fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3535 ]

Official advertise your fandom-related event thread.

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Official clickables thread.

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General comments:

(If the thread contains spoilery/triggery content please post as 2nd comment so it collapses!)

... when people try to tell you to "let yourself be [whatever they think you should be]" and act like YOU really want to do that, when really they want you to? And tell you that if you aren't acting the way they want, you're uptight and no fun (not "letting yourself" have fun!) or brainwashed, and need them to liberate you.

It seems so manipulative to me! But I can never tell if they know full well what they're doing and are pretending not to, or if they genuinely think they know me better than I do myself, and that they're actually trying to help me somehow?

Do you get people saying this stuff to you a lot? How common is it?

Doesn't sound like something you can generalize? I suppose it could be self-centered and manipulative, but it perfectly well could be genuinely well-intentioned, too. I tend to work and worry too much, and I don't mind when my friends tell me to let myself relax and have fun once in awhile.

Re: Is it manipulative

sparrow_lately - 2016-09-07 23:14 (UTC) - Expand

OP

(Anonymous) - 2016-09-08 02:09 (UTC) - Expand

People have told me to let myself have fun before, and rightly so. I was taking myself and everything else way too seriously at the time.

I think most people want to think other people are like them (inversely, that they're like other people). Subconsciously, they see themselves as a standard, and if it looks to them like you're flailing in that regard, they want to help you be more like them.

Obviously that isn't true of everybody. Some people are just assholes and some people are better at recognizing that not everybody is like them, but for the most part, I think things like that are coming from good intentions, however misguided they may be.

Some people really get stuck inside their own heads and need an outsider to give them perspective.

It can be manipulative sometimes, and it can be correct sometimes. I think a key distinction is to try to do it in a way where you're presenting it as one perspective, and to avoid the but where you talk about brainwashing - that to me is the part that's really kind of wrong.

The way you tell it, it sounds manipulative, but since it's not a concrete example, it's hard to tell?

I'd say that it's well-intentioned when it happens once or twice, but if they keep doing it after you've said "no thanks, I'm happy like this", it's manipulative.