Male Centrism at the Dope

The BBQ Pit
961

“Successful” does not mean psychologically secure. I know many very successful people, by almost any objective metric, education, income, career status, looks, who are still very insecure about themselves when it comes to romantic relationships. I have no specific knowledge of these sorts of abusive relationships, and if any of my friends have been or are in one they have not shared about it with me, but my understanding (open to correction) is that that emotional/psychological insecurity is what drives the behaviors on both sides of a romantically abusive relationship.

Do you also know people who are successful but insecure?

My guess is that they have a hunger for the romantic approval and that the very inconsistency of its being given, mixed with abusiveness, acts like those variable ratio schedules of operant conditioning protocols, that create behavior patterns fairly resistant to extinction.

Does that make any sense to you?

962

Sorry, you lost me at that.

963

So, if she allows herself to be manipulated, that’s her fault. But, if she was manipulating the man abusively, (think rich old guy, young goldigger!), that would be her fault too, right?

I think I see the flaw in your thinking!

964

no, you fucknut.

if someone grows up in an abusive and/or controlling upbringing, then to them that is what is “normal.” It’s what they’re familiar with and conditioned to. So, when (if) they make it to adulthood and end up with an abusive and/or controlling partner, they don’t get out because there are no warning flags for them to see. They’re just experiencing the “normal” they grew up with.

and this is why I said people are not robots. we are not simple, logical, calculating machines. We think and feel. and what we think/how we feel about things is heavily influenced by what we’re accustomed to.

you’ve never been in that kind of situation nor had that kind of upbringing, so it’s easy for you to sit there on your Ned Crimwelt ass and puke out shit like “Hurr durr she’s so stupid she couldn’t see the warning flags.”

and that’s why you suck.

965

Did this woman grow up in an abusive and/or controlling upbringing?

966

Sorry.

Operant conditioning is how learning occurs by positive and negative pairings. Pull a lever get a reward, or to remove/avoid a negative circumstance, that kind of thing.

Once it is clear to a subject (mouse, dog, monkey, human, whatever) what the desired behavior is there are protocols that make the learned behavior last longer (be resistant to extinction). Always rewarding is NOT the best way to make a behavior last. Turns out that one of the most effective ways to make the behavior last is to fairly randomly vary how many times the behavior has to be repeated before the reward (or removal of aversive stimulus) occurs. That’s the “variable ratio schedule.”

Again, that this has any relevance to abusive relationships is just my guess. The bigger point is as otherwise made here: behaviors are often not conscious rational processes noticing flags and all. But getting what you desire only some of the time does tend to create a behavior that is more persistent than always getting what you desire. Even though logically the inconsistency of affection should be a red flag.

967

I don’t know, and it’s irrelevant. it’s a refutation to your claim that “everyone SHOULD” see certain things as red flags.

968

I lost track. Am I a misogynist pig or some doofuss who should know better. Or just some asshole?

969

We’re all assholes, sweetie. It’s just that some of us are more misogynist than others.

970

To put it another way, because people are individuals, complex individuals, each with a whole host of complex individual experiences and the resulting frames of mind that are different from yours and individually their own. You are not the arbiter of normal behavior. The concept of “normal behavior” is, itself, flawed. You have no insight into other people, and your judgment is simplistic and jejune.

971

Having your host family in a foreign country take you to a club you’re too young to enter legally and leave you there in the company of a man you don’t know, scrambling away while you’re in the toilet, with no contact phone number and in your first night there, is a big red flag, right?

I mean, anybody would go to the organization which has placed them there and ask to be re-placed, right?

Now try “all your life you’ve been repeatedly informed, by word and by deed, that you personally did not have any right to receive help, ever, under any circumstances; if you request help against an adult, you’ll be called a liar because Adults Are Always Right And Their Actions Always Correct” and add “by the way, one of the people mentioned in the first paragraph is a police sergeant”.

I didn’t ask for a re-placement. I did get help, though: the cop’s wife, a former prostitute, came to my defense. But she was one of the very, very few grown-ups who ever did; of all that people, she’s the only one whose name I remember. “You’re lying” is still and will always remain a trigger for me (tell me I’m mistaken but don’t fucking call me a liar unless you’re willing to repeat it on the street).

To help someone, first you (we) need to understand them, or at least accept that, even if we don’t understand them completely, the mechanisms they are using are those which happen to be logical to them, given their situation and their background. This applies whether we’re talking about battered spouses, abused employees, bosses who don’t know how to give instructions, people with holes in their wallets, addicts, or those who don’t want to see an eye doctor after their eyeball falls off. Saying “bah, if they’re putting up with that it’s because they like it” isn’t what I’d call helpful.

972

Um, Hello Nava?

Totally evil response. ExceptreHello. Pretend I’m not a jerk and am saying ‘Hello’ because were pals.

973

Hello DZ, how’s it going today?

974

hi dropzone waves hi