How to deal with players of mind games,hidden motives, personal politics?

In My Humble Opinion
1

First off I don’t want to drag psych terms into it unless it helps me deal with this issue, but I am 100% straight forward and up front. I will be honest about my motives, I don’t play mind games at all, and in a conflict I try to parse out what each party wants from the situation and if possible work out a mutually beneficial solution if possible.

Not only can I not stand mind games, hidden motives driving actions, or interpersonal deception or politics it often due to no action on my part backfires horribly. Let us say a person complains of a problem with their PC, well I will go and fix it casually thinking I am doing something beneficial, only for the person to be angry at me, and have someone else explain they did not want it fixed because they wanted an excuse/something to hold over others heads so now I am the enemy.

This has caused many, many, many problems in both personal and business aspects of my life and I am sick of it. The one solace I have is that at the least I married a spouse who is as plain spoken and up front as I am so I don’t have to deal with it at home or I think I’d have lost it by now. Hell my wife has had to suffer with my adaptations to others before I realized she was serious, if she says she isn’t interested in flowers because they die or jewelry because she doesn’t like wearing it SHE MEANS IT PLAINLY, she isn’t playing a game like most. :smiley:
But beyond that dealing with people outside of that they are full of hidden motives, games, status politics. How the hell do you deal with it? How do you cut to the real requests and wants underneath the bullshit without having a psychologist in your pocket 24/7?

2

So basically, you’re Sincere Guy Stu from the old SNL sketch with Joe Montana? :slight_smile:

3

EDIT:To give an example of just how clueless I am with this, I have been told something and the person telling me swears me to secrecy and I agree. They inquire whether I confronted the superior in the following days and I say no of course not. They then in a huff go and tell the person themselves that they told me, and now I have two people angry at me because I did not play the right role in their game.

Half the time I wouldn’t even object to the real thing people want, I just don’t know WHAT it is!

4

Ummmm… bone up on my Kant? Doesn’t he basically say each person is their own moral agent, hold beholdent only to your own sense of reason, and that what others do is of no concern if your motives are pure?

5

HAH! Yea you’ve pretty much nailed it aside from the masturbating thing, if I was Stu I’d be like hey sorry to disturb you guys I’ll let you get on with your <evening>:).

Hell I’ve realized later in analysis of the situation that other people assumed I was playing mental games/had a hidden motive and were acting on that, when I really wasn’t and they are then shocked!

6

That’s not something I can disagree with, BUT I still have to live and interact with other people.

7

Well, really, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m very straightforward as well and the way other people evade and manipulate never ceases to annoy me.

8

:(I can relate to that.
EDIT: I don’t even care that others have these hidden motives and games, I just wish they would tell ME what they really want me to do so it doesn’t spiral out of control or they get angry that their usual games aren’t working and assume I am doing it on purpose and must be doing it because of some hidden motive of my own and etc.

I think the VAST majority of people are way, way more immature emotionally than most would believe though.

9

hmmm… my only advice is kind of repeating what I said before but maybe a little more in real world terms. Stop and count to 10. Resist that temptation to get sucked into their drama.

10

Neither of your examples makes sense to me. Instead of fixing the PC, the person wanted you to do something else/act differently than what you did. Without knowing what they wanted and why, it’s difficult to say what you could have done. Same with the person who was upset that you didn’t confront the superior – why the upset? It may help to know some details, because many times manipulation and “mind games" can be recognized by social cues.

11

The OP lives in Trinidad and interacts with Trinidadians. Who apparently are culturally in to game playing.

12

The person with the PC WANTED a “broken” PC and did not really want it fixed, so they had an excuse for not doing work or had something to hold over management. They wanted something to complain about, they did not want it fixed.

The other person secretly wanted me to angrily confront the superior, despite swearing me to secrecy, and they fully expected me to break the secrecy and were angry I didn’t so they had to do it themself. They were trying to create drama and it failed, so they were pissed as I was just a pawn as they wanted the superior to then come back tot hem and who knows what game they were going to run from there.
Here is a specific personal family example I have recently run into, my mother(mentally ill and a very long story) recently died in another country and left quite a mess and property that needs cleaning and labor. I told my sister I do not have the money for travel, and she does not have the money for making storage unit payments/mortgage payments.

I tried to work things out logically, laying out my position, and even offering to do almost all the labor if she could pay for travel and minor living expenses. I laid out my position financially and otherwise and what I could contribute, and told her the best and most logical and financially smart way to dispose of things, tackling the storage unit first and told her to post objects on craigslist for money and I didn’t care about keeping a tally of money. I also told her since she claims she can’t do any labor and has no money, we can look into ways of solving this.

Thing just got bizarre with her saying I was ruining her life’s dream and generally seeming angry and defensive.

After analysis it came out she was angry because she had wasted quite a bit of money and effort trying to get love and gratitude from our mother, that never came and our mom was just nasty and abusive. I advised her not to waste this money or effort, but she did anyway in the hope it would win her affection and appreciation but it did not. She also felt I was cold hearted because I laid boundaries with our mom and would not allow myself to be taken advantage of, so she felt I was forcing her to waste her money and effort dealing with her.

So she is now angry and resentful of me and was trying to engineer a situation where I would waste money and my own time and be miserable, because she was convinced I had plenty and was just lying. In truth I honestly have none, and I feel bad she got exploited but I warned her not to. So now she refuses to co-operate at all. She feels if I had been more willing to engage with our mom and give her money she would not have had to.

So we have a situation where I feel this is the problem and these are the possible solutions, when really my sister is emotional and wants to irrationally extract things from me I don’t have to give due to resentment.
This is just one small example where I am baffled until the real motive comes through.

13

I’ve lived in three countries, ALL were into game playing. A L L, if anything Trinis are hard to figure out because of strange cultural concepts, not game playing.

The example I gave above about my sis, she is 100% USAian.

14

Bafflement dealing with Trinis usually revolves around me not knowing cultural taboos or norms and the other person assuming I do.

Like I might say well can we set the meeting at four? Is that OK? And the other person declining because it is drizzling, and they have a baby and of course I must have known:rolleyes: they weren’t going to go out in the dew to risk their baby. So what kind of game am I playing? Either trying to force them to refuse or trying to kill their baby, when in reality I was just ignorant of the meaning of dew.

15
  1. Ask the person what they want you to do about the issue.
    a) agree

or

b) move on

then

  1. Move on

Done.

Get rid of as many variables as possible in your conversations. If someone reacts like your computer issue tell that person not to bring problems to you that they don’t want fixed.

16

You can’t control how crazily other people behave and will become as crazy as they are, the more you try. Sometimes people are just going to be mad at you, even though you’ve done nothing wrong.

The repaired computer: sometimes it’s nice to do surprise favors for people, but only if you are able to tell whether they will consider a particular action a favor. Its better to offer the favor and give them the choice. That said, if the person was just looking for an excuse not to work and is angry that you failed to cooperate in their scheme, they are probably a jerk anyway.

The secret you didn’t tell: your word is your word. You did nothing wrong in any sense. The angry person tried to lure you into a trap and is mad because they failed.

Your sister: behaving irrationally after the death of a mentally-ill parent is normal, so cut her some slack and don’t expect logic. Try to be supportive instead of reasoning with her and hopefully she will come around.

17

You don’t want a psych…ist in your pocket either; some of them just second-guess you and themselves till nobody knows what is what. Not that I would know.:rolleyes:

My best tactic is to become preternaturally calm and let the other person wear themselves out with their own issues. Sadly, logic does not work.

18

It sounds like, other than your sister, some of your acquaintances don’t expect to be dealing with honest people, which may be a cultural norm, and they are not honest themselves. There’s not much to be done when folk don’t play by the same rules other than to be cautious. I agree with the above: ask questions and wait until asked before helping someone you don’t know you can trust. And don’t regret doing the right thing.

19

I just wish she had been and would be honest with me about how she feels even if it is irrational, I wouldn’t be angry at her.

One aspect of it is that my sister had recently gotten divorced, and my mom was complaining about needing car work done. My sister found a store credit card for a car repair chain in her ex husband’s name with no charge on it, she gave it to my mom with the promise she would only charge $700 in repairs and my sis would make the payments with the help of my mom and her ex would never know. She thought this would finally be the thing my mom would have to thank her for doing.

My mom went and charged more than 2 grand on it(the car is worth under 4 grand) and when my sister was furious and confronted her my mom said she was sick of only having needed stuff done and just told them to do the works basically, her words saying she deserved some luxury in her life. Then she told my sis she didn’t do shit for her, her ex did this for her and if he finds out she will thank him and tell him she will make payments when she can.

I warned both this was criminal credit card fraud, I warned my sister not to do it, I told her mom would not care or show love or appreciation but she didn’t listen and of course mom screwed her over and insulted her. My mom apparently lied and said it was her husband’s card and the repair place let her do it, she was good at lies.

My mom died two months later making no payment. The car is in my deceased father’s name, when his estate is probated debtors including the IRS will take everything. The car has monthly $300 payments, and has more than twelve payments remaining and cannot be paid off early to avoid interest. He signed such a shitty loan agreement because he had not a cent to put down as a payment.

I told my sister to clean out to the car and call the company to come take it, no she refused saying she just sunk two grand into it she will have to repay somehow to her ex if he doesn’t have her arrested. I told her if and when he finds out just say to him your mom must have stolen the card without your knowledge and used it, this will be confirmed by the repair place records. He can sue our mom’s estate, and he will get squat.

No she isn’t going to do that to mom:rolleyes: So she made a payment, about a month later she told me how could I have let her waste her money like that she just realized the car isn’t even in our mom’s name but our dead dad and even if she pays it off we will never get it after probate. Blaming me for it, and I told her flat out I am sorry I understand you are upset but I CANNOT physically as I don’t have it make these car payments.

She feels me running off to the Caribbean made her HAVE TO deal with and get exploited by our mom, my sister blames me.

20

Run off to is how my sister puts it, I call it living my life. She feels I neglected my duty in dealing with my crazy mom.