2 ms·

If that's what it was trying to do, it failed, because the "humorously extreme position" is actually a real experience people have - or at least have with their

If that's what it was trying to do, it failed, because the "humorously extreme position" is actually a real experience people have - or at least have with their partners, or see other couples that seem to have it.

jancsika 2y ago
Yes, and you wrote it more succinctly than I did in a sibling comment. :) The specific problem as I understand it: marrying/dating a narcissist will spiral into utter toxicity 100% of the time. In that case the protagonist's difficulty separating reality from their own subject experience isn't something abstract to reflect upon. It's instead something akin to an evil demon charming them to butter them up for abuse which is made permanent through eternal gaslighting.
ryandrake 2y ago
I couldn't tell if it was humor, sarcasm, tongue-in-cheek, or just weird fiction. Talking casually about one's "enemies?" It's definitely not normal to have enemies. I certainly don't have any. Warlords have enemies. Extreme politicians have enemies. Am I just lucky? Or just super non-confrontational? I couldn't relate to a single word of this.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Years ago, I could've written the exact same words you did. But that was when I spent most of my time around friends and colleagues in interest-based circles. Since then, I've mostly been dealing with a more diverse, varied selection of folks - in-laws, their cousins, their cousins' cousins, friends, neighbors, kindergarten parents - and I discovered some people actually seem to think in these terms. So I can relate - not through my own feelings, but through observation of others. > Am I just lucky? Or just super non-confrontational? Questions I've been asking myself for a long time now. And recently I learned that, apparently, these days my flavor of "super non-confrontational" might be indicative of being on the spectrum. I'm having a hard time accepting this - but then it sure would explain a lot of fiction (and journalism) to me. Characters having enemies, whom they just hate for nondescript or flimsy reasons, seems like a basic building block of fiction. I always assumed it's an exaggeration, a kind of literary super-stimulus - but maybe this is how most people think? Wouldn't be the first for me - it took me until ~30yo to discover that aphantasia is a thing, and that I have it, and that all those people in my life who insisted that long scenery descriptions are the best (because "they let imagination bring fictional words to life", or sth.) weren't just screwing with me.

jancsika 2y ago

Yes, and you wrote it more succinctly than I did in a sibling comment. :) The specific problem as I understand it: marrying/dating a narcissist will spiral into utter toxicity 100% of the time. In that case the protagonist's difficulty separating reality from their own subject experience isn't something abstract to reflect upon. It's instead something akin to an evil demon charming them to butter them up for abuse which is made permanent through eternal gaslighting.

ryandrake 2y ago

I couldn't tell if it was humor, sarcasm, tongue-in-cheek, or just weird fiction. Talking casually about one's "enemies?" It's definitely not normal to have enemies. I certainly don't have any. Warlords have enemies. Extreme politicians have enemies. Am I just lucky? Or just super non-confrontational? I couldn't relate to a single word of this.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
Years ago, I could've written the exact same words you did. But that was when I spent most of my time around friends and colleagues in interest-based circles. Since then, I've mostly been dealing with a more diverse, varied selection of folks - in-laws, their cousins, their cousins' cousins, friends, neighbors, kindergarten parents - and I discovered some people actually seem to think in these terms. So I can relate - not through my own feelings, but through observation of others. > Am I just lucky? Or just super non-confrontational? Questions I've been asking myself for a long time now. And recently I learned that, apparently, these days my flavor of "super non-confrontational" might be indicative of being on the spectrum. I'm having a hard time accepting this - but then it sure would explain a lot of fiction (and journalism) to me. Characters having enemies, whom they just hate for nondescript or flimsy reasons, seems like a basic building block of fiction. I always assumed it's an exaggeration, a kind of literary super-stimulus - but maybe this is how most people think? Wouldn't be the first for me - it took me until ~30yo to discover that aphantasia is a thing, and that I have it, and that all those people in my life who insisted that long scenery descriptions are the best (because "they let imagination bring fictional words to life", or sth.) weren't just screwing with me.