hannahbanana

Okay, now that I got to thinking about it more, I looked up the actual definitions of the words we're using in this thread to help me out. Looking up the definition of "teasing:" tease verb gerund or present participle: teasing 1. make fun of or attempt to provoke (a person or animal) in a playful way Now looking at the definition of "provoke:" pro·voke verb stimulate or give rise to (a reaction or emotion, typically a strong or unwelcome one) in someone. stimulate or incite (someone) to do or feel something, especially by arousing anger in them. deliberately make (someone) annoyed or angry I think it's safe to say that people would consider provocation to be an overall negative action. So why is it okay when it's used to tease someone? I understand that making jokes is fun and lighthearted, as stated by many of the people on this thread, but I don't think that those examples are really teasing at all, since the definition of teasing says that it is a statement meant to provoke someone, not just making jokes and being funny. Although you can provoke someone into doing something positive, this is very rarely the case. And reflecting on why you would want to provoke someone with teasing, the quickest answer that comes to my mind is some form of embarrassment, usually some small thing that really wouldn't be a big deal (someone tripping, dropping something, saying something wrong, etcetera). Why else would you pointedly harp on someone about such a small thing unless you wanted them to be embarrassed about it? I don't think that's very empathetic at all, and it makes no difference whether you're masking it as a joke or not. (again, this is also based on the argument that examples like Mike and Steph joking on podcasts is not teasing, because it isn't a form of provocation)

I find it difficult to find the line between harmless teasing (playful banter) and harmful teasing. At its worst, teasing can isolate and point out an insecurity, while also making it insignificant. This is a problem for me, because it may normalize defense mechanisms that someone has developed, which is not very good when it comes to self-knowledge. True, teasing is often harmless, but I personally wouldn't want to poke fun at someone's flaws. It seems pretty unempathetic towards that person to me; unless I knew that person very well, and knew what parts of themselves they were confident about, I probably wouldn't tease them about something. And this is coming from someone who makes an earnest attempt to empathize with and understand others; would people who aren't working towards self-knowledge take the same considerations? Maybe, maybe not, but my guess is no. Also, I'm not sure if I would define the exchanges between Steph and Mike during podcasts as teasing. I might need to think about it more before I can decided what I think it really is, but in my mind teasing feels much more malicious in general. Maybe it's based on my personal experience with teasing that I have an overall negative view of it. Anyway, as @dsayers said in a previous post, I think that there are much better ways of sharing affection and bonding than making light of mistakes that someone has made (which is, based on experience and observation, the most common form of teasing). If anyone disagrees with my definitions and examples of teasing, or thinks I should clarify it, let me know. I'm interested in seeing how my view of teasing differs from others.

It sounds to me that the woman in the OP loves her dog because it gives her unconditional love, even if she isn't deserving of it. She has to do literally nothing except provide its basic needs (food, water, shelter) for it to love her and become completely dependent on her. A human child, on the other hand, requires more than just basic needs being met in order to develop a loving bond. I guess it's just not worth the effort for this woman

Sounds like a really creative idea! I'd be really interested in seeing how it works

I kind of agree, I get a little anxious about it too...although this does look like it'd be kinda fun. I'm super busy right now, so I don't know if I'd be able to talk a lot except maybe on weekends, but I'd still be interested in the group

So last week I had an interesting dream, and it was recommended to me that maybe I should post it here, since some members have experience in dream interpreting. First, I was sitting outside of my house with my sister. I knew it was my house, but the backyard looked different (it's normally a cornfield with trees in the back; here it was a boggy heath, with a steep hill and a chain-link fence at the top). It was dusk, and it was cold. In the distance, I thought I could hear a man yelling, either in shock or in pain. My sister and I looked out to find the source; I looked over the hill in my back yard, and on the other side of the fence I could see houses lined up one next to the other, packed together like they are in cities. I could see INTO the houses, as if the back opened up like a doll house. There was a group of 3 or 4 young men watching something on a TV, and they were yelling and making noise, as well as screaming coming from the screen (probably a scary movie). A police officer came in through the door, telling the men that they needed to be quiet, there were noise complaints. The men pushed the police officer out of the house and slammed the door in his face. Then, I was there in the house (which felt like it was still MY house, even though it was a different place) with the men, and I could now see that they were my partner, and two of my best friends from high school. Let's call them Joe and Jay. An old woman from next door came over, carrying a plate of brownies. She said there was pot in them. We were nervous, because we had just thrown the police officer out of the house. We were eating the brownies, when my mother came home from work. I ran to hide the brownies in my room, while my mom was telling me that she was very tired from work and didn't feel well, so she was going to lie down. I went back downstairs, where Joe, Jay and my partner were waiting. I was talking to Joe and Jay, and I felt awkward and uncomfortable (lately in real life, I've been feeling a big disconnect with these friends because of their political views and views on feminism, as well as a feeling that they no longer trust my partner, who was friends with them even longer than I have been). I decided that I was going to go for a drive, and my partner decided to tag along. Joe stayed in the house, and Jay walked to the sidewalk with us. I don't remember what he said, but I remember him saying something that made me feel slightly hopeful. My surroundings were eerie; I was in a city that was lined wall-to-wall with concrete houses, whose front doors opened to staircases leading to the sidewalk. The street had two one-way lanes separated by a concrete barrier. Both sides of each street were lined bumper-to-bumper with cars, but there was absolutely no one else around except me and my friends. It was completely silent, there was no motion, and I couldn't see the sky or any spaces in between the houses. I started driving around with my partner, just talking. Soon, I got a phone call from Joe. He was calling to see if I was alright, since I decided to drive after taking drugs. I realized this, and I also realized that I was alone in the car; my partner had disappeared suddenly. I told my friend that I was coming home right now. After I hung up the phone, I noticed a car following me. It was nondescript, the color of concrete, and I couldn't see anything through the windows. I turned down a street, sure that it was the one leading to my house, but it was a dead end; the sides were lined with parked cars and concrete walls; on the other side of the far wall, I could see black water. I stopped and tried turning around, but the car following me kept going, crushing my car against the wall in a slow, inexorable manner. At that point, I realized it was a dream and tried to press the gas pedals and push myself out of the way, but it only crunched my car even more against the other car. Then, I tried to give myself a gun and shoot the other car, but I woke up before I could. I'm not sure if it means anything, but I don't normally have dreams this vivid, and I'm wondering if there was at least something concerning my two friends Joe and Jay, since I've been feeling like I am losing their friendship lately.

I think you misunderstood what I said...I'm saying that it is much more likely for a man to be accused and registered as a sex offender in a case of statutory rape on an underage girl (even if the girl consented, because legally she cannot give consent), compared to a girl being accused and registered as a sex offender for statutory rape. Or to look at it another way, people don't make as big a deal about an underage boy having sex with an adult women as they do with an underage girl having sex with an adult man. I'm not sure what you mean by a 16 year old girl being asked if it was traumatic, and her answer changing, if that is based off of what I said in the previous post. I was thinking of this because the OP mentioned that normal people were commending the boy in the original article for "banging hot teachers." In response to the rest of your post, I also think it is interesting/frustrating how sexuality is deemed very shameful as a child, but then you're just sort of expected to know how to handle it once you become an adult. Also, just thinking about it right now, there are probably several reasons why a person in such a situation might say they were traumatized, some honest and some not. Maybe they really were raped. Maybe they went along with it, but after the experience were told that it is illegal and go along with being told they were unable to give legal consent. Maybe they said it was rape because they didn't want to get in trouble or be shamed by their family. I think there are a lot of things it could be, especially when the biggest thing that brings up the question of rape is just a law that arbitrarily decides when people can give consent or not.

I just got a hankering for some Fugazi tonight

I think I agree with what you're saying about the guy being able to make his own decisions about who he has sex with at 16, (if he's got the mental/emotional development for that - which is a pretty difficult thing to quantify, I'll admit). But the important thing to me, is that a situation in which an underage boy has sex with an adult be treated the same as a situation with an underage girl. Which, let's be honest, it isn't. For the girl, it will be considered rape, no questions, even if the girl consented and was bragging about it. With the boy, it's much more likely for people to say "well, he OBVIOUSLY wanted it, so we won't bother to figure out the facts."

We already know that people have a capacity for violence, and it makes no sense to me why it would then be GOOD to have an organization of individuals who have a MONOPOLY of violence against others. This argument is commonly addressed in other areas of this forum, but I'm just saying it doesn't make sense to give such power to people who are drawn to power and violence. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/psychopathic-personality-traits-president_n_1874567.html Even the Huff Post, one of the most liberal news sources there are, admits that political positions are more likely to be filled by sociopaths. So IMO, having a government does not mitigate unknown capacities for violence, it aids KNOWN capacities for violence. Interesting question. What comes to mind for me when I think of this question is a scientific setting: When a scientist is working in the lab, they may spend years doing research before getting an outcome. Sometimes they don't get anything at all. This is sort of like your scenario of people working towards a free society, even though they may not know if it is achievable or not. Now, back to the science example... Even though the scientist may not know whether they will achieve the outcome they are trying to research, there is certainly a right and a wrong way to conduct the research. If they spend two years working diligently at their research, using all the proper protocols and scientific method to analyze and modify their approach, they will have made much more progress than if they spent those two years goofing off in the lab and blowing things up for fun. So even if both situations end up not reaching the desired outcome, at least in the first case the scientist made the attempt, and might have even made smaller progress in other areas besides what their main goal was. In the second case, absolutely nothing would have been gained; more would have probably been lost instead (money, resources, people's time, etc.) In the same way people are striving towards a free society; even if it never happens in their lifetime, at the end of the day they can say that at least there was a benefit for them, and they may have possibly even helped others by spreading ideas like peaceful parenting and nonviolent, non-coercive behavior. Maybe this comparison can give you some food for thought, and possibly help answer your questions.

Interesting question, one that I struggled with for a while. The way I answered this question was to view the state/government in a purely moral way, as compared to a utilitarian sort of way as it seems you are viewing it. Something is either moral, or immoral. For example (and yes, I know it is very often used, but it's still a good example), slavery brought several benefits to many people in the world, and created large amounts of profit since slaves work without a wage. However, we can still say now, without a doubt, that slavery is immoral and should not be approved of. This is including all of the benefits that slavery brought along as well. So even though you could say that a government has made things easier in some aspects, it doesn't address the moral part of the equation. This also doesn't say anything as to possible improvements and ideas that could fill the empty niche that a lack of government would create. To continue the example, using slaves was the best way to pick cotton in pre-civil war America, but then the cotton gin was invented, which was even MORE efficient than before, thus ending the "need" for slaves that the slave-owners insisted upon. It should also be noted that certain programs that are adopted by the government (the environmentalism movement, for example) are only done so because it is shown that people care about it. And this interest is evidenced by trends in the market. So actually, people start the trends themselves, and only LATER is it picked up by the government. Many times, things get worse once the government takes control of it (look up the story of Boeing and his air-mail service, for example)...so it may even be that things would be even better if they were left alone by the government in many instances. Not sure if this answers your questions, but I hope it could help in some way

Thanks for all the responses! They are quite informative, and help me get a little bit more understanding. So Scandinavian countries are freer in some ways (freer economies), but also have considerable government involvement...either way, it wouldn't really be considered socialist. Interesting.

I always hear about how Denmark is the happiest country in the world, and how it's because they have all this great stuff like free health care, free schooling, free child care, $20 minimum wage, all that. I have a hard time believing this is true or can be at all sustainable, but I don't hear anything otherwise. So to people who live/have been to/know a lot about Denmark, what's it really like?

Also, I find it amusing that people scoff at modern religions that were created based on science fiction (ahem, Scientology, ahem), but are completely flabbergasted as the mere suggestion that fiction existed 2000 years ago (it did), and maybe the Bible was fiction too.

Historian Richard Carrier has also done a lot of research about the historicity of Jesus, as well as the Gospels. Interesting to watch, even if you are skeptical.

IMO, I don't think that marriage is that important or necessary, but I still think it would be nice to get married. For me, I would see it as a huge expression of love, commitment and pride for my partner, one of the biggest messages that you will be with this person for the rest of you life, even if others may want to think otherwise. I don't want to get married to my partner because I would "finally" feel secure in the relationship; I would want to get married because I'd be basically saying to them "I am willing to become an integral part of your life, for the rest of my life (taking on the same last name, etc.)." Imagine how wonderful that would feel for the person I'd be getting married to! Again, I don't think it's necessary, and may even become outdated in the future. And that's fine with me. But I'd personally want to take as many opportunities to express love and respect for my partner as I can.

Hi Kevin, thanks for the response...your advice sounds like it might really help to get around the road blocks I've been having. I never thought about approaching it like that before I've done something similar, but where I'm talking to a real person about how I feel, but I think that having that inner dialogue would help me personally connect better. I also think the humiliation part connects with me as well...it brought up some memories from when I was little and that sort of situation happened to me. It's pretty wild to realize that something from 15+ years in the past can still have such an influence over you. So maybe instead of this feeling coming from someone else telling me to be less aggressive, it's really me from a long time ago trying to protect me from bad repercussions. I hadn't really thought so much about that possibility, but now it's definitely worth examining for me. Thank you so much

Hi guys. I looks like there's a lot of confusion with my post (now that I read it over again, I can see why) so let me try to re-explain... When I say "false self" and "false feelings," I mean feelings that I experience based on preferences of others that have been internalized. Kind of like the inner mom or dad or whoever that tells you what they would want you to do, rather than what YOU would do. Does that make sense? So what I think I've been feeling for a while is a sense of guilt that is not my own. When I do something that I feel this sort of guilt about, I logically know that I have nothing to feel guilty about based on my own values, yet I feel it anyway. Most of the time I feel this guilt when I assert my own preferences or ideas, especially when they differ from what someone else may think, or if they may have the chance of making someone angry or upset. I feel guilty because I've disagreed with someone, and I convince myself that I have upset them in some way. I know that this feeling of guilt does not come logically (like if I said something hurtful or belittled a person's ideas), and so that's why I call it false, and not from the "real me." I feel like in order for me to understand this feeling, and maybe to alleviate it a bit, I need to be able to empathize with the part of me (probably from my childhood, I've had this feeling for as long as I can remember) that became this way, but I'm having difficulties with doing this. Sometimes I feel like I don't know where to begin with it. I really hope this post makes more sense than the first Your entire post really hits the spot on what I was trying to say (good for you for understanding it so well, haha ) I know this feeling of guilt was not started by me (like I said above), and I'm not sure if it was started by a specific person or not. I have a suspicion that a lot of it has to do with my school...I was in a Catholic school all 12 years, and I think elementary school especially instilled that good old Catholic guilt. You're right about the anxiety before any indication of a reason to feel so. I convince myself that I've upset them, even if there is not reason to believe that, and it often makes me come off as over apologetic. It makes me afraid of asserting my own ideas, for fear of upsetting people. Could you elaborate on what "emotionally involved with strangers" means? And is that a good, or a bad thing? I think I explained most of your other questions in the above post (if not, let me know), but not this one... When I'm with people that I trust and I know will listen to logical arguments, I'm very comfortable with having a logical discussion and expressing my feelings...it's when I'm with people I have known to NOT do that, or with people that I am unsure about that I get anxious. I actually just mostly avoid confrontation with them, because I usually get frustrated, and when I get frustrated I start crying - which makes me feel like my argument is invalidated or taken less seriously, since people would say that I'm letting emotion cloud my judgement. I have been trying to express my opinions more, especially around my family, and it's improving these problems, but I still feel this anxiety if I want to address an issue that is very important to me with people I am not comfortable around.

I've been working on knowing myself better and improving myself/understanding false feelings for a while, and I feel like it's been going really well...but there's something that I've been having trouble understanding, and it's the way I self-impose judgement and guilt. Right now, I'm currently trying to be more assertive about my preferences, which has been reducing the way I judge and guilt myself a little bit, but it still hinders me a lot sometimes, even for small things. For instance, if I say something "too assertive" in person or on the internet, I will start fixating on it, get anxious that I said something "wrong" and only feel better if I either edit what I said, take back what I said, or add a qualifying statement. It's a dilemma, because sometimes I am not sure if this is my real self showing I was being insensitive or unempathetic, or if it's my false self trying to censor me or make me less assertive. Does anyone share in this or have any advice as to how I could continue?

I know you said you're new to this, and you're trying to be blunt about your stance here...but this post was full of a whole lot of strawmen, which is not exactly helpful for you or the OP, and does not give a proper representation of the OPs girlfriends to base advice or ideas off of. If you have any reasoning to back up your claims of the OP's girlfriend's behavior, maybe you could elaborate on them? I'd like to understand your position a little better.

My relationship actually went pretty well at the time, especially because there was dialogue and understanding between the two of us. We tried to have designated skype times to talk, but if I had a lot of work to do that particular week, I'd let my SO know beforehand. I would also often bring work with me when I visited him, so that if we had some down time (ex. watching a movie or watching him play a video game) I'd take out my book and read. Or, I'd come and visit, then do homework while he was working. I hit the wall that semester when I started having emotional breakdowns every week...this was also accompanied by the feeling that I was no longer enjoying learning, which was really what hit home for me...it scared me to know that I hit a point where knowledge was no longer feeling beneficial to me. I'm not sure what you should do to continue with this relationship, but there is obviously something that is happening to make your girlfriend change, and it wouldn't surprise me if the college environment had something to do with it.

You said she just started going back to school. Is she pursuing a very difficult major, or one that involves a lot of pressure or competition within the major? I'm not sure if this helps with the actual relationship problems, but I can completely relate if she is in a very stressful and difficult program. It's hard to adjust to college, and especially if you are in a competitive major there is a lot of pressure to give 120% on your work. I know a lot of people who take it too far and realized they've overstretched themselves way too much. What you're saying sounds like she is becoming a bit unraveled by everything going on with her. I experienced a similar situation last year: taking extra credits for difficult classes, large amounts of homework, a part time job, extracurricular activities, AND continuing a long-distance relationship...it got pretty crazy, and I got into the habit of partitioning and assigning ALL of my time, in order to maintain all of the things I was trying to do. It didn't last long; I was getting frayed at the edges, and experiencing several breakdowns. After one semester, I decided major changes needed to be made, and the next semester I took fewer classes, dropped a shift of my job, and gave up an extra activity. It helped a lot. Have you talked to your girlfriend about what school is doing to her mental health, and whether she might need to scale back on some things for the sake of her sanity? This could have something to do with it - humans aren't superheros, and people can reach a limit where they begin losing touch with who they are. I know I almost did, and I managed to take a step back from it.

#2727 50 Shades of Brave: Living Life as a Slave.

Yeah, so it sounds like it would make sense if bad PMS=stress on steroids. It certainly makes it easier to lash out at people, but it doesn't remove agency. I'm glad to hear she's found some remedies to help out, it also sounds pretty interesting Haha that's awesome!

I think that it makes no difference. For me at least, I am (thankfully) pretty unaffected, but I guess the best thing you can equate it to is stress. When my hormones are in flux, sometimes things can feel a little more stressful or overwhelming than normal (to varying degrees for different people). Usually when you're stressed, you will be more snappy, irrational, and short on patience. If a person lashes out at me because they are stressed, I understand that this plays a role, but I would still expect an apology. If I am the stressed one who's lashing out, I take that as a sign that maybe I need to take a break and do something a little more relaxing, so I can calm down before I do something aggressive again. I think it would be the same way when it's based on hormonal reasons. This is my impression of it, but it might just be because I haven't had a really horrible experience, like Dylan's girlfriend had. I'm curious Dylan, did she behave similarly (even if to a lesser extent) when she was experiencing normal stress?