I wonder if my grandma told me to go f--k myself.

[Cornellius]

So, about two weeks ago around Christmas time, my grandmother seems to have committed a monstrous projection during the usual "just checking on you" grating phone call. Used to be usual because I've decided to renounce to the relationship, being the last one I needed to clear in my family. Relationship is in quotes. A thing or two about my grandmother: she's a bored widow who spends her time looking for something to do when she isn't filling the gap with dead end relationships with people her age. And she claims to need her grandchildren to keep her company, of course without admitting that she wishes that me and my sister take on the responsibility. So brilliantly, she begs for my love, with the creepy subculture that a boy's best friend is his mother. I sometimes wondered whether I was being enslaved. And there's something she told me that I never really processed, as I could never be distanced in any family situation.

 

In the middle of the phone conversation, she asks "So, what were you doing just now?" I look around weary-eyed at the mess and respond cryptically "I was just doing some cleaning in here" And in all seriousness, she adds "Just trying to fight the boredom, hm?"

[Kevin Beal]

I don't know that there's enough information here to conclude that your grandma was telling you to go fly a kite, but it may very well be the case. That kind of stuff (especially among family it seems) can be super subtle.

 

Certainly the last quote was projection.

 

I think that the fact that you obviously don't want to have a conversation with her, and yet she still insists, appealing to your pity or guilt (maybe?); that is a kind of "f*ck you", I think. It's hard to imagine that someone wouldn't be able to perceive that lack of interest, so I'd bet that she knows, at least on some level. So that would be her manipulating you to serve her ends and against your own. If that makes sense.

 

That old lady sentimentality, pity thing scares the hell out of me because of my own history, so I could be talking more about me than you.

 

Do you value your relationship with your grandmother? Do you see her often? I never had a relationship with mine beyond a few visits, so it was never like I stopped seeing her, she just wasn't really in the picture (the other died before I was born).

[Barry_diller]

I think that the fact that you obviously don't want to have a conversation with her, and yet she still insists, appealing to your pity or guilt (maybe?); that is a kind of "f*ck you", I think. It's hard to imagine that someone wouldn't be able to perceive that lack of interest, so I'd bet that she knows, at least on some level. So that would be her manipulating you to serve her ends and against your own. If that makes sense.

I would say that If you don't want to have a conversation with her in the first place, you have already giving her the finger. (although I'm not denying there could be good justification not to do that)@CornelliusPeople sometimes try to universalize their problems. Like your grandmother always is bored because of her lack of relationship, and she feels anxiety because of that, but if everybody feels the same thing, at least it's not because something is wrong with her. So she hopes that everyone else is also boredI've met a women some 10 years older than me, and she talked about for a moment how she does not have many friends and then she kept asking if I was alone, and I could see that she was dissapointed that I didn't had any of the loneliness that she struggled with. Anyway I figured out later a lot things was wrong with her, pretty much explaining anything about why she was lonely

[Kevin Beal]

I would say that If you don't want to have a conversation with her in the first place, you have already giving her the finger. (although I'm not denying there could be good justification not to do that)

I think I disagree. I'm not giving anyone the finger when I decide not to respond to a post someone's written directed at me, or choosing not to pick up a call out of disinterest. Or whatever, something like that.

 

I think that the difference here (assuming I know what I'm talking about) is that the grandmother knows (on whatever level) that he's not interested but persists anyway, and manipulates him into it.

 

In the first case it's a passive indifference (at worst), but in the second, it's an active rejection of him (specifically his preferences).