2/23/09

Entropia. Groups. Social navigating.

First, I want to repeat my favorite explanation of humans/aversion therapy.

There are stupid people that think that if you have problems with getting anxious around humans, or freaking out in the grocery store, or whatever- the solution is to simply be around people MORE, go to the store MORE, and you will see that there is nothing to worry your silly head about and tra la la la, la la, vomit, eye-roll, punch.

This is how Psych-os might help a client with a fear of spiders or elevators. You make them look at a picture of a spider, sit in the same room with a spider, and so on until they are petting a furry tarantula, and letting it run all over them, and saying- hey! wow! spiders are great!

It works because the elevator does not crash, the spider does not rip their throat out.

Humans are not spiders, and if i go to the store MORE, or endure a longer conversation with a human... well, this does nothing except to rip my throat out ten times instead of seven. It just carves the wounds deeper, no chance to heal, the closer the serial-killer gets to the surface.

Not productive at all, as it just reinforces all my beliefs instead of proving them irrational.

I am still not over plasma-girl and my desire to stab her. So, clearly, humans in real time (and in the same room) are too big of a poisonous snakey-spider.

But Garret thinks talking to online people is good. Because he says if i just read books i am meaner, less coherent, and expect people to have more mind reading capabilities.

Online people are slowed-down-spiders. So sometimes they are not so bad. But I still have a lot of tantrums from the frustrations of them.

Like in this game I play, Entropia. There are a bunch of players grouped into a "society," of which I am a part. Some I like, some I feel neutral-ish toward, and a few I can't stand.

Now, I think most people feel dislike towards at least a few people... but this does not seem to significantly impair them. They just are like-- uh, yeah, I hate that dude, and they go on about their day.

I do not know this trick.

It seems like a useful trick.

For the most part, I think I have coped ok with the people I can't stand. But this is due to them either not being on that much or to us both mostly ignoring each other.

However, I then went and joined a team with seven other people. (All from the "society.") The 8 of us are in a hunting competition that lasts about 4 weeks. Week three just started and I am really having a hard time.

I shouldn't be, it's not like we have to talk all that much. But we still have to talk some. I can not completely ignore my teammates. So, I keep getting frustrated because I hate one of them. I shall nickname the hated one Spider.

So why do I hate her? At first, I thought I needed to untangle some deep WHY in the web of my hate. But it's not very deep or complicated.

The Aspie rants I have read about evil NTs... the kind of person they mean by that stereotype. I think that is all she is and why I have such a problem.

It started out as dislike. She was nonsensical. Then I noticed a couple lies. (Or she incorrectly answered direct questions, if you prefer, but my brain calls that lying.) That strengthened the dislike. For the most part we ignored each other. She knew I disliked her, she'd acknowledged it, but she did not seem troubled about resolving things.

I feel like i made a couple of efforts. And then there was some stuff i disagreed with her about, and i tried to explain that i was not pouting just because i hate her, that ok, yeah i hate her, but i was disagreeing for other reasons.

(I had a problem with another person in the society, who also talked a lot of non-sense. It turned out they were just very good at playing human, and when pressed they were able to communicate with me, and I finally understood them a bit. And so it worked out, and I consider them a friend now.)

With Spider, that never happened, each attempt at communication just makes me increasingly frustrated, as it is harder and harder to believe there is anything inside her skull but blood.

Here is the part that is most upsetting and hard to make sense of--- when it is just the two of us, we are our barely civil selves. Then, when another team member comes on, she's VERY nice to me. I find this very disturbing, this playing to an audience.

A friend of mine (named Candy CAKE!) helped me with this because i thought i was going crazy (er). Candy said she was at a party once and this girl#1 was talking to her and then a girl#2 came in the door, and girl#1 left in mid-sentence to go talk to girl#2 who was a very popular person.

So this story clued me in to the possibility that Spider is like a vapid middle-schooler. And she wants the "popular guys" in the society to like her.

But still, i am not so sure, because that is so silly i can not type it with a straight face.

And i don't see how pretending to be nice to me would make anyone like her. Like, they are going to think, wow she's so nice, even to cantankerous crazy girls, she should be my new BFF??? I like other people because they are funny or clever, not because they go around showering others with insincere wishes and compliments.

Whatever her odd motives, it is very taxing to be around her. The fakeness is unsettling. If she is not going to turn out to be clever or have sense, I wish we could just go back to mutual dislike.

I have been in the elevator too long. A week and a half left, lets see how much more i can bleed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blog reply!
Hope you don't mind, but I find my own posts are much better when I'm bouncing off an idea of yours.

OMG! I've invented society!!!! XD

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Crap, trying to edit my post :(.