3 ms·

Can confirm the phenomenon. For better or worse, I seem to never have developed the ability to hate people. I understand the concept of an enemy in the abstrac

Can confirm the phenomenon. For better or worse, I seem to never have developed the ability to hate people. I understand the concept of an enemy in the abstract, I can even emphasize with someone when they're talking about their enemies (but only if we're talking life or death, or comparable degree of trauma, and then only if I don't start thinking too much about it) - but I can't really classify anyone in my life as one. I might not like someone, feel threatened by them, but I can't bring myself to hate them - instead, I'll invent 20 different rationalizations for their behavior and hypothetical mutually-beneficial compromises. I'm not bragging here - at this point in life, I'm not even convinced this is healthy[0], and it sure makes me struggle with being assertive as an adult. Now, connect that with what the article says. I too, along with my lovely wife, inherited a set of enemies-in-law, and developed deep feelings of desire and obligation to hate the people she hates. Except at the same time, I can't. Josh Gondelman in the TFA wrote: > My wife’s enemies are now mine, and the rationale behind why doesn’t really matter. Reasons great and small both count, not equally but heavily. Unfortunately, for me, the reasons still matter. It took me a while to stop instinctively jumping to defend the enemies-in-law whenever she mentioned them, even those I never met. It took me even longer to accept that this is one of those "your partner needs you to listen, not to solve the problem" case - here, she isn't looking for conflict resolution, but rather to vent frustration. And while I still ain't gonna badmouth anyone for anything, I do accept the silent compromise of "if I can't say something mean about them, I won't say anything at all". It still feels like emulating hatred, though. I'm not sure if I'm in a good place, or denying myself some healthy part of humanity, but I can't imagine the mindset the author has: > Swearing to hate my wife’s enemies has made me a better, more rounded person. Not only does it give me a benchmark for measuring my loyalty to her, but it’s made me more resolute in my own beliefs. Because all the spiting and snubbing of her foes has shown me how much colder I could be to the people I already didn’t like. I mean, like why? Why people want to have enemies? -- [0] - I'm pretty sure it's the result of me developing my moral compass as a kid from two "role models" simultaneously: fundamentalist Christianity and Star Trek: TNG. I bet it's about as healthy as it sounds. But then, I mostly like what I got out from it, and it could've been worse.

gedy 2y ago
> this is one of those "your partner needs you to listen, not to solve the problem" case - here, she isn't looking for conflict resolution, but rather to vent frustration. I hate to sound callous, but I don't like to normalize that the problem is "you just want to fix things" - it's a huge mental burden on the listener and not respectful to people who get a lot of stress hearing these things. "Fixing something" is how they deal with stress. Everybody has to vent sometimes/infrequently and we should listen, but I've also been around a lot of people who want to "vent", but then march repeatedly right back into the same patterns and situations that cause the problems, and don't want to hear that they can often avoid this. I don't want people to feel better temporarily and end up prolonging their bad situation.
- JTbane 2y ago
  I feel you. I have some friends with depression and/or anxiety and sometimes the emotional dumping they do on me is hard to deal with. They are in counseling and I'm doing my best to help them and be a good listener.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Thank you for this comment. You actually expressed how I feel about these things deep in my heart of hearts - particularly: > I've also been around a lot of people who want to "vent", but then march repeatedly right back into the same patterns and situations that cause the problems, and don't want to hear that they can often avoid this. I've dealt with such people too, but "the society" kept beating me with the "listen, don't fix" reminder so much that I gave up. I started to think, maybe I'm not listening enough, maybe what to me looks like being stuck in a loop out of their own volition, is just me not hearing the critical details that changed, or something? I had one or two cases when someone like that caught me in a bad moment, and I've said something along the lines of, "look; we've been going over this exact same conversation, same complaints, same feelings, roughly every couple days for the past few months now; why is this still a thing?", and it just got received as me blocking the other person from opening up when they need it. And those are the "go-getter" kind of people who normally just plow through obstacles (including other people) without much thought - except the few things that, to me, seem like easily solvable problems, but they get stuck on them forever. Then again, who am I to judge. I too have my own loops, a class of problems that elicit the usual "can't you just do X?" advice from onlookers, that I nevertheless don't seem to make progress on, despite a good decade of trying and failing to "just do X". But then, my problems are of executive function kind. The ones that irk me about others are the kinds like from this article: "someone was (intentionally or unknowingly) mean to me, I can't stop reliving it". -- Circling back: > I don't like to normalize that the problem is "you just want to fix things" - it's a huge mental burden on the listener and not respectful to people who get a lot of stress hearing these things. "Fixing something" is how they deal with stress. It is a burden, and I'm very much of this type. Unless I get emotionally overwhelmed myself (common for my own problems, rare for those of people close to me), my natural way of dealing with stress is to aggressively make the underlying problem go away. My instinct is always to drop everything and go fix the issue, or help someone fix their problem, because otherwise the problem (or my emphasizing with the person who has the problem) will keep gnawing at me, and I'll be spending 90% of my cognitive capacity trying to stop myself from thinking about it. (This drive to drop everything and fix someone else's problems has led me to some bad places; I'm happy to report that, through years of effort, I'm now just losing 50-60% of focus instead of 90%, and thus prioritize better.) Might be selfish, but this is how I've always dealt with stress, and learning to suppress this is a big burden, as I am really effective in this mode - if I feel like the problem needs to go away, and I have a shot at it, I will solve it, solve it well, and solve it fast, hell or high water. So stopping myself feels like lighting up a rocket engine while the launchpad clamps are still engaged. It's a huge waste of high-energy fuel, and I might even explode.

gedy 2y ago

> this is one of those "your partner needs you to listen, not to solve the problem" case - here, she isn't looking for conflict resolution, but rather to vent frustration. I hate to sound callous, but I don't like to normalize that the problem is "you just want to fix things" - it's a huge mental burden on the listener and not respectful to people who get a lot of stress hearing these things. "Fixing something" is how they deal with stress. Everybody has to vent sometimes/infrequently and we should listen, but I've also been around a lot of people who want to "vent", but then march repeatedly right back into the same patterns and situations that cause the problems, and don't want to hear that they can often avoid this. I don't want people to feel better temporarily and end up prolonging their bad situation.

JTbane 2y ago
I feel you. I have some friends with depression and/or anxiety and sometimes the emotional dumping they do on me is hard to deal with. They are in counseling and I'm doing my best to help them and be a good listener.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
Thank you for this comment. You actually expressed how I feel about these things deep in my heart of hearts - particularly: > I've also been around a lot of people who want to "vent", but then march repeatedly right back into the same patterns and situations that cause the problems, and don't want to hear that they can often avoid this. I've dealt with such people too, but "the society" kept beating me with the "listen, don't fix" reminder so much that I gave up. I started to think, maybe I'm not listening enough, maybe what to me looks like being stuck in a loop out of their own volition, is just me not hearing the critical details that changed, or something? I had one or two cases when someone like that caught me in a bad moment, and I've said something along the lines of, "look; we've been going over this exact same conversation, same complaints, same feelings, roughly every couple days for the past few months now; why is this still a thing?", and it just got received as me blocking the other person from opening up when they need it. And those are the "go-getter" kind of people who normally just plow through obstacles (including other people) without much thought - except the few things that, to me, seem like easily solvable problems, but they get stuck on them forever. Then again, who am I to judge. I too have my own loops, a class of problems that elicit the usual "can't you just do X?" advice from onlookers, that I nevertheless don't seem to make progress on, despite a good decade of trying and failing to "just do X". But then, my problems are of executive function kind. The ones that irk me about others are the kinds like from this article: "someone was (intentionally or unknowingly) mean to me, I can't stop reliving it". -- Circling back: > I don't like to normalize that the problem is "you just want to fix things" - it's a huge mental burden on the listener and not respectful to people who get a lot of stress hearing these things. "Fixing something" is how they deal with stress. It is a burden, and I'm very much of this type. Unless I get emotionally overwhelmed myself (common for my own problems, rare for those of people close to me), my natural way of dealing with stress is to aggressively make the underlying problem go away. My instinct is always to drop everything and go fix the issue, or help someone fix their problem, because otherwise the problem (or my emphasizing with the person who has the problem) will keep gnawing at me, and I'll be spending 90% of my cognitive capacity trying to stop myself from thinking about it. (This drive to drop everything and fix someone else's problems has led me to some bad places; I'm happy to report that, through years of effort, I'm now just losing 50-60% of focus instead of 90%, and thus prioritize better.) Might be selfish, but this is how I've always dealt with stress, and learning to suppress this is a big burden, as I am really effective in this mode - if I feel like the problem needs to go away, and I have a shot at it, I will solve it, solve it well, and solve it fast, hell or high water. So stopping myself feels like lighting up a rocket engine while the launchpad clamps are still engaged. It's a huge waste of high-energy fuel, and I might even explode.