What will you do if you were in my shoes?

[King-sama]

Hi everyones 8]
It's been a while since i thought about this....well, i am tired of sensitive people, like they get angry about very simple things...they get angry/sercastic if i opposit them my opinion, if i said no or said a simple joke...like i finally feel more confortable talking normally with others but this thing making me feel like i wanna get back to my shell and stop talking to them...or avoid them altogether
What will you do if you were in my place?

Or is it too selfish to think about this??

I am always appreciative for the responses people give me here 8'] thank you a lot you guys are the best

[wifom]

Sorry to hear about your troubles with sensitive people.

I think there are two kinds of sensitive people -- those who keep the hurt inside and those who retaliate by expressing their hurt outwards. I think you have had the unfortunate event of meeting people who are more apparent about their sensitivity, which is why they would get angry or sarcastic.

If you truly value your friendship, I think the best course of action (in my opinion) would be to confront them about how their reactions to your jokes or statements hurt you as well. Opening yourself up to your friends I think is a great step to deepening any kind of relationship!

Good luck and hope things take a turn for the better!

[trooper6]

Maybe the problem isn't sensitive people, but maybe you are being a jerk.
You say you are "finally feeling comfortable talking to people." This sounds like you don't have a lot of interpersonal experience. I'd say practice interacting with people in a kinder way.

[Rinima]

maybe you are being a jerk

Little bit unneeded. Practice what you preach.


Anyway: I know what your talking about, I've got several friends who are like this. The way I cope with it is to just ignore it. If they start going on at me over something, I just nod along and zone out. Works for me, keeps me level headed. And before peeps say 'you should confunt it head on' it's not quite that simple. Chances are, if they are to sensitive, they won't take that lightly, and stop talking to you fall stop. Might not work for other people, but if you really value your friendship, try not to take it to heart, maybe slip how you feel about it into convo every so often and see what happens.

[wifom]

if you really value your friendship, try not to take it to heart, maybe slip how you feel about it into convo every so often and see what happens.

In my past experiences, I've actually had a lot of broken friendships because people tend to "keep their feelings inside." I would unintentionally hurt some of my closest friends, and yet they wouldn't tell me directly. They might have left me *subtle* hints, but being the dense-headed and naive/ignorant person I am, the hints went unnoticed.

I know it takes a lot of courage to confront someone about any problems, but I feel like if you trust and love a friend deeply enough, you'll want to eventually break the barrier of letting them know truly the good and bad sides in the friendship. I have some friends who I'm comfortable telling them when they're being annoying or things that they do upset me; we trust each other so much that we know that our words mean no harm when being spoken.

Not everyone will appreciate the sentiment, but for those that do, I think they're the ones worthwhile and definitely worth the effort for keeping around! c:

[trooper6]

maybe you are being a jerk

Little bit unneeded. Practice what you preach.

Okay let me rephrase: Rather than assuming your friends are just "sensitive" when they tell you that you are hurting their feelings, perhaps you should try taking the feelings of your friends seriously and try to stop hurting their feelings.

If you don't care about the feelings of your friends (which is what you indicate when you dismiss them as "too sensitive"), or if acting however you want to act is more important to you than paying attention to your freinds' feelings, then maybe you shouldn't be friends with these people.

You say you are tired of sensitive people. In other words, you are tired that people say they are getting hurt by your behavior.
So, find people who aren't hurt by your behavior or stop doing the things they say hurt them.

In my opinion, it isn't a very nice thing to do to remain in a relationship where you keep hurting someone's feelings and also care more about how their pain irritates you than you do about their pain.

More diplomatic, Rinima?

[Rinima]

maybe you are being a jerk

Little bit unneeded. Practice what you preach.

Okay let me rephrase: Rather than assuming your friends are just "sensitive" when they tell you that you are hurting their feelings, perhaps you should try taking the feelings of your friends seriously and try to stop hurting their feelings.

If you don't care about the feelings of your friends (which is what you indicate when you dismiss them as "too sensitive"), or if acting however you want to act is more important to you than paying attention to your freinds' feelings, then maybe you shouldn't be friends with these people.

You say you are tired of sensitive people. In other words, you are tired that people say they are getting hurt by your behavior.
So, find people who aren't hurt by your behavior or stop doing the things they say hurt them.

In my opinion, it isn't a very nice thing to do to remain in a relationship where you keep hurting someone's feelings and also care more about how their pain irritates you than you do about their pain.

More diplomatic, Rinima?

Yep~

"where you keep hurting someone's feelings and also care more about how their pain irritates you than you do about their pain."
If that more directed towards me, my response: I would have cared about their pain in the beginning, and would have tried anything to help them with it, but they never let it go, and after a while, you really do start to zone out, it can't be helped sometimes.

[ThisIsNoName]

disclaimer: written before Rinima's reply

In my opinion, it isn't a very nice thing to do to remain in a relationship where you keep hurting someone's feelings and also care more about how their pain irritates you than you do about their pain.
?

I think Rinima was pointing out that it's bad to make that assumption about someone. Just because they have pain about something doesn't mean that they aren't being overly sensitive.
If someone calls you at 2 in the morning because they stubbed their toe and need to discuss their innermost pain and how it relates to 7 other people you had no idea previously existed, that could get jreally f***ing annoying! Being annoyed doesn't mean that you dismiss their pain, or even how their are dealing with that pain, but it just means you are having a reaction of your own. Denying that and deciding that you must be the paragon of ultimate kindness and virtue can be more destructive than just letting yourself be annoyed.

That said, I agree with wifom. Just try talking to your friends about it. They might be going through some issues that trigger their sensitivity, or maybe were raised in an environment that values sensitivity over "picking yourself up by your own boots", or hell, maybe you \are being a jerk. The only people who will know for sure are your friends.

[RotGtIE]

When dealing with interpersonal relationships, I find it to be enormously clarifying to simply flip the script and ask yourself what you would do if the situation were inverted.

Let's try applying this principle using your example of friends who, in your view, get angry or sarcastic when you state an opinion to which they are opposed, say "no" to them, or crack a joke. Let's say that someone blurted out some political opinion that you didn't like, or they said "no" to you (I presume some favor is being requested), or they cracked a joke, possibly at your expense. How would/do you react? If the answer is more along the lines of "let it roll off your shoulder" and less along the lines of "start getting passive-aggressive with them," then we can reach a very obvious conclusion: your friends are treating you poorly compared to how you treat them. If all of the above is an accurate reflection of your relationships with these people then you are being more understanding and forgiving of their trespasses against you than they are of yours against them. This would be a plainly unequal relationship whereby they have achieved a position of superiority over you - because they can do to you what you cannot do to them, they have made you their subordinate rather than their peer.

Now, if that's not the case, then forget about all of that. I used it as an example because I find it to be disturbingly common in interpersonal relationships. It is especially disheartening how people use feigned victimhood and the demand for empathy as weapons to wield against others. Some people just learn the very toxic lesson at an early stage in life that they can get their way in an interpersonal conflict and still come out looking like the good guy if they can convince others that they have been wronged or harmed, and that having the other person give up what they had wanted is just evening things out. Childhood is a very easy time to learn about victim and threat narratives, and once people learn to start using these, it's very difficult to get them to stop, because the very nature of these manipulative behaviors is in deception - they aren't working properly if they're detected, after all.

Many romanticized depictions of this behavior appear in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and is attributed to the people classified as Looters and Moochers - people who rely on platitudes, feigned victimhood, and threat narratives in order to manipulate people of principle or moral character into believing themselves to be villains who must give freely of themselves to their "victims" as a form of penance.

Because this behavior is so insidious, deceptive, and manipulative, it can be difficult to tell without a complete understanding of the specific context whether you are just being a jerk or whether your "friends" are manipulating you. That is why I suggest relying on the "turn the table around" method. A change of perspective can be enormously illuminating in determining whether you are being treated fairly in a relationship or being exploited for your conscience and good nature. If you wouldn't do to them what they are doing to you given the same circumstances, then odds are you're being abused - not in an obvious or overt manner, but in a subtle and venomous way. And that kind of abuse can cause quite a bit more damage than a simple act of assault. If you really are in such a situation, I would recommend against unduly taking the blame or allowing the abuse to continue. Getting people like that out of your life isn't really "losing friends" at all, if they weren't treating you in a very friendly manner to begin with.

[trooper6]

Maybe the person is too "sensitive" when they say, "You are hurting my feelings."
Maybe the person is a jerk when they say, "My friend is hurt, how irritating."

In the end, I don't think it matters which is more "true." These two things are an indicator of incompatibility. Don't be friends with people whose feelings irritate you. Don't be friends with people who keep disregarding your feelings.

If you cut out all the people in your life who are too sensitive/too mean and you still have a rich, happy life full of good, healthy relationships, then there is no problem and your life is probably better. You can go on with your life and do no self-reflection because you have a good, functioning life.

If, on the other hand, it turns out that when you cut out all the people in your life who are too sensitive/too mean, there is no one left, then the problem probably isn't them, it is probably you. At that point you have to ask yourself what is more important to you: having relationships or never changing. If you want to have relationships, then you have to change. I recommend therapy...therapy is awesome. If you prefer not changing, then you have to come to terms with not having fulfilling relationships.

[trooper6]

When dealing with interpersonal relationships, I find it to be enormously clarifying to simply flip the script and ask yourself what you would do if the situation were inverted.

Let's try applying this principle using your example of friends who, in your view, get angry or sarcastic when you state an opinion to which they are opposed, say "no" to them, or crack a joke. Let's say that someone blurted out some political opinion that you didn't like, or they said "no" to you (I presume some favor is being requested), or they cracked a joke, possibly at your expense. How would/do you react? If the answer is more along the lines of "let it roll off your shoulder" and less along the lines of "start getting passive-aggressive with them," then we can reach a very obvious conclusion: your friends are treating you poorly compared to how you treat them. If all of the above is an accurate reflection of your relationships with these people then you are being more understanding and forgiving of their trespasses against you than they are of yours against them. This would be a plainly unequal relationship whereby they have achieved a position of superiority over you - because they can do to you what you cannot do to them, they have made you their subordinate rather than their peer.

Flipping the script doesn't always work. Because not everyone has the same boundaries. You, in a typical Randian fashion, have crafted a situation where people not enjoying being insulted by you is abuse of your by them. That does not work for me. Let me clarify by using, not jokes, but physical violence--in a real situation. I know a person, we'll call him Rand, who tends to physically assault people when they upset him. An example: There was a graduate seminar he was in. Like a typical insensitive, sexist jerk, he was continuously talking over this one first year female student, we'll call Sally. Another female student, we'll call Tina, said to him in class, "Rand, could you let Sally finish her sentence?" This upset him, because he saw that as disrespecting him in front of the professor. So he hauled off and punched Tina. Everyone was pretty shocked and no one said anything. The seminar went on and he went on talking ver Sally and any other woman in the room.

I heard about this later and confronted him. And I actually used the "flip the script" technique. I said, "How would you have felt if Sally or Tina hit you?!" He responded, I'd be fine with it. I think anyone who disrespects anyone else should be punched."

So according to your model, Tina and Sally were abusing Rand because they were reacting in ways that were not equal to the ways that he would react. That is BS.

Just because you think it is cool to offend people or hit people doesn't mean that everyone else who doesn't share that view is abusing you.

[RotGtIE]

People who habitually overspeak and assault others while genuinely not having any problem with being overspoken or assaulted themselves exist solely in Unprovable Anecdote Land.

[Rinima]

Trooper6 I think you're only thinking from one angle here.
Your assuming that King-sama is being a cow. We don't know the entire situation here, so we really can't go around saying that King-sama is being mean to these people, or that they are being mean to him.

I think we need more information here.

[ThisIsNoName]

People who habitually overspeak and assault others while genuinely not having any problem with being overspoken or assaulted themselves exist solely in Unprovable Anecdote Land.

Not necessarily. It all depends on the people involved. I know I have a problem with overspeaking others just because I come from a family that communicates almost entirely through body language, with short sentences to support them. By the time any words come out, I can tell at least 90% of what you are going to try to say. If you cut me off, I'll just assume that you knew what I was going to say.
But some of the people I've met become extremely offended when I cut them off, and on the flip side, I tend to get offended when others "ramble on and on" (from my point of view) because it signals to me that they have no interest in what I'm trying to say.

You can apply that just as easily to physicality (though not to the extent of punching others in the face, of course). Some people are much more accustomed to touch than others.

Also I'm realizing that an asynchronous method for communication makes for terrible synchronous conversations.

[trooper6]

Trooper6 I think you're only thinking from one angle here.
Your assuming that King-sama is being a cow. We don't know the entire situation here, so we really can't go around saying that King-sama is being mean to these people, or that they are being mean to him.

I think we need more information here.

Actually, I'm saying it ultimately doesn't matter who is being a cow. King-Sama says that the relationship isn't working for him, so he has two options: either fix it or leave it. If King-sama doesn't want to change his behavior in order to fix it, then he should leave. If leaving relationships that don't work for him leave him with no relationships, then maybe he should do some changes instead.