EDIT: I posted the above before I gained a clear understanding of the situation. The specific example is retracted.
It is impossible to have any form of relationship with another human without ceding some form of control to that person. This applies if you're partners, friends, enemies, whatever. You can't avoid this without becoming a hermit.
Most important would be the relationship you have with your friends, as you cede more control to them than anyone else. The problem occurs when the friend starts to enjoy that control more than they enjoy you as a person. At that point, the relationship becomes unhealthy. If allowed to continue, it becomes ALL about control. You become their drug. You become something they can punch around a bit when they've had a bad day.
The tendency is to maintain the friendship despite that sort of thing, because who doesn't value their friends? And who wants to walk away from years of friendship? Nobody, of course, which causes people to hang around in seriously dysfunctional relationships. This is usually not harmful, but eventually it will lead to a disaster, when the friend decides to play control games while something important is happening.
Obviously, I'm talking about what just happened between Nigel, Alty, and I...But I think the observation was worth writing down as a general statement.
Interesting point: When someone picks up an ism, all of their available control over you will be bent towards making you blindly accept their ism. This even works for a time, at least with me. Then when everything goes in the shitter, you say to yourself "What the FUCK was I thinking? I just spent 2 months trying to squeeze my hairy ass into someone else's uniform."
This is all correct. It's also better to break off the relationship when it's freshly dysfunctional than to wait until it's metastasised and it takes a Doomsday Weapon to end it.
Quote from: v3x on September 09, 2012, 10:50:06 PM
This is all correct. It's also better to break off the relationship when it's freshly dysfunctional than to wait until it's metastasised and it takes a Doomsday Weapon to end it.
Apparently, that was taken care of for me. In any case, live and learn, collect some scars, get back upright, and think about today instead of yesterday.
It's upsetting and anger-fying when that happens.
Quote from: Freeky Queen of DERP on September 10, 2012, 12:16:28 AM
It's upsetting and anger-fying when that happens.
Yeah, but the train has left the station. There's no reason to keep running, is there?
Definitely not, but do you stick around for the next train or take a taxi?
Quote from: Freeky Queen of DERP on September 10, 2012, 12:18:53 AM
Definitely not, but do you stick around for the next train or take a taxi?
There'll be other trains.
Sound reasoning.
Im still not exctly sure what happened. A bit of a head scratcher.
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on September 10, 2012, 12:24:24 AM
Im still not exctly sure what happened. A bit of a head scratcher.
It's just The Future, doing what it does. Nothing you'd want to get your sleeve caught in.
Gotcha. I suppose this is what happens when im not caught up on particular threads (or real life for that matter). Something happens and i just have to say to myself "i have no clue what just happened."
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on September 10, 2012, 12:31:45 AM
Gotcha. I suppose this is what happens when im not caught up on particular threads (or real life for that matter). Something happens and i just have to say to myself "i have no clue what just happened."
I
was there and I'm not sure what happened.
I was there and I don't even know what to say.
Fuck.
I only caught a small bit of it, I think. Drawing on my past, though, I've had instances where friends of mine have gotten to a point in their lives where they just needed a good freak out and some cool down time mainly due to a variety of life circumstances manifesting all at once. I'm not saying this is what happened but rather offer an objective alternative.
On the other hand, I've rightly dissolved friendships where I ended up being subject of abuse. I'm not saying this is what happened either as there's no way I could know, but just wanted to keep it even.
Yeah. I really didn't want to get in the middle of this one. There were a few times I wanted to say something but it would have seemed like getting between brother/sister/husband/wife/whatever. In those situations I've learned to shut up if no one is getting killed, interfering makes things worse IME. I hope that was a correct assessment and I wasn't the asshole who stood by and let things go to shit. It was a hard call. In any case, I hope this can be ironed out somehow, I'm still at "wait and see".
I also really don't want to get involved (despite it all looking like a misunderstanding from the outside, frankly), but Nigel has kinda disappeared and I wonder if anyone knows for sure that it's not because of a medical emergency?
Quote from: VERBL on September 10, 2012, 11:27:05 AM
I also really don't want to get involved (despite it all looking like a misunderstanding from the outside, frankly), but Nigel has kinda disappeared and I wonder if anyone knows for sure that it's not because of a medical emergency?
Yeah, I missed a lot of what went down (I'm on a semi-internet-hiatus) but this did occur to me as well. :|
She was on fb earlier, seemed to be ok.
Thanks.
Quote from: VERBL on September 10, 2012, 11:27:05 AM
I also really don't want to get involved (despite it all looking like a misunderstanding from the outside, frankly), but Nigel has kinda disappeared and I wonder if anyone knows for sure that it's not because of a medical emergency?
It is not. Or at least it wasn't yesterday.
She left due to the various discussions in the feminism threads.
I'm thinking maybe there's more going on then we know about? Or maybe all the stuff going on for her got to her. You know her pattern of behavior better than I do, but this doesn't seem very much like her usually.
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on September 10, 2012, 05:53:10 PM
I'm thinking maybe there's more going on then we know about? Or maybe all the stuff going on for her got to her. You know her pattern of behavior better than I do, but this doesn't seem very much like her usually.
She was pretty damn vocal about her leaving and why, in the latest & greatest feminism thread, and in Alty's thread.
But since nobody READS, they just YELL, I can see how the fuck it got missed.
No, I did read those threads. I'm a bit appalled by the barrage of texts. I'm just saying, in long terms behavior patterns, that doesn't seem, to me, to be terribly Nigel-y and she's under a fair bit of stress lately. But you've known her for longer than I have, so I could be wrong. *shrug*
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on September 10, 2012, 06:20:40 PM
No, I did read those threads. I'm a bit appalled by the barrage of texts. I'm just saying, in long terms behavior patterns, that doesn't seem, to me, to be terribly Nigel-y and she's under a fair bit of stress lately. But you've known her for longer than I have, so I could be wrong. *shrug*
Of course she's under stress. She just got half her guts scooped out, and her financial situation is somewhere between "crap" and "everything's on fire".
But that doesn't change the fact that she no longer respects me. And without mutual respect, you can't really have a friendship, can you? Again, I place no blame on her. It's just that the fucking world changed on me again. It got
tidied up.
For all of the differences I have with Nigel, I do empathize with her medical situation. My wife had to go through pretty much the same procedure due to some severe complications from the last pregnancy. I came close to losing one or both of them. (which may have added to some of my snarkiness over the past few months) Anyway, I DO hope she (Nigel) is feeling better soon.