The Tenth

[anticirclejerk]

RP HATE MEME

Go nuts. Namedrop, rant, rave, and wank up a storm.

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I am going to delete all the dumb, aspergers worthy discussion threads.

this is not the place for talking about butts and farts and shrimp. take that to your plurk or rpanons.

"No kidding. This breach of privacy can be argued on the fact that the people posting the caps were given permission to be in the private links. So the fault isn't on Anticirclejerk or the ACJ mod, but the component that decided to make the screencap." - Anon

the best trek 4 hours ago
Yeah go back to whiteknighting your creepy friend.
a hero to us all

IF YOU COMPARE THIS COMMUNITY TO CYBERBULLYING, YOU'RE A PIECE OF SHIT. HTH.

Comments

ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

i don't think you understand what i'm talking about

if someone is engaging in harmful or outright self-destructive behavior you are hurting them by giving them positive reinforcement to continue on with that behavior

for example i have seen people who complain about their therapist telling them things that are difficult to hear get asspatted and heavily encouraged to not listen to the trained professional that is trying to help them

you may temporarily lift their mood so everyone's all smiles again but you are not helping someone troubled enough to need professional help to work through their problems by undermining the self-examination parts of their treatment in that way

this also applies to the times when a friend is themselves being an asshole to others; pretending they aren't doing anything wrong and dismissing their critics is ultimately hurting your friend

people want to have everything between their friends and themselves be sunshine and rainbows all the time

nobody wants to be that person who tells someone that they're behaving poorly because of course telling a friend something difficult will often result in that friend getting upset with you, calling you an asshole, pushing you away, etc

speaking up usually puts you into a personally uncomfortable position because it's way easier to give someone an asspat than a reality check

but what you are really doing when you avoid being honest and coddle them is that you are letting them down because you are prioritizing your own personal comfort over their needs

sometimes, yes, you have to be an ass by saying something they don't want to hear but need to hear because that in the end will be less painful for your friend than what they would experience if you say nothing and they keep going down a harmful path

You are missing the point

[(Anonymous)]

If you're somebody's real friend, and you see them trip and fall, you don't go over and scream at them for being clumsy enough to fall on their face, or tell them that you wouldn't be friends with them anymore because they're too clumsy.

What you do do is help them get up and get them a bandaid, and then maybe suggest that they don't run in places where it's easy to trip anymore, after they've calmed down and put the bandaid on.

DA You are being deliberately dense

[(Anonymous)]

Nowhere did this person advocate screaming at someone for doing something stupid. There is a huge difference between screaming at someone and saying calmly, "Hey, what you're doing right now isn't cool. You're just hurting yourself/someone else. As your friend, I don't like to see this. I think you need to listen to your therapist/mother/whoever is giving you good advice, even if it's hard to hear."

Putting a band-aid on it and agreeing with them when they're being deliberately stubborn, dense, or just plain wrong is not helping them in any way. You're not helping them to calm down. You're helping them to delude themselves. I.e. you are not being a friend.

Re: DA You are being deliberately dense

[(Anonymous)]

So if you saw a friend flat on the floor and bleeding, you'd calmly tell them that they should have listened to their mom/teacher/whoever and they wouldn't have tripped like that?

Without helping them up, bandaging them, waiting till they calm down, and seeing if they need to go to the doctor, first?

I do not think that is the best ways to go about things.

Re: DA You are being deliberately dense

[(Anonymous)]

Not all situations are going to be the same, this isn't a black and white thing. Your friend trips over - literally - I don't think anyone, whether they practice tough love or not, is going to be dumb enough to shout at them about it. If they trip up because of a series of events they could have foreseen, or put into motion themselves, or were fully aware of and ignored, then I'd still pick them up. But then I would point out, hey, you could've avoided that if you just thought a bit harder, or stopped being so wrapped up in yourself, or tried looking at stuff from a different perspective.

Being a good friend doesn't mean getting rid of asspats entirely, or never criticizing someone's bad behavior - it means finding a balance between calling people on their shit and supporting them while they figure it out.

Re: DA You are being deliberately dense

[(Anonymous)]

the analogy and your approach in general to this is pretty infantilizing, but okay

even when i was a kid if i'd insisted on running indoors and ended up tripping again and again i'd eventually be gently told 'see, this is why you shouldn't run indoors; you need to be more careful' the next time i needed a bandaid

even a mild lecture stung to hear, but it also directly pointed out what behavior i engaged in that caused me to get hurt in a way that couldn't be brushed aside

this gave me the chance to reflect on my behavior and change it

my mom wouldn't lecture me to be a huge mean bitch kicking me while i was down, but because she cared about me and didn't want me to hurt myself again

Re: DA You are being deliberately dense

[(Anonymous)]

If a friend trips and falls due to a momentary lapse of judgment/balance, of course no sensible person will yell at them.

If a friend, say, was throwing a rage-filled tantrum and hurt themselves during it, I'd help them with their injury but I would not say "That's okay, it's not your fault," because it was their fault. I would say, "This is why you should watch your temper and take time to cool down when you need it."

One time in the past year, I fainted due to poor eating habits. My friend helped me onto a sofa, brought me food and water, and when I felt better, he gave me an earful about how I got myself into that mess, and how worried I made him. And I deserved it. And it didn't happen again.

Real friends help each other, and that involves telling each other where they've gone wrong. That doesn't require abuse; it just requires a willingness to be frank and firm.

Re: You are missing the point

[(Anonymous)]

You are missing the point. The OP is talking about friends who enable horrible habits and behavior and try to insulate their "friend" from anything that threatens to disrupt that cycle. That is not being a friend.

If you insist on the metaphor, it's more like having a friend who constantly deliberately runs into walls and simply patching them up and yelling at anyone who tries to tell them "hey you should maybe stop trying to run into walls"

Re: You are missing the point

[(Anonymous)]

It's funny because your subject refers to you exactly