It’s About Making Babies!

I read the post at Smart at Love, “If a man tells me “You know you want it” - he better be talking about an iPhone“. This is scary territory. It is easy to imagine that ‘You know you want it’ proceeds to something the other person really didn’t want. This is almost a cliche, a page out of the “Bully 101″ intimidation handbook.

I read an article by John Lyons, about training horses. Lyons makes the point that when you grab the halter and enter the pasture, if the horse moves away from you, your job just changed. You are not longer about to tack up your horse and exercise, train, go for a relaxing ride, etc. Your job just became to train your horse to accept the halter and to behave in the pasture.

Reading Annie’s post I get the same recognition that whatever had been planned, with those words ‘You know you want it’, something else is now going on. Instead of shopping, enjoying a date or daily activity, all of a sudden the task becomes to confront a bully, an emotional abuser. Nothing else is important any longer, not the iPhone, not intimacy, not a relationship. First things first. Just as if the bozo pulled an actual weapon, a knife, a gun, this is no longer a conversation, it is a confrontation.

And I think that is why discussing the former topic is a mistake. You let the bully corner you, manipulate you, when you let him or her choose your position and argument. The real defense is to confront the bully. “You are bullying me.” “I want to see the Manager. Now.” “Let me be. I am calling a cab.” “What next, should I call the police now, or after you finish with me?” I don’t think it is possible to over-react to something like this. This isn’t a slip of the tongue. This is an gross act of disrespect.

And disrespect always gets worse until someone gets hurt, unless corrected. We are generally not in a position to chastise or admonish adults, but we can clearly refuse to accept disrespectful behavior.

I am glad you snubbed the bozo, Annie, but I think you missed the point. With those words the topic was no longer about what to buy, but whether you would confront the salesman or reward him. And I think you rewarded the bozo, left him primed to abuse the next customer.

Browsing Some Assembly Required reminded me of one of the frantic, tension-comic scenes of the movie ‘Knocked Up’ — Allison is driving Ben to see her OB-GYN, and she tells him, ‘You are supposed to support me!’.

If you haven’t seen the movie, it is way more adult than high school, and more adult than Van Wilder or Animal House. But it is crass and a bit crude. The point of the movie is to make fun of 21st century relationship failures, while showing an astonishing tendency to forgive, to relax from a tirade, and to, well, get along.

So in the ‘red car’ scene, Allison goes off, pointing out Ben’s ‘lack of commitment’. And that one phrase hit me tonight, ‘You are supposed to support me!’. Reading Tip #14 of 66, Soar with Eagles, I came across a sentence, “Everyone should have friends in their life who enthusiastically support your efforts toward success.” And voiler! That was the part that made Allison’s ‘Support me!’ a problem. See, Ben should support Allison when she is moving toward success. But if she is doing something harmful to herself or others, or even just wasting time or money, then Ben has to oppose her. Allison needs to have a mate that she can depend on to do the right thing.

And the sad thing is that this particular ‘joke’ isn’t contrived. People regularly confuse ’support for me’ with ’support toward my success’.

Mindlessly rolling over to avoid an argument, or supporting bad decisions for any reason, are serious character flaws. Personal integrity and respect for others demands that we be responsible for our actions, that we do no more harm than we can help. Demanding that we comply with someone’s wishes against our better judgment is cruel and disrespectful.

Support .. towards success. What an elegant explanation. Thanks, Thom!