Ohhhhhh, the draaaaaaama

[mrissa]

Helpful hints in dealing with the Mris from this week:

1) (from today) Random unsolicited criticism of my life and/or my family, especially without observation or context, is not going to make me a huggy happy girl. If you only stay on people's friendslists when you can make that kind of comment with no cranky response, you'll probably be happier elsewhere. I'm not sure where, since few people in my experience actually find that fun and useful. But elsewhere, anyway. Consider it fair warning.

If you don't think I'm doing a good job raising my dog because the said dog bit you or in some other way misbehaved, please do let me know if I didn't observe the misbehavior or did not seem to find it a problem. (Some people, for example, do not want dogs in their laps; let me know if you're one of them, and I'll do my best to keep her off you. Other people want small dogs in their laps, so I don't consider it a general misbehavior.) If you don't think I'm doing a good job raising my dog but you haven't actually even met the beast, keep your mouth shut.

This goes double for kids, when we have them.

Further, if you don't like how I'm handling my writing career, my relationships with friends and family, my health, my religion, my politics, my yardwork, my hairstyle, or my collection of interesting Belgian cheeses, odds are still fairly good that I didn't ask you. If I become pantingly eager to know if you think I'm doing all right with these things, I know where to find you. Really.

ETA: Please note that, say, a political argument is not the same thing as a personal criticism on political grounds. Right way: "Here's why I think working within the two-party system is more effective on the national level." Wrong way: "You're a member of the [third party]s? You must be stupid!"

2) (from yesterday) The great thing about arguing with me is that I'm here to do my side! You don't have to do my side! You can just do your side! I will take care of telling you what I think!

I know e-mail can take forever. Up to two weeks, even, when I'm busy! But I feel sure you can wait. It is perfectly okay to say, "Do you think X? Is that what you're saying?" This is reasonable. This is useful. Proceeding to phrase the rest of your argument as though I have argued X, and that you have defeated my argument of X! you emerge triumphant! scoooooore! may have worked to win points in high school debate. But it is not actually a way to conduct an adult argument where both sides are interested in what the other side has to say. If you are more interested in "winning," congratulations! You win! I forfeit; I'm done. But for me, even conversations that have become arguments are still supposed to be conversations, so assuming I mean something I haven't even slightly said and then doing your victory dance because you've out-argued yourself? Called a straw man. Not cool. Cut it out.

So okay? Okay.

Some days I hate the internet.

Comments

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Aaaaargh! What is bringing these people out of the woodwork? Sunspots?
Commiserations.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

#2 is an in-person friend of several years' standing, with whom I regularly have discussions with on e-mail, but somehow in the last week the idea of getting my perspective in an argument with me has seemed superfluous. (Happily, when I called him on specific behaviors, backed up with quotes, he apologized.)

So it's not like I'm having these problems with random strangers. It's people I've known for awhile and interacted with.

Sigh.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Sigh indeed. It's definitely worse when people one already has some kind of relationship with start acting weird.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Rest assured if you ask my opinion you will get it. *g* If you simply post a problem I *may* offer anything that comes to mind from personal experience that might be useful, without instructing you that you MUST listen to me. Otherwise, I enjoy reading about your life, I get good ideas from you, and I admire you immensely. I most certainly wouldn't email you with chastisement...something that seems to be happening to me lately.

You are a very happy addition to my Internet life and I hope some day to my in person life. Please ignore the twits. Opinions are like assholes...everyone has one and some of them stink.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I generally know better than to say, "What do you folks think?" when I really, really don't want to know, because "you folks" will tell me. There's a reason I haven't taken a poll on which book to write next, for example, and it's that this is not a democracy. And sometimes I will ask about something, because I do want to know.

But, "When I was doing X, Y worked for me" is a very different thing than, "You must do Y" or "You have a problem with X."

Thank you for being kind. I needed some of that.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Look! It's a cranky Mris!

But you don't mention anything about disposal of the bodies, so I guess that's under control. Maybe I'll see the heads mounted on spikes outside your door next time I'm there?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I expect to have the heads cleared out and in the trash by the time you get here. We don't have a lot of strict codes, covenants, & restrictions in this neighborhood, but 24 hours is the limit for heads on spikes.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I'm honestly quite impressed at the headway you've made in training Ista. And you can't credit it all to her intelligence, because smart dogs are smart at getting their own way.

Two answers I like for "Does your dog bite?"

1. "A little."
2. "That is not my dog."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Gratuitous compliments always accepted.

My usual agreement

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

What you're writing makes a whole lot of sense. Even via the Internet, I am only just barely getting to know you, but (so?) if it looks at all as though I'm doing any of these things, please let me know. (I've been accused of arguing with straw men in the past -- have never been conscious of doing it, though, so this may need some work on my part.) Perhaps someday when I meet you, I will also meet your dog.

Nate

Re: My usual agreement

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I try to apply the clue-by-4 before cutting people's heads off and putting them on the pikes dd_b mentioned. It saves a lot of time and cleanup.

Sometimes there's a very fine line between misunderstanding someone and constructing a straw man. I think waiting to hear the answer to, "Are you arguing X?" once you've thought to ask it is a good start, though.

As for meeting me and/or my dog, when we have f'list open parties, the dog lives here and is present for at least part of the party, so there will at least be opportunity.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Don't have much to add here, since you're right all around. I just was wondering what "ETA" means in the context used above?

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Edited to add.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Ahh, thanks much.

[ladysea.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

You are so impressive. =)

I wish I could express myself as well as you do.

When someone made me mad today, I bit his head off...stomped off with my vacuum, and cried and vacuumed at the same time.

*Hugs for the sweet Ista too*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks, hon. I'm not actually impressed with myself when I get annoyed and snarky. It's harder for me not to, and hard to keep within parameters like "you don't make personal remarks even when someone else does." Under those circumstances, I do my share of crying and vacuuming.

(I originally started that paragraph, "Thanks, ho." Umm. Not the message I was going for.)

[ladysea.livejournal.com]

I am impressed that it seems so calm, well thought out, and rational.

*hugs*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ahh. That's a cultural thing. You will see it in a fair number of Scandosotans around here: when you're really pissed, you get quiet, extra-calm, and hyper-rational. In person, I also get terse. If I say very little, and it's all in an extremely quiet, deliberately pleasant tone, that's when you should worry.

I believe this has culturally evolved because having a skinny guy who's 5'9" screaming irrationally is bad enough, but having a guy timprov's size or bigger looming over you screaming irrationally is just not something most people can deal with. Not culturally stable. If you do that enough times, the people in your culture who don't do it will pack up and move to a different fjord and leave you alone for the winter, where you will starve to death or freeze or just spend the winter staring at the walls and wishing you hadn't gone bear-shirt on your friends and family.

Whereas if you do it in a controlled, rational, clever way, not only will they think about staying, they may decide it's an epic poem and cross out your neighbors' names and write in the gods'.

It's amazing how many things come back to the Lokasenna when you come down to it.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i do this. when i get really really really mad (as in, twice or three times so far in my entire life mad) i get super eloquent and rational and quiet.

it's usually when *i* am packing for the next fjord over, though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, that's a good option as well, sometimes.

[matastas.livejournal.com]

I think that I might have snorted my beverage all over my comp-u-tator, had you started a paragraph with, "Thanks, ho."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'll keep that in mind, pimpdaddy.