[ Talks at the Goncharenko centre (Kremenchuk) » Talk Goncharenko centre 2025-3-30: Conflicts and decisions » Talk 2025-3-30: Post event notes ]
I was thinking early Sunday morning, perhaps a good idea to suggest to attendees that if they want to share something, perhaps a tasty recipe, to bring something they baked, instead of that we do that. There is no need but it would be a good surprise for everyone. Then Vlad sent a picture from one of the attendees who was baking cupcakes and she brought those to the meeting...
I mentioned in relation to trust, which is very important in relationships (friendships, dating, marriage), and about seeing signs in little things that stand out (= things that jump out at you, = things that you immediately notice, so something stands out = if literally for example: a tree or pole that stands out above the grass) in what people say or do, about a woman 'M' whom I met in Kharkov and who said "come on" when I said I had a little present for in case I met someone cool. She said "come on" with a certain intonation, which means: "that is not true", as if I lied to make her like me. Why would I do that? What would be the purpose? This shows distrust and later that became a big problem... The same words "come on" with a different intonation can mean "let us go"/"let us continue", or "follow me"...
About my (incomplete) list of differences of thinking and wishes of men and women, in section 1 ('Essentials'), someone mentioned stereotypes, created by society. This is wrong. It is the other way around: These wishes and differences that I listed in section 1 are what has created society and these facts such as that for women security, stability are important, come from being able to have children. This is in-built to make sure the species survives... The same is true for some of men's behaviour, that is related to surivival as well, namely to reach goals, to be the aggressor. Those are not created by society. Instead, society is created according to those facts and society thus shows what is reality: men and women are very different in thinking, and in their wishes in life. This does not mean that every man and woman has those wishes, nor that this list is a list of what men and women should do in life. Everyone should have his or her choice in life, some women are more masculine in thinking or interests, some men more feminine or at least less interested in agression as a way to live, but what you see is that these 'stereotypes' are in fact generally confirmed. There is a saying: Exceptions confirm the rule... [ The statement that something is an exception already implicity says that there is a rule, of course ]
Some further examples of differences that I mentioned in this part: WOmen tend to try to compromise, men don't and the former gives problems in western societies as too much is compromised, this means common sense and reason is snowed under for the purpose of 'letting everyone be happy' which doesn't work, it only leads to not being able to state reality. These differences do NOT come from society, but from the innate differences between men and women. I mentioned also that for example gender neutral upbringing has been tried in the 1960s and later, perhaps it started even earlier, and it doesn't work. Addition 2025-4-2: You see it also with clothes, behaviour, runnning patterns etc. of 46XY DSD athletes. These are men who have a birth defect, were incorrectly identified at birth as girls, have internal testicles and in senses look and act like men despite being raised as girls... Another example: The biological differences between boys and girls that becomes clear especially after puberty are not caused by society but by the biological differences that are present from the start. These differences include thinking, although a large scale brainwashing is going on to try to make it appear as if the differences are just from upbringing.
Some of the women wanted money, hobbies, others safety, 1 of the men wanted safety as well which was surprising as I thought that would be not high on the priority list for men (unless they are married and have children, perhaps he has). One guy wanted to do his studies, and after that he would see. The current situation in Ukraine of course influences what people want. Anotehr woman wanted to find a man with whom to share life and grow, spiritually (that is a wish that is difficult to fulfill, you need luck to find somene who is at the same stage and who has similar thinking)...
Think about thinking, think about what you want, ask yourself questions: Why do I want this or that? Be more aware of your personality, your behaviour, your wishes in life, by trying to think about everything that you see, for example: There is a road, there is a car, can you deduce from positioning on the road which direction he will go? To the left, straight ahead, to the right? You can do this with everything that you see in life. What will a person say? Example: I saw a video of a guy interviewing 'kitboga', who is an anti-scammer. This interviewer looked to me like a psychopath: no facial expression and the conversation doesn't flow which are typical indicators. I looked in the comments and it was stated that that guy scored very low on an empathy test. Yes, right, that was obvious, I didn't need that information, I knew that immediately. I also read that he is also a psychiatrist... How can he be a good psychiatrist? Back to what he said: He asked at some point: "Do you know who else can manipulate people?" and I thought "Oh, no he is going to say that he can do that. But he can't, he can only use people's good faith", and then he said "I can do that"... Totally expected...
So I think ahead what will happen in situations, I guess what will happen, I guess what people are going to say, and that means analysing everything. It helps you understand everything in life. Ask yourself questions too, about why you want certain things. The more self awareness you have, the better you can choose what makes you happy in life.
Method 1: Non-violent communication/empathy:
== Vlad mentioned the 4 steps for non-violent communication (see for example (L1) https://www.epinsight.com/post/nonviolent-communication):
A few other links:
(L2) https://www.cultureally.com/blog/nonviolent-communication-a-guide-to-empathetic-conversation
(L3) https://youtu.be/ZSpJDOBSllU?si=2sdV1fZf7IPyEeXv
Problems I see in this method, my comments on Telegram about the above 2 links (L2, L3):
I read the article and watched the video just now, after finishing mostly my talk, and clearly some of the things suggested don't work in many situations. This (= the following) would be disingenuous for me to say:
“When someone is late, I tend to get anxious and stressed that we may not be able to complete our tasks on time.”,
because I do not get anxious nor stressed. Also emphasis is placed there in making people feel 'comfortable' which caters to the nonsense of coddling people such that they never hear anything unfriendly or harsh whereas that is needed, e.g. when they are deluded.In fact being factual without being negative along with making people able to deal with criticism is more needed because criticism is needed to get to the truth...
Another video: (L4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgaeHeIL39Y
I was thinking of posting the following comments in a chat on Telegram after watching the 2nd video teh morning before the talk, but instead I will post them here, edited/improved:
This method doesn't work with very anti-social people (psychopaths such as putin, hitler, stalin, narcissists like trump, etc.) and doesn't necessarily work or is useful with others such as my former friend from Zhytomyr, because there comes a point when uncaused unfriendly actions mean I don't want any further contact (after all, that is likely to happen another time with such a person). Summary: My former friend from Zhytomyr was annoyed that I didn't buy a house within 2 weeks. I thought "that cannot be the real reason, it has to come from stress for an exam, she was preparing for it, did poorly in a test for it, that must be it".
There were more things she said, negative things about me, such as that I used her, and that I played games wasting times of the realtors. What absolute nonsense! I wrote about this issue briefly in the current talk, and you can read more in my travel report of 2022.
About the empathy method: I could not have told her that "I feel bad from this situation and it would become better if xyz happened", then I would lie. I simply explained everything and asked whether my view that the stress from the test caused her to become so annoyed. It didn't work. I didn't tell her how it affected me because though I was shocked at first, I actually couldn't believe the situation was real. It didn't affect my mood, but it did affect me in having to change my plans and I didn't know what to do for quite a while.
Where can it work?: This method from Rosenberg can work in other cases with individuals (but not all of them), but then it is not very different than searching for the truth (which is what I do, as I realised when thinking back to the problems I had with her and others), which means: Asking people their view on what is really going on, and their view on what is the real problem...
Searching for the truth: This is why I do not like any politics (left wing, right wing, other, doesn't matter), as none of them care about the truth, they (the leaders but also voters) generally just want to see their views/wishes confirmed by other people. Political parties and their leaders often act as in cults: They are indoctrinated, indoctrinate others and are not listening to other ideas... (and so empathy based discussions won't work). This means it won't work with many leaders from many countries because a lot of people in politics are psychopaths, they don't care at all about other people, they care only about themselves, their views, their ideals on how the world should be changed. It is also a huge problem that many political leaders and their voters act as in cults, the leaders being the cult leaders and the voters brainwashed and not interested in the truth and other viewpoints... Which again means it is very difficult to make them think about other ways than they have in their minds.By the way, it is one of my big criticisms about psychology that they don't advocate for disallowing any person with an anti-social personality (I include autism) in any position of power, because such people are the ones creating problems, starting wars, etc. My view: If you cannot understand or do not want to understand other people, then you should not be allowed to make any decisions about their lives.
Method 2: Thinking ahead:
== I outlined my method which is really looking at the 'ingredients' of the situation and then there is 1 step (repeated as often as needed) to decide what to do:
Part 1: Ingredients:
The situation that we discussed was a friend who was part of a group and dragged the group down on various occasions, with her unstable behaviour, sometimes good, happy, other times depressing the others. I thought that likely the empathy method would not work, but it dependd on what was the cause.
1. The first step for me would be to ascertain what exactly the situation is like, what causes this? Are there problems at home? Problems with other friends? Answer: this group asked and there were no problems. I then stated that people can say that there are no problems, to make them feel better (or to not be emberassed). I gave as example a situation of what had supposedly improved in Crimea, the roads, whereas the ones I saw were all excellent (in 2013 from Simferopol to Sevastopol, to Alupka, Alushta in particular), and people tell such things to make themselves feel better to have made the right choice to be with Russia. I suggested to ask again, to be sure there isn't some problem in her family, otherwise the emotional issue could be something medical that may be solved with medicines.
2. Someone else mentioned a similar problem of someone who was hard to deal with, and this was the result of him having a child with cerebral palsy, but it turned out his attitude was the main problem. He thought that people would not want to hang out with him, whereas people don't care about his problem (in the sense that whatever his personal problems are, that doesn't influence anything related to being friends), but he thought that it would be a problem for people. So he created his own problem in his mind, then by being moody/annoyed about what he thought about people, that they would not want to be friends with him, he created a confirmation! This situation was resolved in due course without any action when he realised there was no problem...
A suggestion made by one attendee was for the next meeting to deal with 'jealousy', she had a situation. I thought about in relationships but it can also be about money, possessions. You see someone being more succesful, making more money, should it affect you? What about jealousy if you are married that your partner has meetings with other people, perhaps attractive men or women, would you feel insecure about that? I think it could be a good topic for next time.
I talked about how I couldn't reach (= I couldn't make them realise the problem, for) both 'L' from Zhytomy and 'M' from Kharkov. The empathetic method doesn't work if someone doesn't want to think with you, and/or if he/she is emotion poor/empathy poor...
Now to the guy who was married, his wife took birth control pills (contraceptives). I didn't ask how he found out but likely he found the pills.
Before telling everyone what he did, I asked: What should he do?
Someone wanted to know his age, well he was I estimate 40-45 or so. Some people suggested to just accept it. I found that strange. Someone lied to you for 20 years (I think it was that long), his big wish was a family, but he accepted that it didn't happen, as 'part of life' I suppose. But he could not accept it when he found out that the situation was created by her, intentionally! Someone else said that he should have done something earlier. Perhaps find someone else after say 10 years? That is a good point, but if you love someone that is not something you just do. About just accepting it and continuing: I said that men can have children at any age, so as having a family, children, was his big wish, why not try to find someone else? Because his wife lied to him for 20 years.
What he did: In his place I would not try to convince her to look at my point of view (empathetic discussion): It has gone too far for that. 20 years of lies! Even if it were possible with her. He obviously felt the same because he got divorced, found another woman (a lot younger, who cares about that? There is a lot of negativity about such things but for having children this makes biological sense, what matters is that both accept the situation), got married, had children and was happy.
This situation shows compromises in life: He chose to love a woman, who turned out not be worth that love (note that love is a choice, it is not an emotion, it is a feeling but it can be wrong, based on people pretending to be different than they are). It is an interesting question why he didn't see through her earlier. I presume he liked everything, but was just missing an important ingredient in his life, children. The same guy who suggested to just stay with her said this must be talked about at the start. Yes, you should (no, MUST, as he correctly said) talk about such an important topic at the start. I would have acted the same as he did. The empathy method is a waste of time here, he needed to think about himself. A person who lies for 20 years and pretends to want the same as you, is not worth any effort.
More to come.
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Copyright W.H.Scholten, 2025. To contact me you can email or send a message via telegram (via phone +31648816383), or via vk.com (https://vk.com/w.h.scholten, which I don't really use but I will get notified of messages from there). I don't use: facebook, linkedin, twitter. |