Having a Bad Day? Stop here for a Good Rant!

[Guest]

My advice?  Don't give it to them.  At all.  It will not have the effect that you want it to; all it will do is make them more determined that you are being disrespectful.  I know that you're trying to come at this from a rational point of view, but when you're a T dealing with an F, all you're going to do is make emotions run higher.

 

This advice brought to you by your friendly neighborhood INFP who spends waaaaay too much time thinking about how other people think.

Huh. I hadn't considered that. Thanks for the advice. I just don't know what other way there is to make them see that from my point of view, I'm not being disrespectful. There is a fundamental gap in communication that needs to be fixed.

[Kaymyth she/her]

Huh. I hadn't considered that. Thanks for the advice. I just don't know what other way there is to make them see that from my point of view, I'm not being disrespectful. There is a fundamental gap in communication that needs to be fixed.

 

I speak from experience; writing a letter as a teenager to parental figures about an issue trying to explain things just backfires in the worst way.

 

I think your best bet would be to phrase it as an apology.  I know it sucks, but it becomes a matter of acknowledging and accepting the teen/parent power dynamic and your current level in the hierarchy.  Something like, "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to upset you, and I genuinely wasn't trying to be disrespectful.  It's just that I really get into a debate mode, and when that happens my brain gets replaced with Mr. Spock's.  I go all logical and forget that other people have emotional reactions to arguments."  So, apology, explanation, and admission of failing while specifying that said failing wasn't necessarily what they took it to be.

[Guest]

Ergh. That apology was good, but the last sentence makes it sound like I'm saying being emotional is a bad thing...that could be bad.

Edit: Or more clearly, it sounds like I'm saying, "I understand that lesser people sometimes get emotional about stuff."

Edited May 15, 2015 by Guest

[Kaymyth she/her]

Ergh. That apology was good, but the last sentence makes it sound like I'm saying being emotional is a bad thing...that could be bad.

Edit: Or more clearly, it sounds like I'm saying, "I understand that lesser people sometimes get emotional about stuff."

 

Hmm.  It's meant as an acknowledgement that your brain doesn't necessarily work like your parents'.  Play around with the phrasing; it ought to be your own words anyway.  But logical vs emotional reactions doesn't mean that one is better than the other, it just means that not everybody's brains work alike.  You do this thing, while your parents do this other thing, and the misunderstandings can create wacky sitcom hijinks.

 

I have a dear friend who is autistic.  High-functioning to the point where most people don't realize it until she tells them, but her thought processes are very, very different than the average neurotypical person.  She cannot read or predict emotional reactions in general; she has to learn and memorize the general mindworkings of every individual she knows on an individual basis.

 

Since she was our housemate for a while, I spent a good deal of time translating other peoples' reactions and words into formats that she could process.  I got awfully good at taking emotional things and feeding them properly through her logic circuits in the right way for her to understand what the rusted tarnation was going on.

[Guest]

I think I will take your advice, and let you know how it turns out. Thanks!

[Orlion Blight he/him]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoCtPojDQT4

[Kaymyth she/her]

I think I will take your advice, and let you know how it turns out. Thanks!

 

You're welcome.   One of the hardest things for people to wrap their heads around is the idea that other people, even close family members, think in different ways than they do.  The next hardest thing is understanding that neither way is wrong, just different.  Once you can bridge that divide, the rest is just communication.

[Elsecaller3414 she/her]

My siblings are all like "I hate Brandon Sanderson, and his books are way too long, and why do you like him you are such a nerd."  Not exactly my best week ever.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

My siblings are all like "I hate Brandon Sanderson, and his books are way too long, and why do you like him you are such a nerd."  Not exactly my best week ever.

 

Would it help if I channeled the muse I use for the Stormmeme Archive?

Edited May 15, 2015 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

[Kaymyth she/her]

My siblings are all like "I hate Brandon Sanderson, and his books are way too long, and why do you like him you are such a nerd."  Not exactly my best week ever.

 

My response to being called a nerd tends to range from, "Why, thank you!" to "And this is news...how again?"

 

Nerds are in.  Embrace it.

[Guest]

Well, Kaymyth, your advice worked. All is soothed.

[Delightful]

If I may quote John Green:

…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.

Kipper: awesome

Edited May 16, 2015 by Delightful

[Kaymyth she/her]

Well, Kaymyth, your advice worked. All is soothed.

 

Hooray!

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

I'm at my graduation ceremony.

I'm on my phone.

Know why?

Because it hasn't been about the graduates. It's just blowhard after blowhard talking about themselves.

I. Hate. This. School.

I hope their sports teams lose every game.

Every.

Single.

One.

Forever.

 

POST-CEREMONY UPDATE: The ceremony was two hours. An hour and a half of that was faculty giving long speeches and patting themselves on the back. The last twenty minutes were dedicated to the graduates. They didn't even call our names. They just had us stand while they announced our college and the degree we were getting. 

Edited May 17, 2015 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Day 5 of my grandmother's visit has begun.

She is cleaning both bathrooms, which we already cleaned the day before she arrived. The message is clear: You did it wrong. This is not a clean bathroom. If you had done it right in the first place, I could relax. You drove me to this with your slovenly ways.

I went to take my stuff out of the bathroom to make things easier on her. She apologized for cleaning.

Now she's ranting about the president. I told her I like Rand Paul. No fallout yet, but it was fun to say. It was also fun asking her if she liked Chris Christie.

I am slowly going mad.

Oregon RPers, please be prepared for my posts to either slow down or descend into gibberish.

Two more days. Two. More. Days.

[Orlion Blight he/him]

Nothing like a wonderful life-event to destroy the nerves, huh?

[Elsecaller3414 she/her]

My orchestra teacher drives me up the wall.  She tells me and my orchestra what to do and doesn't tell us how to do them.  ARGH!!  At least I don't have to deal with her much longer.

 

Also, I am so tired that I am pretty sure I spelled my name wrong on a few papers recently.

[Completeshards]

I'm...a bit sad/confused. My sister just dumped her first long-term boyfriend, whom I (I'm a dude) grew pretty close and friends with. It's first time and I'm kinda sad and unsure what to do around him because I work at the same place and it's probably going to be weird...idk I just wanted to rant it out. PS this is my first message, on this account I had another but it dissappeared.

[Kasimir he/him]

I hate my job sometimes. I'm supposed to be preparing for a scholarship application but I spent most of yesterday and today getting hounded repeatedly by a client. I emailed my direct supervisor and my mentor for advice on how to handle the situation since I'm so inexperienced but received no reply after two working days.

 

And the client was stepping up on the emails.

 

So ok, I figured I'd best say something. And since I'm not allowed to give the standard "Well, uh, lemme check with my boss and get back to you on this," answer, I thought I would just answer from what I knew.

 

Hahaha, nope. Nope. Totally nope.

 

I got it so wrong and I got chewed out by my supervisor who finally managed to email me less than 5 minutes after that email was sent to chew me out for sending it. Clearly though, actually telling me from the start and answering my requests for advice could wait.

[DanTheSeamonster he/him]

My family and I lost to that thrice-darned Forbidden Island game again. 

[Elsecaller3414 she/her]

My family and I lost to that thrice-darned Forbidden Island game again. 

That game is so hard to play.  Especially since my family does not really get along, so teamwork is nearly void.

 

Also, I don't quite understand how people manage to get more reputation points than they have posts.  I have posted more than a hundred things and I still only have 21 points.  Like I said, I don't know how they do it.  I am not the inspirational type.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Elsecaller3414

[Sarcasm she/her]

That game is so hard to play.  Especially since my family does not really get along, so teamwork is nearly void.

 

Also, I don't quite understand how people manage to get more reputation points than they have posts.  I have posted more than a hundred things and I still only have 21 points.  Like I said, I don't know how they do it.  I am not the inspirational type.

Yeah, sometimes people get more than one upvote per post. No offense to anyone, this is simply an observation, but I've recently noticed that people who make witty or funny comments often get more upvotes than people who truly have good ideas or truly contribute to discussions. Don't take me wrong, I thing Kobold and the other jokers are awesome people, but sometimes the rep system isn't really to best measure of an individual.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

There's also the Reckoners RPG, which is a strange and twisted rabbit hole from which spring insanity, ponies, pug pictures, and many, many upvotes.

[DanTheSeamonster he/him]

Oh? And how may I get to this wonderful land? Over the forest and through the river? Wait, that can't be right...

[Sarcasm she/her]

*post has been expunged after overload of profanity.