I think it’s more like “If you have a situation where you someone seems to dislike you, especially if you often find that people seem to dislike you, and you wish to change that state of affairs, then here are some things you might think about”.
It’s not a matter of “you can’t ever hurt anyone’s feeling even a little without them hating you forever”. If that were the case, we’d all be doomed. But I’ve know, often worked with, people who almost systematically do everything in that article, over and over and over again. And they are not generally well-liked, and there are often pretty significant professional consequences they may not even realize because they are not well liked.
That article raises a much more important concern: why does the pic of Comic Book Guy have a normal skin tone, instead of the traditional Simpsons jaundice?
See, this is where you’re projecting. The article days nothing about holding someone responsible. It’s saying “These are the kinds of things the human brain subconsciously does.” Period. What you want to do or not do about it is a different matter. It’s informing you why people might be reacting in certain ways. Would you rather be ignorant of these facts?
Yes, autocorrect got me.
Sure there is. You don’t go through your entire adulthood unchanged and uninformed. You constantly pick up new information and apply it to your relationships, whether consciously or not. This article offers new information. It isn’t a new legal standard for which you will be issued citations for violating. It merely states facts about some of the ways in which human relationships are influenced. What you choose to do with this information is up to you.
Furthermore, if you chose to act on this information, it wouldn’t exactly be difficult. You don’t have to know for certain what the circumstances of the people around you are before taking this kind if thing into account.
Is that article overwrought? Yes. She notices a woman struggling and assumes it is because she’s black and fat, as if blackness and fatness are naturally burdensome and thus pitiable. And she kind of comes across as a person who needs to feel guilty over something. Kind of like, “No one can accuse me of being mean and heartless like the rest of you yoga bitches, because l am felt sorry for this lady! Why don’t you?!!!”
But I don’t have a problem with people expressing the weird thoughts and feelings they experience, just as long as they’re receptive to being challenged and don’t take those thoughts and feelings too seriously. Merely thinking/feeling something is not indicative of anything important about a person’s character or likeability. And yoga definitely conjures up some weird thoughts and feelings. I know all kinds of things cross my mind when I’m in class, and it’s refreshing to hear that I’m not the only one who experiences this. It’s just that unlike this woman, I’m not brave enough to reveal those thoughts.
The article makes it pretty clear who it is written for-- people who aren’t getting the reactions they expect out of others, and would like some insight into what is going on. In other words, people who know they are putting people off somehow, but don’t know why.
If you people generally treat you in ways you expect, it’s not for you. If you just don’t care about why people don’t like you, it’s not for you. It’s not like these are absolute rules for everyone. They are just some of the unwritten rules of social interaction that most of us have picked up pretty well, but some of us could use a refresher on.
“…I watched as her despair turned into resentment and then contempt. I felt it all directed toward me and my body.”
"[description of the author’s clothes and body]…“Surely this woman was noticing all these things and judging me for them, stereotyping me, resenting me- or so I imagined.”
“…but I could feel her hostility all the same.”
She never says “hate,” that was my word. But either way I think the author went way beyond pitying this woman who was struggling at yoga and imagined all sorts of feelings this woman must have simply based on her weight, race and apparent lack of yoga skill. People have weird thoughts all the time, but this woman being driven to tears over someone she never interacted with (and was simply bad at yoga) is flat out bizarre. It sounds as if she is insecure about white privilege, but cannot articulate it well so she comes across as projecting onto and objectifying this other woman.
For the record, according to Gawker, XOJane changed the name on the byline because the author was getting so much hate mail.
This question comes up occasionally, and all I offer is the anecdote where my wife (early in our relationship) came home, upset because some random woman “looked at me like I was fat!”
Fortunately, I was actually able to help her out of that funk by asking her what that face actually looks like, and by trying different attempts. Laura always falls for my funny faces.
So… yes.
Really, the true answer is “All of us are that insecure, at one time or another.”
Yeah, that’s pretty pathetic, CatherineZeta. Maybe it wouldn’t be so eye-rolly if she had a little bit more awareness and didn’t sound so self-important.
But like I said, I do like that it is “out there” for public consumption BECAUSE it is so honest. If it accomplishes anything, at least it dispels the myth that no one is focused on you in yoga class. I’ve had people tell me this shit before and I just laugh at them for being so naive. Hell yeah if you’re the lone fill in the blank people are going to notice! And some of them may actually think bad things about you, too! It’s refreshing to have someone reveal, however cluelessly, that they aren’t as enlightened as yogis would like for us to believe they are. All that “I’m a wise sage on a mountaintop” bullshit that is associated with yoga practitioners gets really old after awhile. I’m all for demystifying the experience.
I’m sure there are plenty of other people who do the reflexive pity thing. Maybe reading that thing will help them to quit the habit.
I think this just happened to me. For context, I’m three months post-partum, my third child, and am working hard to reclaim my body. I’m really proud of my efforts.
I have a friend who is very fat, suffers from depression/whatever mental problems (I know there’s some anxiety in there), and has a mentality about life that I am all too familiar with: I really want X, but… She wants to quit smoking, but. She wants to lose weight, but. She wants to be a better parent, but. I asked her months ago to get a gym membership with me and she enthusiastically agreed and then never talked about it again.
So anyway, I’m working hard. And I was just having a fast-paced text conversation with her, lots of quick replies without any gaps, neither of us are busy right now, etc. Just talking about our day, weekend plans, whatever. I mentioned that today I went on my elliptical until I literally could not make it go anymore. I hit my typical minute mark and decided to just keep going and it was AWESOME. I also said I can’t wait until it warms up and I can play tennis again and go for runs with my oldest.
I haven’t bragged at all, mostly because I know she wants it for herself. She knows I’m working but I don’t check in on Facebook from the gym or post mileage or text her my menu every day or how long I worked out. I’ve never done that. I mentioned it once because today was extraordinary.
That was actually why XOJane’s editor (a black woman) decided to publish it. After the site got a ton of shit for the posting, she explained that she was intrigued by how honest this woman was (apparently the author is someone in her neighborhood) by saying this, especially to another black woman. This came up in a conversation between the two of them and the editor asked her to write an essay on it. Hopefully after hearing responses to her essay she realizes how she came across, even if being hurtful and coming across as so self important was not her intention.
It would have made more sense if she’d written an essay exploring why this woman was the lone black woman in the class rather than simply imagining what the woman may or may not have thought about the author.
I would love to demystify yoga too- that’s why I mostly do it at home! Because I’m not good at it and I’m not solely focusing on the yoga either. It’s impossible for me to meditate or clear my mind, there’s too much in my mind. And I’d like to avoid people who take it too seriously.
XOJane also posted a rebuttal from the perspective of a black woman who does yoga and was pretty pissed off by the original story.
ETA: I reread and she doesn’t mention doing yoga, but she was very upset with the tone of the original essay.
I don’t want to derail the thread, but in case anyone’s interested here’s what the editor wrote as well as the response to it.
It has nothing to do with people being “wusses” or “bending over backwards to avoid offending people”. It’s more about if people seem like they take offense at you for no reason and you don’t know why, here’s a couple of possibilities. Or possibly just being a bit sensitive to others you don’t look like a raging pretentious douche.
It’s sort of the reason people tend to associate mostly with others from their same socioeconomic class. Think of some working class guy telling me he lost his job and is worried about his house payments and I tell him he should use the time to go on vacation for a few weeks and call some of his business school contacts when he gets back. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding for that persons personal and economic situation and would likely lead to resentment. Or at the very least the guys would be like “what the fuck is this idiot talking about?”
My wife has told me that one of her pet peeves is people who over-brag or over-share. One of the reasons she can’t stand my best friend’s wife is because that woman will constantly brag about stuff- as if her self-worth is tied up in all the stuff she has. My wife feels like people who do this are themselves insecure and need to clog up conversations with one-sided dialogue about their European Vacation and how many stars the hotel had and yadda yadda.
She herself doesn’t brag; when she finished Grad School with straight As she didn’t bring it up unless specifically asked. She also doesn’t go out of her way to talk about her job unless the other person is genuinely interested. She in turn will ask people about their family/job/hobbies, and is fine with them enthusiastically sharing, but she considers it pompous for people to go on and on about their stuff/activities if nobody had inquired about it.
That’s just something people who don’t have nice things and can’t afford trips to Europe say.
Seriously though. One of the things that defines and causes friction between socioeconomic classes is that people don’t think of it as “over-sharing” or “bragging”. If no one asked, then it is sort of being a bore. But for a fair number of people, talking about various countries they’ve visited isn’t any more or less special than talking about what steak house they ate at last week.
Labeling it as bragging kinda misses the point. No one likes a braggard, so most people try their best not to be one. And even a person who “has it all” will be annoyed with someone who brags. Bragging isn’t what makes the “hater” feel insecure. It’s any overt display of superiority, particularly in an area where they feel weak.
It’s not even about socioeconomics. At least one’s current status. I have a coworker who frequently bemoans her upbringing as an only-child in a single-parent household. Every time I dare tell a story about my family that makes us sound like the Huxatables, I brace myself for a heavy sigh from her, followed by a self-pitying “Must have been nice…”.
But this is a woman who is socioeconomically “better” than me in some ways, so it is possible she says things that chaff my insecure hide too…which is why I have never felt real close to her.
I worked in a position that worked largely with very elite private schools and top tier universities. This was 1%ville we are talking about.
Now, I went to an objectively crappy public school, and an unremarkable state university. I did manage to to to a locally well regarded grad school, and frankly I have little in life to complain about. It was a great job and I was good at it and felt valued by my organization
We got a new team member in a position slightly above mine. She was young but outstanding at her work, and as good of a team member as you could ask for. She was also clearly from a privileged background-- think European boarding school, Ivy Leagues, J Crew head to toe, perfectly groomed, weekly manicures, consultant husband, finishing school manners. Very smart, very young, very classy.
One day in a meeting we were talking about something to do with public school kids related to a project, and she dropped a small comment implying that they didn’t really matter as they wouldn’t amount to much. Nobody else noticed or cared, and life went on.
But it cut to the core of me, dredging up old insecurities. She had no way to know my background (she only new my grad school), but the way she so easily dismissed so much of my life hurt. I was pleasant with her from then on, but always felt unsettled.
Heh - I run into that all the time when I work part-time. I leave at 2 in the afternoon or something like that, and there’s always someone busting out with, “Must be nice to leave now.” I just smile nicely and say, “Yup, it sure is.”
These people are obviously not thinking about the bigger picture - yeah, I work fewer hours - for less pay, and because this is what my husband and I have chosen together. All of our choices have consequences, and everyone is making their own choices in life.
I’m not tone deaf, either - I never rub anyone’s nose in my ability to make this choice and not have to work 40+ hours a week.
I used to love that quote by Eleanore Roosevelt “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
…until I realized that even with my head unbowed and my permission withheld, some people found it pleasing to remain convinced of my inferiority. Obviously Eleanore Roosevelt never experienced online dating.
I frequently tell my wife that there’s no higher privilege than having a consultant for a husband.
Or the other way to look at it is that in spite of all the European boarding schools, Ivy League colleges, J Crew clothes (which I find to be of poor quality by the way), grooming, manicures, consultant husband and manners, she basically has a job that’s only slightly above yours.
I went to a funeral with a woman who was worried that the people at the event were talking about what she was wearing…soooo, yes, people are extremely insecure.
