Imo absolutely. Work has always been just that. You give your hours for pay. If coworkers are not aholes that is a reasonable bar. Instead you infuse words like impact and family in your working relationships you suddenly have this dynamic tensing towards Stockholm syndrome and passive aggressiveness where everyone smiles and no one is happy (except the sociopaths may be?). Sadly he seems to have caught into this!
For a long time I've personally felt that if someone in my life is going back and forth from being friendly to being mean, I mark that relationship as being negative. Not a question in my mind.
Relationships are to be judged by consistent behavior over weeks, months and years. If I have to keep guessing if I'm going to get the stick or the carrot from someone, to me it's a no-brainer that I shouldn't expect kindness from them.
Some people are moody, i.e. emotionally unstable, so it's just a coin toss as to what kind of interaction you're going to have with them. Dealing with them successfully involves a tedious routine of 'taking their temperature'. It's really more pleasant to deal with a consistently grouchy person than a bipolar type, as you always know what to expect.
The truly manipulative sociopathic type is rarer but they're the ones who behave that way deliberately in an effort to control others, keep them off balance, influence their behavior and so on. A classic example is the 'secret-gatherer' whose friendly outreaches are designed to gather compromising information which can be leaked at some opportune moment, aka 'the blackmailer'. Thankfully most people aren't like this, but identifying the ones who are and avoiding them like the plague is a valuable life skill.
yup that's what complicates things as to simply "avoid ambiguous friendships". I've had the best times and experiences with pretty volatile people (the first kind you mentioned). It's a lot of work on my side to put up with the mood swings but I feel like it's still a net positive, though it surely would be less stress to hang out with someone calmer.
I agree with your second paragraph. But are there not moody people i.e. emotionally unstable types in all of us. People, myself included go through troubling periods in life and can cause them to be less emotionally aware of themselves. Sometimes we're closer to this reality than we imagine.
Should we not have a degree of tolerance towards this and even chronic cases because some people's lives a just severely fudged up sometimes i.e. Health reasons outside of their control.
I wish I was 18 again without the worry of the worries I have today, carefree almost 100% of the time but life attaches it's baggage on all of us and it's to be expected that some people will be down, can't expect people to be the reproducible version emotionally every time.
"Friendships" can be quite a headache, huh? That's why I don't have any friends and don't consider coworkers as friends either. Zero problems, simple as.
“Sunshine causes sunburn that’s why I stay inside 24/7. simples.”
No social life is really really bad for your long term health outcomes. It’s net negative for you however you spin it. Please reconsider this way of living. Best wishes.
>“Sunshine causes sunburn that’s why I stay inside 24/7. simples.”
Unlike blabbering about nonsense during coffee breaks, sun exposure causes the production of vitamin D, and therefore has a positive effect on health. It's a comparison of a very different things. Of course, too much of everything can cause negative effects and so does the same sunshine.
>No social life is really really bad for your long term health outcomes.
So to all the articles and papers that will come up if you search for terms like “health outcomes social isolation”… do I understand right that you dismiss that all as fake?
Not really, but I think that it's a problem that is caused by belief that it's a problem. Therefore, such people tend to think that something is wrong with them, and that as a result causes stress, anxiety and whatnot, which in return causes health problems. In other words, people BELIEVE they NEED friends / social life / whatever to live "normally", and see it as a problem if they have none of that, with which I disagree, and that is why I don't see it as a real issue that requires fixing.
Thanks for explaining, I am considering this. But I’m still very far from convinced. There are specific benefits to strong trusting long term intimate social relationships that I don’t see as replaceable and I see them as vital to positive well-being. I think one can get along okay without them but they’d be damaging their outcomes, measured by higher stress, lower positive emotional states, and higher risk of mental health disease. I think the latter, the risk of spiralling into unhealthy beliefs and behaviours without social fabric to co-regulate those things, that is particularly concerning and something I personally gave seen happen to loved ones and acquaintances, as have probably most people.
In any case, good luck out there & thanks
edit: I’m talking about close friends and family. I think acquaintances offer very little in comparison. I feel I could also live without them. Except once in a while they turn into a close friend, and I suppose I wouldn’t have close friends, or perhaps even my own family, without them.
> No social life is really really bad for your long term health outcomes.
Fyi, this pop-psych wisdom was never meant to be universal. For hardcore introverts, little to no social life can be the healthy optimum (assuming you're functioning in society and not counting your coworkers as part of your social life, etc).
They just don't say that because it doesn't apply to most people. Hardcore introverts are relatively rare, and it risks misinterpretation by normal people to not fix their social lives wondering if they're one of those.
As someone with strong introvert bias it’s not impossible for me to imagine how basic social life might be almost unbearable for a hardcore introvert. But I would classify that as a rare disability, to be honest. There’s a danger in more average spectrum people over-identifying as isolationist and then leaning into isolation as a solution to discomfort, in terms of self -damage. we agree.
how does that even work? who do you hang out with/kick crazy ideas with? learn new things from? family maybe? i'm not the most social person either but you got to have some kind of an outlet?
> In one experiment, people gave impromptu speeches on controversial topics in front of a friend who offered feedback. Unbeknown to the participants, the researchers had randomly assigned the friend to give ambivalent or negative comments. Receiving mixed feedback caused higher blood pressure than pure criticism. “I would have gone about the topic differently, but you’re doing fine” proved to be more distressing than “I totally disagree with everything you’ve said.”
I can’t read the actual study, but this description makes it seem like the ambivalent feedback case is the growth opportunity. “That was great” and “that was completely terrible” aren’t really actionable feedback, but “that was decent but I would change this” is helpful. Maybe helpful advice is more stressful because it is a chance to change and grow and those are stressful activities? So maybe if we want to push ourselves, we need more frenemies?
Put another way, should going through life with the minimal possible stress be the goal?
I don't think "I would have gone about the topic differently, but you’re doing fine" is a growth opportunity. It just has something of an ambiguously negative vibe without actually saying what it's about, while also kind of saying something superficially positive without making it easy to tell if it's genuine. That kind of ambivalence can be mentally disorienting.
Also, if you're consistently not on the same page with someone, or are even consistently in bad terms with them, you tend to keep some distance at least emotionally.
If you are, on the other hand, (mostly) consistently on good terms with someone and end up being closer, most of the interaction is probably going to be positive -- even if that sometimes includes constructive criticism. (Good constructive criticism is probably not really ambivalent either; there might be clear good and clear bad things, with an overall feeling of both people having the other's best interest in mind.)
Either way, you know what to expect: you can protect yourself from negativity by keeping your distance, or you can expect mostly positive experiences with someone who you let closer.
Inconsistently positive and negative means you don't know whether to keep your guard up or down.
> I don't think "I would have gone about the topic differently, but you’re doing fine" is a growth opportunity. It just has something of an ambiguously negative vibe without actually saying what it's about, while also kind of saying something superficially positive without making it easy to tell if it's genuine.
Totally fair point. If that was the entirety of the feedback then it isn’t helpful at all. I was assuming that it was the topic sentence and followed by specifics.
I wish I could see the actual study, rather than a two sentence interpretation of it.
For me, it's been more useful to look at these relationships through the lens of reciprocity. Am I in a reciprocal relationship with this friend/coworker or not?
In my friendships, am I doing most of the work to text, call, or hangout or is it relatively equal? At work, if I do something that helps you, do you help me in return, or do you turn around and screw me over?
Getting away from the relationships which are non reciprocal has given me a lot of mental peace over the past few years. Most people are not like this, but something like 1/5 to 1/10 of people are.
I don't know about the other commenters on HN, but I like to make things. At work and not.
Groupthink and design by committee sucks. Creative tension is incredibly useful.
What would the Pixies have been without Frank and Kim? What would the Beatles have been without Paul and John? Etc.
I think the article is too busy pointing blame fingers and devoid of any useful advice about making sure everyone feels safe to have some conflict and having rules everyone agrees to beforehand for argument and even arbitration if things get messy.
The article seems to argue that the best state of affairs for individuals is for others to be either consistently negative (so they can be ignored by individuals) or consistently positive (so they are listened to and make individuals feel good). That is not only a recipe for groupthink, but also for individuals to stay in denial about ugly truths. I grew up reading the NY Times, the New Yorker, etc, believing it to be sophisticated, and am continually disappointed by articles that just cater to the biases of its readers- in this case, explicitly saying being challenged in their beliefs is bad for their health.
New York Times and I are frenemies: they are detestable but judgmental and mouthy, I am nothing but a soul that cannot be sold and a mind that cannot be dissuaded into their carefully-crafted narratives.
Yet, both of us need each other to know where we stand.
33 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 70.2 ms ] threadSo much for the democratic union.
Relationships are to be judged by consistent behavior over weeks, months and years. If I have to keep guessing if I'm going to get the stick or the carrot from someone, to me it's a no-brainer that I shouldn't expect kindness from them.
The truly manipulative sociopathic type is rarer but they're the ones who behave that way deliberately in an effort to control others, keep them off balance, influence their behavior and so on. A classic example is the 'secret-gatherer' whose friendly outreaches are designed to gather compromising information which can be leaked at some opportune moment, aka 'the blackmailer'. Thankfully most people aren't like this, but identifying the ones who are and avoiding them like the plague is a valuable life skill.
Should we not have a degree of tolerance towards this and even chronic cases because some people's lives a just severely fudged up sometimes i.e. Health reasons outside of their control.
I wish I was 18 again without the worry of the worries I have today, carefree almost 100% of the time but life attaches it's baggage on all of us and it's to be expected that some people will be down, can't expect people to be the reproducible version emotionally every time.
No social life is really really bad for your long term health outcomes. It’s net negative for you however you spin it. Please reconsider this way of living. Best wishes.
Unlike blabbering about nonsense during coffee breaks, sun exposure causes the production of vitamin D, and therefore has a positive effect on health. It's a comparison of a very different things. Of course, too much of everything can cause negative effects and so does the same sunshine.
>No social life is really really bad for your long term health outcomes.
No, it's a fake problem.
In any case, good luck out there & thanks
edit: I’m talking about close friends and family. I think acquaintances offer very little in comparison. I feel I could also live without them. Except once in a while they turn into a close friend, and I suppose I wouldn’t have close friends, or perhaps even my own family, without them.
Fyi, this pop-psych wisdom was never meant to be universal. For hardcore introverts, little to no social life can be the healthy optimum (assuming you're functioning in society and not counting your coworkers as part of your social life, etc).
They just don't say that because it doesn't apply to most people. Hardcore introverts are relatively rare, and it risks misinterpretation by normal people to not fix their social lives wondering if they're one of those.
I am not sure what you mean. I work on some side projects alone and ideas are my own.
>learn new things from?
Internet has all the information I'd ever need.
I can’t read the actual study, but this description makes it seem like the ambivalent feedback case is the growth opportunity. “That was great” and “that was completely terrible” aren’t really actionable feedback, but “that was decent but I would change this” is helpful. Maybe helpful advice is more stressful because it is a chance to change and grow and those are stressful activities? So maybe if we want to push ourselves, we need more frenemies?
Put another way, should going through life with the minimal possible stress be the goal?
Also, if you're consistently not on the same page with someone, or are even consistently in bad terms with them, you tend to keep some distance at least emotionally.
If you are, on the other hand, (mostly) consistently on good terms with someone and end up being closer, most of the interaction is probably going to be positive -- even if that sometimes includes constructive criticism. (Good constructive criticism is probably not really ambivalent either; there might be clear good and clear bad things, with an overall feeling of both people having the other's best interest in mind.)
Either way, you know what to expect: you can protect yourself from negativity by keeping your distance, or you can expect mostly positive experiences with someone who you let closer.
Inconsistently positive and negative means you don't know whether to keep your guard up or down.
Totally fair point. If that was the entirety of the feedback then it isn’t helpful at all. I was assuming that it was the topic sentence and followed by specifics.
I wish I could see the actual study, rather than a two sentence interpretation of it.
In my friendships, am I doing most of the work to text, call, or hangout or is it relatively equal? At work, if I do something that helps you, do you help me in return, or do you turn around and screw me over?
Getting away from the relationships which are non reciprocal has given me a lot of mental peace over the past few years. Most people are not like this, but something like 1/5 to 1/10 of people are.
Groupthink and design by committee sucks. Creative tension is incredibly useful.
What would the Pixies have been without Frank and Kim? What would the Beatles have been without Paul and John? Etc.
I think the article is too busy pointing blame fingers and devoid of any useful advice about making sure everyone feels safe to have some conflict and having rules everyone agrees to beforehand for argument and even arbitration if things get messy.
Yet, both of us need each other to know where we stand.