After your description of the anime, I HAD to go watch it, lol. I haven't watched any new anime in awhile.
I've watched 6 episodes, and it's very cute. It's interesting, because to some extent it only works well *because* of her motivation. Although it's self-serving, it's based on a goal (ie. not dying) that requires very little from the people around her. IRL, when people are nice to others for what are considered "manipulative" reasons, the goal IS requiring something from others. They see it as other people's responsibility to make them happy. Some "nice people" want other people to give them something -- attention, sex, money, love, validation, etc -- and they become resentful if their strategy doesn't work. The motivation isn't just self-serving, but to avoid self responsibility. That's where it gets toxic and inevitably leads to negative behaviors.
Catarina on the other hand, does not demand anything. She clearly enjoys the attention and friendship she gets, but she doesn't require it, and in fact is comically oblivious to the harem she's created. Her friendship is sincere, but she takes responsibility for her life and it's others' choice what they give her. Her independence is what gives the character and story its charm, IMO.
Yeah, I think there's a perception that "self-serving" in itself it bad, but it really isn't. It's other factors that make the difference.
This is something I've always knew, but only recently something in my mind clicked. Every human interaction is transactional, but most people are not aware of it. I don't feel guilty at all when I do something good expecting something in return from that person. I don't see any harm in that way of thinking because in a way I'm thinking about how both of us can benefit from our interactions.
However, many people demonize this type of thinking or behavior, just like they demonize manipulation. Little do they know they act the same way all the time. They just don't notice it
I think the problem comes when those expectations end up crossing boundaries, or it's something you consistently dangle over their heads. Sure, people are more likely to help you if they like you, but at the end of the day, no one can be forced to do anything.
I will say that it depends on the level of connection that you have or intend to have with an specific person for a tit-for-tat to have a higher likelyhood of being viewed through a "bad manipulation" lense.
I will use you as an example (although maybe not the best) : you have your SO. If you had the suspicious of noticing he's only preparing dinner/ something romantic for you when he wants you to do something and then when he doesn't need anything you don't see any detail, then many people would be annoyed in that situation. It's not as much as the transactional fact per say but you can look at it as a matter of being used and not appreciated or valuable beyond what specific favour you can offer.
There are interactions with people where it's stablished that there's no reason for anything to go beyond transactional and everyone is happy. Someone who considers you a friend, family, partner... might have negative feelings about this or you needing too many things - it depends what type of transaction we talk about.
Although I can see and understand this nature, I believe there is both good and bad on it. I've seen people use positive manipulation as a charade to hide their real persona. So when they do something nobody really believes the victim and have everyone on their said thanks to all those little calculated transactions. I guess that's the reason why people fear so much the idea of someone manipulating you. Not everybody feels equipped to know or foresee what they might be really dealing with.
You mentioned your preferred method of manipulation being through greed and that people leave you better off than they started off. Would you argue you often receive more out of these exchanges than them. I know your original point was referencing perception not a sense of fairness but I mean this purely out of curiosity.
This. If someone like Athena asks me nicely for help and it's not hard I will gladly do so. The "payment" is feeling good about myself. For her the "payment" is getting the task done.
Honestly, I find your actions more trustworthy. The mind of a neurotypical is dangerous. I do have ADHD, but for the purposes of relevance, I speak of myself as a neurotypical since I fit the bill as one in this space. I could tell you how I turned into a pathological liar at the age of 13 on a clear path to narcissism and how it took me a year to learn to tell the truth again after intervention. I know for an absolute fact that my pathway to narcissism was because I was an empath. I had so much Rejection-Sensitivity Dysphoria that I hid behind lies to make sure I wasn’t seen. The same mask of lies that became my new public persona was the liar that told me of my own worthlessness, essentially splitting me in two, keeping my real self withering away and increasingly more secure. The mask/narcissistic self would justify to the inner self about why the lies were necessary because of what humanity would do if they knew who we really were. Humanity was the enemy. I could justify any action at all through my twisted perspective.
But that was a pathway brought on through empathy. I felt overwhelmed by feeling all of the feelings around me in my new school at 13. At home, I no longer felt like I fit because of a new baby brother. After school, I was close to my Dad’s business so I had to go there after school everyday until late with no life and no quiet space to do homework so the lies became with homework, saying I had done it when I hadn’t. The lies grew.
I think of how Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I can’t tell you how NOT neurotypical that is. Neurotypicals are suspicious because our actions, influenced by our feelings, do not line up with our sense of self. We know this about ourselves so we know this about others. We don’t trust so we use feelings to manipulate/convince each other that we are trustworthy. Are we? We might be. We also might only be at that moment, but I do know that over and over I have seen normal insecure people do horrible things. In fact, humanity anywhere is capable of repeating the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide, etc. Those were collective human actions all influenced by human emotions. I know first-hand how dark we can go.
So, neurotypicals are typically suspicious. We look for dark intentions by trying to feel what they are feeling only we do it badly and really only feel our own insecurity and filter what we believe their intentions are through the lens of our insecurities.
So, back to Maya Angelou. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
In your story, the character’s actions were consistent. Those actions are trustworthy. Those motivations bring that person in one direction. It could even be argued that her selfish motives will allow her to genuinely like people who enrich her life along the way. She would be a good friend to them with selfishness as her motive. I find actions to be a really good standard for gauging trustworthiness.
That leads me to wonder about suspicion. Are you ever suspicious or do you accept people at face value? For me, trust feels like it is part of the wisdom of psychopathy. If you don’t talk shit about others, I trust that you don’t talk shit about me.
Her is an example to illustrate the difference: If you show yourself unable to meet a deadline, I will trust that you cannot do that and will find someone else. I don’t, instead, hear you tell me that you can meet the deadline, give you the contract against my better judgmental and then spend from now until the deadline suspicious that you won’t meet the deadline. The second is typical of a neurotypical. We move our boundaries because of some emotional tie we have to the person we need to meet the deadline, decide to put our friend into a position that they swear they can do, but we know they can’t, and then we opt to live in constant suspicion instead of just staying in the realm of trust. I feel like a psychopath would trust their own judgment and not bother with suspicion. So, are psychopaths naturally trusting? Does Maya Angelou’s sentiment carry the wisdom of a psychopath?
As for actions being morality, I don’t know fully what I think about that because I’ve thought about this a lot with my psychopath friend. I was raised to be taught that obedience to rules is morality. That is obvious bullshit. All that does is have us abdicate our own morality to a corrupt power system. Then, I played with the idea of fairness being morality, but there are too many unknown factors. How can one be rational enough to be fair. So, now we play with this idea of alignment or natural flow of existing in which our actions are aligned with our sense of self being morality since that is what seems to be the avenue to our greatest good. If there is truth to that theory, which is really just a theory, but one I am currently operating on, is the person in the story in alignment? If she isn’t, is there another side to that, that will eventually come out? Is there a point in which she realizes she survived so then she goes out to solidify her survival by murdering everyone, but now she murders people who love her and some of whom she loves too. She can’t leave the ones she loves alive because they will see her as a monster when they know what she’s done.
If obeying the rules were morality, then the argument would be that the police officers that blocked the only road out of Lahaina Hawaii while the entire town burned down and forced residents to either defy them, flee to the water and possibly die there, or be burned alive in their cars or houses, were moral. Just following orders is not a moral stance.
However, in in-depth relationships, that we form with our inner circle of people, things tend to become more complex over time. A number of tit for tats become uncountable and parameters, that play roles in outcomes, irrational. While outcomes may vary through different situational factors, motivations have a tendency to always come through. For sure I'm talking about emotionally affected situations.
Say, two friends always doing good deeds for each other, both benefiting greatly of results of their actions. Then one day a friend A is affected by a traumatic event and is not capable of making beneficial actions to the friend B for an extended period of time. The friendship takes a sour turn and B stops providing as well. How will the friendship unfold?
Let's examine the motivations of B and possible scenarios:
1) B would like to support but doesn't know how and is in turn causing even more issues. Eventually B rather steps back and waits that the dust settles.
Scenario 1: after a while they learn from the experience and are able to cope with such situations.
Scenario 2: they learn that there's a limit to B's support but that does not equal to stop doing good for the other.
2) B is there for himself and is upset that he's not gaining for what he's providing. B stops providing as well.
Scenario 3: once the dust settles they return to their default beneficial mode.
Scenario 4: their friendship ceases.
Scenario 2 and 3 are effectively the same, but the hurdle B made to A in a process is in one case not acceptable.
Furthermore, the situation reverses. However B's event is less severe, making it possible for A to handle. The respond of A would depend on motivations of B. And while it's hard to objectively evaluate a severeness of situations, or people's capabilities, motivations are not.
Your approach appears to be static, whereas relationships tend to be dynamic.
What about another example: a husband has an affair and as a consequence he's more relaxed, loving and giving to his wife. The wife is better off as far as she knows but if she'd be aware of the real reason she wouldn't be.
He isn't more relaxed. He scratched an itch. That itch comes back. His motivation for being ice and giving to his wife has nothing to do with relaxation, it has to do with guilt.
You yourself would make a really interesting protagonist for a anime or videogame, and your insight would allow you to flesh out great characters and compelling narratives - too bad you're not into creating those types of things.
Regarding the topic at hand - people who are unaware of stepping on other people's toes cannot help but to be relatively bad people (not the same as malicious). But if they're unaware of where their own actual foot goes, they're effectively bound to do so at random.
If you (or whoever else here) are in the mood for unconventional motivations, The World God Only Knows might interest you. Under threat of death, a dating sim gamer essentially needs to manipulate real-life girls into falling in love with him. Although actually he mends their hearts, and their memory of his involvement is erased.
Without giving anything away, I'll also say that I enjoyed all three seasons, but in the third the stakes get higher, and I liked it the best.
After your description of the anime, I HAD to go watch it, lol. I haven't watched any new anime in awhile.
I've watched 6 episodes, and it's very cute. It's interesting, because to some extent it only works well *because* of her motivation. Although it's self-serving, it's based on a goal (ie. not dying) that requires very little from the people around her. IRL, when people are nice to others for what are considered "manipulative" reasons, the goal IS requiring something from others. They see it as other people's responsibility to make them happy. Some "nice people" want other people to give them something -- attention, sex, money, love, validation, etc -- and they become resentful if their strategy doesn't work. The motivation isn't just self-serving, but to avoid self responsibility. That's where it gets toxic and inevitably leads to negative behaviors.
Catarina on the other hand, does not demand anything. She clearly enjoys the attention and friendship she gets, but she doesn't require it, and in fact is comically oblivious to the harem she's created. Her friendship is sincere, but she takes responsibility for her life and it's others' choice what they give her. Her independence is what gives the character and story its charm, IMO.
Yeah, I think there's a perception that "self-serving" in itself it bad, but it really isn't. It's other factors that make the difference.
Yes, I agree
This is something I've always knew, but only recently something in my mind clicked. Every human interaction is transactional, but most people are not aware of it. I don't feel guilty at all when I do something good expecting something in return from that person. I don't see any harm in that way of thinking because in a way I'm thinking about how both of us can benefit from our interactions.
However, many people demonize this type of thinking or behavior, just like they demonize manipulation. Little do they know they act the same way all the time. They just don't notice it
Indeed, quite true
I think the problem comes when those expectations end up crossing boundaries, or it's something you consistently dangle over their heads. Sure, people are more likely to help you if they like you, but at the end of the day, no one can be forced to do anything.
This.
I will say that it depends on the level of connection that you have or intend to have with an specific person for a tit-for-tat to have a higher likelyhood of being viewed through a "bad manipulation" lense.
I will use you as an example (although maybe not the best) : you have your SO. If you had the suspicious of noticing he's only preparing dinner/ something romantic for you when he wants you to do something and then when he doesn't need anything you don't see any detail, then many people would be annoyed in that situation. It's not as much as the transactional fact per say but you can look at it as a matter of being used and not appreciated or valuable beyond what specific favour you can offer.
There are interactions with people where it's stablished that there's no reason for anything to go beyond transactional and everyone is happy. Someone who considers you a friend, family, partner... might have negative feelings about this or you needing too many things - it depends what type of transaction we talk about.
Although I can see and understand this nature, I believe there is both good and bad on it. I've seen people use positive manipulation as a charade to hide their real persona. So when they do something nobody really believes the victim and have everyone on their said thanks to all those little calculated transactions. I guess that's the reason why people fear so much the idea of someone manipulating you. Not everybody feels equipped to know or foresee what they might be really dealing with.
If they are doing it for a reason that is toxic, it is not positive manipulation
You mentioned your preferred method of manipulation being through greed and that people leave you better off than they started off. Would you argue you often receive more out of these exchanges than them. I know your original point was referencing perception not a sense of fairness but I mean this purely out of curiosity.
I would say yes, but the value of the outcome defined by each person's perception.
This. If someone like Athena asks me nicely for help and it's not hard I will gladly do so. The "payment" is feeling good about myself. For her the "payment" is getting the task done.
Honestly, I find your actions more trustworthy. The mind of a neurotypical is dangerous. I do have ADHD, but for the purposes of relevance, I speak of myself as a neurotypical since I fit the bill as one in this space. I could tell you how I turned into a pathological liar at the age of 13 on a clear path to narcissism and how it took me a year to learn to tell the truth again after intervention. I know for an absolute fact that my pathway to narcissism was because I was an empath. I had so much Rejection-Sensitivity Dysphoria that I hid behind lies to make sure I wasn’t seen. The same mask of lies that became my new public persona was the liar that told me of my own worthlessness, essentially splitting me in two, keeping my real self withering away and increasingly more secure. The mask/narcissistic self would justify to the inner self about why the lies were necessary because of what humanity would do if they knew who we really were. Humanity was the enemy. I could justify any action at all through my twisted perspective.
But that was a pathway brought on through empathy. I felt overwhelmed by feeling all of the feelings around me in my new school at 13. At home, I no longer felt like I fit because of a new baby brother. After school, I was close to my Dad’s business so I had to go there after school everyday until late with no life and no quiet space to do homework so the lies became with homework, saying I had done it when I hadn’t. The lies grew.
I think of how Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I can’t tell you how NOT neurotypical that is. Neurotypicals are suspicious because our actions, influenced by our feelings, do not line up with our sense of self. We know this about ourselves so we know this about others. We don’t trust so we use feelings to manipulate/convince each other that we are trustworthy. Are we? We might be. We also might only be at that moment, but I do know that over and over I have seen normal insecure people do horrible things. In fact, humanity anywhere is capable of repeating the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide, etc. Those were collective human actions all influenced by human emotions. I know first-hand how dark we can go.
So, neurotypicals are typically suspicious. We look for dark intentions by trying to feel what they are feeling only we do it badly and really only feel our own insecurity and filter what we believe their intentions are through the lens of our insecurities.
So, back to Maya Angelou. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
In your story, the character’s actions were consistent. Those actions are trustworthy. Those motivations bring that person in one direction. It could even be argued that her selfish motives will allow her to genuinely like people who enrich her life along the way. She would be a good friend to them with selfishness as her motive. I find actions to be a really good standard for gauging trustworthiness.
That leads me to wonder about suspicion. Are you ever suspicious or do you accept people at face value? For me, trust feels like it is part of the wisdom of psychopathy. If you don’t talk shit about others, I trust that you don’t talk shit about me.
Her is an example to illustrate the difference: If you show yourself unable to meet a deadline, I will trust that you cannot do that and will find someone else. I don’t, instead, hear you tell me that you can meet the deadline, give you the contract against my better judgmental and then spend from now until the deadline suspicious that you won’t meet the deadline. The second is typical of a neurotypical. We move our boundaries because of some emotional tie we have to the person we need to meet the deadline, decide to put our friend into a position that they swear they can do, but we know they can’t, and then we opt to live in constant suspicion instead of just staying in the realm of trust. I feel like a psychopath would trust their own judgment and not bother with suspicion. So, are psychopaths naturally trusting? Does Maya Angelou’s sentiment carry the wisdom of a psychopath?
As for actions being morality, I don’t know fully what I think about that because I’ve thought about this a lot with my psychopath friend. I was raised to be taught that obedience to rules is morality. That is obvious bullshit. All that does is have us abdicate our own morality to a corrupt power system. Then, I played with the idea of fairness being morality, but there are too many unknown factors. How can one be rational enough to be fair. So, now we play with this idea of alignment or natural flow of existing in which our actions are aligned with our sense of self being morality since that is what seems to be the avenue to our greatest good. If there is truth to that theory, which is really just a theory, but one I am currently operating on, is the person in the story in alignment? If she isn’t, is there another side to that, that will eventually come out? Is there a point in which she realizes she survived so then she goes out to solidify her survival by murdering everyone, but now she murders people who love her and some of whom she loves too. She can’t leave the ones she loves alive because they will see her as a monster when they know what she’s done.
I don’t know, but I wonder.
You are correct, obeying rules is not morality.
If obeying the rules were morality, then the argument would be that the police officers that blocked the only road out of Lahaina Hawaii while the entire town burned down and forced residents to either defy them, flee to the water and possibly die there, or be burned alive in their cars or houses, were moral. Just following orders is not a moral stance.
Wow this is very interesting. I’m glad you can see what most are incapable of. 🤍🤍🤍
Thanks for the excellent advice love.
I bet she is sick of constantly running from creepy rapers all the time. 🙄😑🙌🏼
Fair enough.
However, in in-depth relationships, that we form with our inner circle of people, things tend to become more complex over time. A number of tit for tats become uncountable and parameters, that play roles in outcomes, irrational. While outcomes may vary through different situational factors, motivations have a tendency to always come through. For sure I'm talking about emotionally affected situations.
Say, two friends always doing good deeds for each other, both benefiting greatly of results of their actions. Then one day a friend A is affected by a traumatic event and is not capable of making beneficial actions to the friend B for an extended period of time. The friendship takes a sour turn and B stops providing as well. How will the friendship unfold?
Let's examine the motivations of B and possible scenarios:
1) B would like to support but doesn't know how and is in turn causing even more issues. Eventually B rather steps back and waits that the dust settles.
Scenario 1: after a while they learn from the experience and are able to cope with such situations.
Scenario 2: they learn that there's a limit to B's support but that does not equal to stop doing good for the other.
2) B is there for himself and is upset that he's not gaining for what he's providing. B stops providing as well.
Scenario 3: once the dust settles they return to their default beneficial mode.
Scenario 4: their friendship ceases.
Scenario 2 and 3 are effectively the same, but the hurdle B made to A in a process is in one case not acceptable.
Furthermore, the situation reverses. However B's event is less severe, making it possible for A to handle. The respond of A would depend on motivations of B. And while it's hard to objectively evaluate a severeness of situations, or people's capabilities, motivations are not.
Your approach appears to be static, whereas relationships tend to be dynamic.
No, it isn't static, but the underpinnings remain the same
Well that's true.
What about another example: a husband has an affair and as a consequence he's more relaxed, loving and giving to his wife. The wife is better off as far as she knows but if she'd be aware of the real reason she wouldn't be.
He isn't more relaxed. He scratched an itch. That itch comes back. His motivation for being ice and giving to his wife has nothing to do with relaxation, it has to do with guilt.
You yourself would make a really interesting protagonist for a anime or videogame, and your insight would allow you to flesh out great characters and compelling narratives - too bad you're not into creating those types of things.
Regarding the topic at hand - people who are unaware of stepping on other people's toes cannot help but to be relatively bad people (not the same as malicious). But if they're unaware of where their own actual foot goes, they're effectively bound to do so at random.
What sort of anime are you into? Can I recommend some?
Sure, and it depends on my mood
Just off the top of my head:
Junji Ito Collection
Tomodachi Game
Berserk
Steins;Gate
If you (or whoever else here) are in the mood for unconventional motivations, The World God Only Knows might interest you. Under threat of death, a dating sim gamer essentially needs to manipulate real-life girls into falling in love with him. Although actually he mends their hearts, and their memory of his involvement is erased.
Without giving anything away, I'll also say that I enjoyed all three seasons, but in the third the stakes get higher, and I liked it the best.
Thank you, I will look it up
I'd be interested in hearing your recommendations for anime as well, now that this one has been spoiled.
My recommendations, or Mëmo's?
Yours, in particular ones that give a degree of insight into humans. Looks like Mëmo has shared theirs.
Is there a particular type of story you prefer?
Not in particular, but I do like seeing unpredictable plot twists