Three Things That Kill Communication

By Maria Padhila

This blog post is not going to be Nice. It’s going to be grumpy and finger pointing and complaining and I. Don’t. Care.

The habit of requiring niceness from everyone around you, at every exchange, is one that is pretty much guaranteed not to get anyone to speak to you honestly ever again. I think there are lots of ways to be both kind and honest. Much of these require the conscious creation of an environment where listening matters. This is why you rarely find kind and honest speech on the Internet, right?

In the attempt to be nice about everything, even when one’s own discomfort or anger is triggered, some twisted forms of exchange have become more common. With Mars retrograde in Libra — force in diplomacy — the manipulative and the weaselly is ascendant. I know this: I have Mars in Libra (they call us the iron fist in the velvet glove), and Mars turned around right on top of my Mercury/Mars conjunction.

So I decided to take a look at three of these things that really set me off — and I’ll tell you that straight out. They can also do a number on your relationships, polyamorous or otherwise.

1. Concern trolling: Have you ever once in your life found the words “It’s for your own good” to ring true?

Well, maybe once, when I was stretched out over a leather chair and being spanked at a party. But that was long ago, in my 40s. I’d venture that no one to whom that phrase is addressed seriously has ever agreed that what is being told to them or done to them is in any way good.

But “for your own good” is the concern trolling rallying cry. The concern troll pretends to agree with you and be on your side, but then asks questions and makes statements that make it clear where he or she really stands. You can find your own definitions, but this article is a pretty good primer. (It’s really good, because it has as one example Chris Christie. I agree with few of his policies, but boy do I agree with what he says here.)

This behavior abounds on the Internet, but everyone has seen it in real life, as well. The speech is gentle and the style is meek and kind — no yelling and cussing here to tip you off to the boundaries being crossed. The question mark is the mark of danger. “Do you need to eat that?” is a big one among this type. For me, from strangers/acquaintances, it shows up in questions or statements like:

• “Aren’t you worried that you’ll get a disease?” (Oh no, dear, never! I’m as carefree as a plague rat in a London tavern!)
• “I support the right to be polyamorous. I just worry about the children.” (Because this one was so often used against interracial marriage, it makes my blood really boil.)
• “Have you ever explored the reasons why you need so much male attention?” (Have you ever explored the reasons why you need so much of my attention?)
• “Is this really fair to your (other)? It seems like (he/she/they) get a raw deal here.” (Maybe you should ask her.)

I know. You’re just asking because you care. May I ask you an honest question? Have you listened to yourself lately? Because, as this blogger points out, it sounds like maybe you’re looking pretty hard for some validation. Do you think?

Yes, there is a healthy place to confront the ones you love when you feel they’re doing something that is hurting them or others. And injustices and wrongs need to be addressed. The key to stopping this is owning it: Say right out you feel bad that you can’t talk to your friend easily anymore, because when you get together now, she’s drinking and it doesn’t feel to you like she’s tracking. Owning your discomfort and admitting your ignorance and boundaries go a long way to stopping this one.

2. Compassion baiting: This is one I’d felt but couldn’t put a name to until Amanda copied me on this article from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. It was a feeling that had been building up as my mailbox and Facebook feed filled up with more and more severely stated orders to PRACTICE COMPASSION and FORGIVE and LET IT GO and DANCE and SING and SIT DOWN and SHUT UP. I hope you’ll click through to the whole thing, because it breaks the process down into five easy pieces, and goes into a recent problem in *trans issues that could be pretty enlightening to many:

Unfortunately, we spiritual-progressive types, including but not limited to dharma heads, seem to be particularly prone to something I call compassion-baiting.

General compassion-baiting sounds something like:
Try having more compassion. If you did, you’d see things my way.


And in social justice situations, specifically, compassion-baiting often sounds like:
You’re more upset / loud / angry about social harm than I, arbiter, deem appropriate. You must therefore be lacking in wisdom or compassion.

… there’s a shadow side. I’ve seen no small amount of compassion-baiting that uses the kindness or non-harshness element of Right Speech [a Buddhist concept] to shut down valid criticisms and dismiss demands for justice. And that can be incredibly frustrating. …

Don’t get me wrong: forgiveness is wonderful. There are many uplifting stories about people who have managed to forgive those who have gravely harmed them, or harmed the people they love. This is amazing and important work. Many people describe it as immensely freeing, and I think that’s why we’re so eager to share it with others. But we can use it as inspiration, as an option, offered considerately — rather than a standard by which to judge (or hasten) spiritual maturity.”

Once I found myself in a rental house full of those little signs and plaques and needlepoint pillows ordering me to LIVE and LOVE and RELAX. It was a veritable passive-aggressive palace. Eventually, when we passed in the halls we took to shouting “DANCE” and pointing finger guns at each others’ feet. Very spiritually immature, I guess, but it amused us.

Would you say to a friend grieving a death, “You seem to be taking this really hard! I thought you’d be over it by now? When are you going to get tired of talking about this? Are you going to let this experience define you?”

Then why are we OK saying these things to those who have been injured by other issues in life? And bigotry is like the experience of a fresh injury daily.

Instead, I can clearly express to someone that living in the gloom pavilion makes me uncomfortable and brings up my own grief, and so I can’t be there for that person as much as they’d like. Wow, that makes me sound like a real jerk. Like I’m the one who’s lacking compassion. And then I can own that, too. And say I get it, and I’m not discounting or diminishing their grief. I’d just like to spend some time in a place that’s not about grief, for my own benefit, and I’d like to have them there with me. And if they can’t, I accept that.

But when you say that, when you stop ordering someone to DANCE or if you refuse to DANCE, you risk someone getting mad at you. Which can lead to…

3. The Fake Apology. “I’m sorry you choose to see it that way.” I get this one all the time, often from people very close to me. I suppose I could choose to see it as a Cirque de Soleil performance, or as a shipping container full of lovely coconuts, or as an amber field of grain waving on the Kansas plain, but that would be delusional. Instead, I’m going to see precisely what you’re showing me.

Maybe the problem is the way you’re seeing it.

Again, it’s all about owning it. If you’re not sorry, then don’t apologize, and accept that some people might not want to have much to do with you after that. “I’m sorry you choose” practitioners want to get a twofer — they want credit for apologizing PLUS the satisfaction of being able to blame someone else. And you can even layer one more on there — you get to add in an implicit criticism of the reliability of the other person’s perceptions, and a claim that you should have the last word when it comes to their perceptions. That starts moving into “gaslighting” territory — and is pretty evil.

I’ve quoted The Polyamorist Misanthrope here before, but her column has what I think is the definitive word on this:

Finally, how’s your personal account balance? Not just your bank account, but your own personal time bank? Does it seem to be diminishing, and not just for the usual reasons (you’re a parent, you devote a lot of time to a particular hobby or enthusiasm, you work a lot of hours)? Does it ever seem as though, far from being able to plan things out in any kind of long-term, that you’re instead hopping from one emergency to the next, and that there’s never quite enough time to satisfactorily resolve Problem No. 81 before Problem No. 82 crash-lands on you? Does it feel as though there’s a consistent pattern of never-quite-resolved turmoil, and that brief moments of relative calm are just that: brief? A state of constant crisis is not healthy, be it a friendship, a romantic relationship, a term of employment, or a government in relation to its own citizens. Conduct periodic audits of your time bank (and be just as ruthless about it as an IRS agent). There could well be some creeping concessions lurking just out of view; somewhere back in the fogginess of your own memory, the mouse may have demanded more than just a cookie. Repeated patterns of sleep deprivation and never-ending financial shortfalls could conceivably also serve as a heads-up. Again, see what your gut instinct has to say about it.

That piece about going from crisis to crisis is certainly interesting. In fact, you could say it applies pretty well to our current political situation. I’m sorry I see it that way. Really, I am.

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