Thoughts on Manipulation

There are certain topics I'm getting increasingly sensitive to, lately. I even get called out for being "too serious" and for not shaking off whatever bothers me with a laugh. But how do you shake off something that makes your stomach churn?

One of these things (and maybe I'll talk about some of the others in subsequent posts) is manipulation.

I just recently realized that I have grown up amidst a culture that is permeated with manipulation, a culture in which even the simplest of conversations revolves around an implicit but well known game of "I will only hint at things and you will either understand what I mean or curteously ask me to tell you more".

"I thought this was no strings attached!"

In this culture courting, friendship, family ties all appear to be, at times, theatrical spectacles of behavior-response patterns. You do something, and I know I have to do something else in return. I don't question why, I just know I should because that is what is expected of me.

If I invite you out for dinner and I pay the bill, I expect you to agree to do something sexual with me in return. If I display all the standard signs of interest toward you, and you seem to receive them, if not to invite them, then no matter how apparently detached you appear to be, I will make a move on you.

And several other implicit dialogues or panthomimes.

Now, in recent years I have surrounded myself with a bunch of people who not only are well aware of those patterns (the manipulative patterns, those that intend to elicit a response out of a sense of obligation or indebtedness), but strive to avoid them and to adopt a different, straightforward behavior. And as I have grown accustomed to both people stating clearly what they want, and to expressing clearly what I want, I find myself more and more irritated when I am administered the standard manipulative pattern.

I reject it. I stay away from it.

At times, I try to explain my standpoint on this issue to the random individual that happens to trigger my manipulation alarm. Calmly. Making it clear that it is the dyamic that I loathe, and not the person enacting it, whom I assume to be well intentioned.

Sadly, what happens most of the times is that they get offended, they take it personal, and get defensive. Why does it have to be so hard to distinguish between oneself and one's (ingrained) behavior? I can see the two as separate things, can't others see it too?

It gets frustrating at times, with me getting the feeling I cannot actually communicate with somebody because I don't see them listening, but only scanning my words for one of the standard conversation triggers to which they can react appropriately.

There is a very bright side to this all, though. On the one hand, it is always extremely refreshing and liberating to find others who share my feelings and who crave and enact straightforward, transparent communication. And on the other hand, I become increasingly self aware of my own manipulative tendencies, and it becomes easier for me to avoid them. I did catch myself short of sending a disturbingly manipulative email no later than yesterday, and I'm happy I could rearrange the text taking the wrong stuff away before sending it.

The path to self awareness is long, hard, and entirely worth the effort.