities to act assertively, to “stop coming across as a target or easy to manipulate”. Take advantage of every such opportunity, none is … too small to use this way. Think what is reasonable and right for you to say or do in that situation, check with the person if possible. If not rely on your understanding best you can. You can give an example right here, if you’d like.

anita

Dear Myles:

You gave an example, you “asked that we stop constantly gossiping about people we do not like in the class”-

I define gossip as people talking about other people, not in their presence, not for the purpose of learning about human behavior, or coming up with suggestions about helping those others, but for the purpose of amusing oneself, being entertained, making fun of others and being amused. Do you agree with my definition? I wish people did not gossip.

In my last post to you on this thread, I wrote: “focus on your responsibility, which is your participation in every interaction”- unfortunately, since it is not illegal to gossip, and it is not against the university stated rules of conduct,  it is… the other classmates legal right to gossip. And so, there is no authority to enforce a no-gossip law or rule, no authority. In practical terms then, it is a matter of choice.

All you can do is choose your “participation in every interaction”, and in this case, you can choose to not gossip. You can say: this is gossip, I don’t do gossip. Or you can simply not say anything, or you can walk away when gossip takes place.

If you were in a personal relationship, you could ask your partner not to gossip, not as an authority figure, but as a partner in a love relationship. In case of your acting class, there is no such intimate relationship, there is a group or a clique, as you pointed out, and you, an individual. In this setting, you have no authority and the other people are not invested in a relationship with you, as an intimate partner would be.

In your example, asking them to not gossip is ineffective, therefore, I would not ask or ask again, and simply not gossip myself, if possible I will walk away, if not, I will endure and be glad when the moment of gossip ends.

anita

Dear Myles:

In the US  college and university are interchangeable terms, as far as I know. Both offer Bachelor degrees, for sure. University tend to be bigger and do more research perhaps. But in the UK, I just read, college is similar to a US “Community College”, a two year institution, no degrees offered.

You wrote that you couldn’t stand the hypocrisy in class… well, lots more hypocrisy to stand as you continue your associations with the rest of humanity. Better build tolerance for it, except, as I pointed out, in personal, close relationships.

anita

Dear Myles:

This is a difficult question for me to answer because a person only reacts to things directly affecting them no matter how indirect it seems to another person witnessing it. For example, people may react to others’ political views very passionately in areas that don’t seem to have a direct affect on the person reacting. Or in your case, when others were gossiping about people not present, that affected you directly even though you were not, at that point, the subject of the talk.

What I did say to you earlier is that gossip is legal and not against university rules of conduct and therefore it is a matter of choice. That means that however distasteful it is to you, you have no authority behind you to force a no-gossip personal ethic.

You are welcome, as far as I am concerned, to state your anti-gossip position to anyone, anytime, to champion this position, but be prepared to the responses you got.

It is tricky, to figure out what is in your power and what is not, and then accept with as much equanimity what you cannot change.

anita

Dear Myles:

There is plenty to get angry about, a whole lot. On issues I can do nothing about, I try to not think about them, and therefore not get angry: politics, specifically. Anger is an emotion that motivates a person (and animals) to act. If there is no helpful action possible, experiencing the anger with nothing to do and nowhere to go is exhausting.

anita

Hi Myles,

I think, there are times that no matter who we are, rich, poor, race, social class, etc, there is always going to be someone out there who is going to try to manipulate. I don’t think any of us are really looked on as “easy targets”. There are lots of nice people in this world, many of them get manipulated in some way. I guess you just have to have that person earn your trust. Don’t give too much of yourself away..especially to people you don’t know. I know that’s what helped me.

Dear Myles, I read the entirety of your post but I am writing in response to your last post in which you mentioned “your parents have mentioned the fact that [you] wore [your] heart on [your] sleeve a bit too much as a child…” I was also that child, and in my teens, and through most of my 20s. I was, looking with my more cautious eyes now, too trusting. Do you think you were too trusting? You said it was probably you were insecure and wanted to meet other people’s expectations, too. I used to have a big aversion to gossiping, as I thought it unfair to the people being gossiped, and I was very uncomfortable whenever I saw those gossipers acting chummy with the people whom they had gossiped/complained about/sneered at. I didn’t understand why the gossipers would exhaust themselves with two or more faces rather than being “simple” (not foolish, but wearing masks seemed exhausting to me). I find that I have since let that go as I grew older. I sometimes gossiped nowadays. It seems to help me fit in better (I used to be isolated from the group because I didn’t agree with being mean, even if it was only behind someone’s back, which I thought was even less honourable). I am replying to let you know that I feel for you. (P.S. edits for the html codes that kept popping up when I opened a paragraph)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by gia.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by gia.