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Talk goncharenko centre 2025-3-30: Relationships: family, dating, friends, work: How to understand people and how to make the best decisions

Start ca. 16:30

Introduction

1 Essentials

Note what stands out, these are pointers to what you will like or dislike

• Every little thing that a person does or says, is a pointer to their personality. Example: On my 1st date with 'M' I gave her a little present, something that I bought to give, in case I met someone I liked. I said it was to give to someone 'cool', she then said "Come on" as if I was just telling a story. I didn't like it, I think I made a comment that I was serious, but after that I let it go. This distrust became a problem later... Keep in mind everything that stands out to you, especially early in dating but also in dealing with people at work (such as new customers). What stands out is usually a pointer to possible problems.
• People generally don't listen to criticism.

Know and understand yourself!

Self awareness is important, it can prevent problems in interactions. Know what you want, and don't let others walk over you. In a way all relationships are transactional, to some degree, even in love, because you expect something in return. What you want or need in return will be lower the more you approach true love, then you give and don't expect anything in return, but, you will want to get feedback. That isn't so much a transaction but similar to it in that you need something in return to see how someone likes a joke or is happy with his or her life. I once made a joke to a woman in dating in a message and didn't get a response to it so I asked and then she replied that she didn't feel it was necessary to state that she found it funny. Well, but then I don't know what kind of humour she likes, and I do change my way of talking to each person depending on interests, personality etc.

This was an issue for me in some cases, such as with 'M' not knowing how it is important to tell me about the problems in her life, so that I didn't know how severely some things had affected her, it meant my responses were probably not appropriate but based on the incomplete knowledge I had. Also she asked me once about whether I lied about liking her paintings. No, I never lied, so then I asked why she asked me: Was it perhaps caused by her friend suggesting that I lied? This was a friend with whom she stayed at the time, a painter (with whom she presumably talked about what had happened). She made a reply that suggested that she didn't know from where this doubt came...

You can know yourself by asking yourself questions: Why do I want this or that? What am I searching for in life? What would make me happy?

Further you can think about your thinking to realise what you really want. I can give an example about watching a film called "my sweet and tender beast", (1978) after Chekhov's play "The hunting party", in which I saw a carriage riding across a field, going around a tree stump.

Know and understand others

A big difference in men and women is the way they think. Women are complex thinkers, men are simple linear thinkers. Men say exactly what they mean, with women you need to know their background thinking, feelings, and views, to properly understand how certain comments are meant...

In knowing the personality: this is a complex topic. What do you think is important?

To understand other people, despite differences we have of course a tool, similar to empathy: Put yourself in the position of others and imagine what you would think, do, feel if their life was your life. There are difficulties with this such as emulating autists/psychopaths but it is possible.

In life: List of what is important for women

• Family, children
• Security (walking on the street in the evening, women will think about dangers, men will not even think about this).
• Financial security: This is one aspect in age difference: See for example the film "My sweet and tender beast" where the woman decides to be with a man who is a lot older but also has a lot of money, this means he can provide for her children.
• Neatness, at home, also clothes, sometimes this is extreme. Example; I met a woman from Kharkov in a hostel in Zaporizhya, a writer who had already published a book, and I asked whether she was interested in meeting for a date later when I would return to Kharkov. We had contact via email, then I mentioned that clothes are not very important, the person is important, and she immediately criticised my clothes in the hostel, said she thought it was due to travelling (of course it was) and ruled out any dating. In response I said that I was not interested in any further contact with someone who is so superficial.

Input from attendees (women): Your comments, what is important to you?

In life: List of what is important for men

• A career, to achieve something in life.
• In relationships, dating, physical attraction is more important for men than for women (but attraction is not just about appearance)
• Having a home to come to that is relaxing, supportive, after a working day.
• The need to feel the one who is supporting the family.
• Affirmation of the ego/self-image, related to feeling the need to achieve, and this can be annoying for example if a woman expresses how to do something that her husband or boyfriend hadn't thought about because many men don't want to be told something that is better than they did, or even being told 'what to do'. My sister expressed annoyance at that, having to be careful what to say, caused by the fact that she is thinking ahead to all options vs. not so much in a friend :)

Input from attendees (men): Your comments, what is important to you?

1.1 Your input on what is important for you in others, and awareness of yourself, what do you want/need that friends or potential wife/husband need to know?

Input from attendees.

2 Types of personalities

I am not that interested in different types of personalities except the main ones that can cause problems:

• Emotion poor (autistic, asperger), or close to that from emotional repression, such as 'M' from Kharkov (see talk 1, 2025-3-16).
• Anti-social (but usually hiding it). I dated an actress once in KIev, who is the most selfish woman I ever met, but being an actress and her friend telling me that she had such a bad time in dating, made me not take immediate actions about the obvious warning signs: An almost always present half-smile and her statements about for example paying for a taxi for her to get home one time after a date in which she again chose a very expensive restaurant. I had criticised that before because the amount of money for 1 meeting was like a month's wages in Ukraine. Her friend suggested paying for her taxi to get to the centre, and she said about that "it is only fair". You know what is fair? To be considerate of other people. She never did anything herself, in contradiction with her statements of the relation between men and women. There was much more that happened, which I will use in my project to describe anti-social people. See also 'Patric Gagne, look at pictures of her, good example, very similar face to that actrice. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=patric+gagne&iax=images&ia=images

Note the previous point: Whatever stands out could be a problem, or could be something that you really like in another person.

2.1 Your input on what is important in personality of friends or whom you are dating?

Input from attendees.

3 Types of relationships

There are different ways to deal with different people:

• Person whom you are dating or to whom you are married.
• Family: You are stuck with them! You did not choose them. It is possible to dislike family members and that you feel you have nothing in common with them. But you can choose to leave them... You may be forced to be around them, for example living in a shared accommodation.
• Friends: You chose your friends which means there is some sort of interaction that you like, and perhaps something that you don't like. You can choose to end friendships more easily than leaving family behind.
• Co-workers (or at a school/university: Other students): You are working with them, you didn't choose them, you may find some to become friends, others more like continual annoyances.
• Businesses: You may dislike the way a business operates, it could be ethical things such as lying, but you may choose to do business with them if there is no choice or if they produce the best products.
• People you encounter somewhere, in the bus, in a shop, etc.

The relationship and what you expect from that in future determines what the best action is towards a person or business.

4. Dating, marriage

Very important is a compatible personality and perhaps less important things as described in Gary Chapman's book "5 love languages", which are about day to day confirmations that you care about someone.

What do you need to have in common?

Very important is a similar attitude to life. This means someone who is looking to improve the world will not be happy with someone who only strives to make money and whose goals are buying an expensive car etc. Also important whether you want to have children. This should be discussed before starting any relationship. Similar or the same interests are not needed but can be useful depending on your personality. For me common interests are not needed. I am more interested in women who are very different than I am because that is more interesting.

What is love?

My view is: Love is a choice, it is not as 'being in love'. See List of life v2: (4.10) Love is a choice (about emotions, feelings, short and long term, attraction). The choice you make is based on seeing in a person so much that you like, that you can admire, that you feel you want to support that person. The woman 'M' whom I mentioned in various places, said about love that "it may seem crazy but I don't think you need to get anything back". I didn't think it was crazy, but I agreed, however, in practice you do need something, which is feedback. This is what Gary Chapman's book "The 5 love languages" is about.

Important in relationships, dating, marriage

What you want in life, for example a lot of people are materialistic, and if you are not then there can be grievances "why are you not striving to buy a new car or a nice house" whereas you can be happy anywhere really. I lived for years in a house that needed renovations and used mainly 1 room, the last 2 years I didn't even have a kitchen, only a small electric oven and an electric kettle. It is not so important, especially not for single men, but it becomes more important in the sense of that you want to provide something better for a partner. Also, men care less about neatness than women, so for men it is fine to live in a house that is being renovated, for women it is more of an issue.

My mother mentioned about dating that if you want to marry someone, you need to go do 3 things together. Those are:

• Hanging up wallpaper together in a house.
• Going on holiday together.
• I forgot the 3rd one but it can be anything that you do together which can cause stress. Stress from things that go wrong, missing a train or bus, wallpaper not being straight and you need to do it again, and so on.

This is about seeing the real personality because these situations cause stress and that (and anger) makes the real personality come out.

4.1 Your input on issues in dating, marriage?

Input from attendees:
- If you are single: What are you looking for in dating?
- If not single: What were you looking for before getting married (or the precursor to getting married)?
- What were specific problems in relationships?

5 Your experiences with problems with people, in dating, or at work, or with friends?

Input from attendees. We could use some of these for the work group, or use my examples. Decide...

My examples of 'problem situations' (I will go over how I dealt with them after the work group section):

• In a friendship: (FRIEND-1): My friend 'L' from Zhytomyr helped me search for houses in 2022. At one point she said that "you are crazy to come to Ukraine in this time of war". After about 2 weeks she started looking for an apartment for me to stay in instead of at a hostel, while we were continuing to look for a house. She didn't like interacting with realtors. She needed also to pass an exam to go further in her work which caused her stress. She had enough time to help me as she said at the start. She suggested most of the trips. She then became annoyed after a bit more than 2 weeks 'because' I should have already decided which house to buy, and 'because' she didn't have time for friends, and she didn't want to be so close to anybody. What to do?
• In dating: (DATING-1): My friend 'M' from Kharkov left shops without telling the sellers 'thank you' after for example looking for a bag or hiking shoes. She also didn't explain what was going on in her life, such when she sent me a picture from hospital without any information of what was going on. Of course I worried (without the negativity, it is more wanting information "tell what is going on so that I can help if you need help", etc.). How to deal with this?
• In dating: (DATING-2): I met a woman 'X' from Kharkov, in a hostel in Zaporizhya. We got talking in the kitchen one morning. She was a writer who had already published a book. I asked whether she was interested in a date when I would return to Kharkov in a month or 2. We sent various emails and in one message I mentioned that clothes are not very important, the person is important. She then criticised the clothes that I wore in the hostel and said that she thought those were because of travelling (of course!) and ruled out any dating. What should I do?
• In business: (BUSINESS-1): A guy who started a company that designed and sold a light using a contactless rim dynamo, contacted me about my review on my site and made a suggestion, then he sent another email in which he made a comment about how poorly my review was done. What should I do? (note first that I always do a proper review)

Situation of an acquaintance in NL:

• In marriage (ACQUAINTANCE-MARRIAGE-NL): This guy wanted children but his wife never got pregnant. He accepted the situation, but then he found out that she actually always used birth control pills...
  So what is the right thing to do? What would you do? Is 'non-violent' communication an option?

What I and my acquaintance did will be revealed at the end of the talk.

5.1 Work group: Dealing with problems

What to do in case of a problem? Your thinking should go like this:

• What is the situation?
• What do you want?
• What is the personality of the person you deal with, or the attitude of the company?
• What sort of action to take? This depends on what you want, and what you expect from the person/company given personality/attitude and thus what their response to your actions will be. You think ahead and decide what to do...

Methods to use:

• Method 1: Let things go, similar to not worrying as in my discussion of my "List of life", this is about letting things not touch you, not influence you, in a negative way. This is what I normally do. Example: The kitchen is messy: I will work around it, as long as my room is as I want it to be, then I don't mind what else happens in a shared house or apartment.
• Method 2: 'non-violent discussions'/empathetic discussions (Rosenberg): You let your annoyances (such as a messy kitchen) be known to another person in a non-accusary way. He then 'should' do something (such as clean up the kitchen) to make you feel better because he has (or should have) empathy.
  [ Post meeting addition: The steps (see https://www.epinsight.com/post/nonviolent-communication:
  1. Tell your observations
  2. Mention your feelings about this situation
  3. Talk about your needs
  4. Specify your requests
  ]
  See also: goncharenko-2025-3-30-post-event

Now we will go over 2 problems, in groups, try using these 2 methods, then discuss these and after that I will go over it theoretically what is the best method, and I will tell what I did in various situations in life.

Situation 1: xxx, Situation 2: yyy. DECIDE WHICH SITUATION TO USE. One of mine? One of attendees?

[ Post meeting addition: We used a situation of one of the attendees ]

Discuss these in groups, decide how to use these methods and show it in action. Prepare for example 2 people talking and how they react to show the situation in action.

Possibilities:
- 4 groups, each choosing a problem and each trying out 2 ways to deal with it.
- 4 groups, each taking method 1 or method 2, for situation 1 or situation 2.

Feedback after the presentations: Do you see what works and what doesn't when applying these methods?

My analysis: My method of 'letting go' always works once you have the right mindset. With non-violent empathy you are depending for your feeling of contentment/happiness on others... And, it doesn't work in all situations/with all types of people (especially people with no empathy!). it can work but only as an addition. So you make clear what you prefer in a friendly manner, but if that happens it is an improvement for you, which means more happiness, it will not be the difference between being annoyed and being happy. So the method I use (without realising it) is actually letting go + making others aware of: what makes sense and what I prefer. But I generally don't let my mood depend on whether people do anything about what I said or wrote.

6 My analysis of 'non-violent discussions' (Rosenberg)

I only recently learned about this method (from Vlad) and I immediately felt that:

• For me it is not needed: I don't care whether someone criticises me. In case of criticism I will think about whether such criticism is valid but I don't take anything personally. I can also let almost everything slide past me, so I don't mind if people do their thing, as long as I have my personal space where I can do my thing (for example if sharing an apartment or house).
• For the reverse: see the text after this list.
• It will not work with anti-social or autistic people.
• It will not work or be not important in business-business relationships [ the examples of a bank manager in Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people" and the similar example in Covery's "7 habits of highly effective people" in reality do not work, it has to be an extremely exceptional situation where a bank manager works with you, I estimate it only works if you are some long time friend. Normally banks follow rules, nothing else, no exceptions. I tried such a method of engaging which is similar to empathy, by the way, with a bank, and it didn't work. I tried it not to manipulate as was the reason for Carnegie but simply that was my style of interaction and it didn't work at all. ]
• It may work in the work place in a business, but it may not work if it is someone with whom you don't get along, and in any case it is not necessarily important (depending on your mindset, whether you can work with someone or close to someone who doesn't like you).
• It could work with family, with friends.

I realised later when thinking back to various situations that I use such a method actually but mostly in combination with the "I will let it go" mindset, and I do it only with people whom I like or consider(ed) friends [ Note that my own view during interactions is more harsh than I actually am, so I state certain things, that upon later reading back I am surprised how friendly I was even to unfriendly people, so such a possible distortion in more or less friendly than your mood was, is what you need to keep in mind. Check what you wrote or said to people and what your mindset was at the time, then you know in which direction you tend to go ]. I do this with family, friends, and in dating. Examples FRIEND-1 and DATING-1, see further for how it went.

So to summarise: I use the method that is most useful, which can be the combination method, and that makes the most sense in most situations because:

• The empathetic discussion style of interaction is not optimal, it makes you dependent on others. A combination is better: You try to tell your view which would make it better for you, but also you should just accept the situation as it is. So, the situation could be better for you if someone listens to your comment, but it would not be bad if nothing changes.

In some situations there is no point to being friendly, examples::
(1) time pressure, need to do something, it is then not useful to make someone like a co-worker or relative think about how you feel and letting him/her get empathy for you to make him/her change something in his/her actions. The only thing that then matters is getting something done on time. You state the facts, tell him/her what needs to be done and what consequences may be, that is all.
(2) I watched a video of someone who cancelled an uber ride (in the USA), but she stayed sitting in the car for a long time (she had tried to scam the driver by cancelling and hoping he won't notice (the cancellation) so she would get a free ride). As the driver you have to say "Get out!", there is no point being friendly! Then either immediately call police or drag that person out.

A table of possibilities to show when each method makes sense, assuming the person thinking what to do is not anti-social:

7 Some experiences, showing how people behave and get influenced and how I and an acquaintance dealt with those situations

My actions from examples given before:

• FRIEND-1 'friendship-L-empathy-method': My action and the result: A bit after 2 weeks of a few days per week looking for houses, talking with realtors, visiting plots of land, talking about business ideas, etc., she got annoyed, she said I should have bought a house already. Wait what, in 2 weeks? She felt that she didn't have time for friends. But she suggested all the trips and said she like to do them! Earlier she said I was crazy to come to Ukraine at this time of war, and other derogatory remarks. I thought that she needed time to de-stress from preparations for an exam for her work. I explained everything, didn't accuse her of anything.
  Result: The situation stayed unreasonable. The empathy method didn't work. She had formed the idea that I caused her issues when in fact she caused them herself. people generally do not like to hear anything that shows that they are wrong. She clearly had no respect for me. I left Zhytomyr. Trying to show reality was a waste of time and effort.
  After that: About 2 months later I asked whether she thought about everything, but her view had not changed so I told her that her problems were caused by her herself, and that at the time of need, when I couldn't walk properly because of a fall with the (too small) bicycle that I had loaned from her friend, was the time I could use help, which she didn't give so she was in fact a bad friend, and I said goodbye.
  Result: She replied "Thank you", which is typical in many cases, it is done to try to look 'respectful' in the face of criticism, though 'respectful' is obviously not how I regarded her. I have not had any contact with her after that.
  
  
• DATING-1, 'dating-M-empathy-method': My action and the result: I tried to explain why I wanted feedback from 'M', who didn't do that because of being emotionally repressed, which was caused mainly by her mother's oppressive nature. Her mother didn't want her to express feelings, and thus she did not understand that people who are close to her want to know what is going on with her. I tried to explain that and what else I noticed in her behaviour towards other people, such as just walking out of shops without saying "thank you" for their effort when you don't buy anything.
  Result: The empathy method doesn't work, the problem didn't get solved because of her very limited empathy/emotions. This is also why this method doesn't work with autists and anti-social people.
  
  
• DATING-2: 'dating-X-don't-care-method': So this woman stated she wouldn't go out on date because of my clothes when I was travelling + my comment that the person is more important than the clothes. In response I said that I would have worn different clothes for a date, and that I was not interested in any further contact with someone who is so superficial. [ Post event note: There was for me no point trying empathy to make her see what makes sense because I am not interested in anyone who is so superficial ]
  Result: There was no reply. I never had contact with her again. This was what I wanted.
  
  
• BUSINESS-1: business-don't-care-method': In response to his statement that my review was badly done, I stated that in my review I put enough effort, because the dynamo/light was not good enough/interesting enough to spend more effort on it, and that the criticism I stated is correct. I was willing to have another look at it at first, but because of his follow up email (the style and content), I stated that 1) I was almost certain that he is autistic, 2) I would not spend any further effort on the device, 3) I told him that I didn't want to ever hear from him again.
  Result: There was 1 message he sent that I deleted before reading. After that I never heard from him again, which was what I wanted.
  
  

• ACQUAINTANCE-MARRIAGE-NL: His wife took birth control pills for many years without telling him, he wanted children; His action: He divorced her immediately.
  Result: He then found someone else, I think about 20 years younger, got married, had children and was happy.
  Note: This is the right thing to do, there is no point in trying to be friendly and trying to let her have empathy for your wishes. [ Post event note: This is because she wasted his time and pretended to be different than she really is for about 20 years! You cannot just continue with such a person. ] The only thing to do is to not have regret, and seek a solution immediately which is exactly what he did.

Tea + final discussion, ca. 18:10

End, ca. 18:30

Copyright W.H.Scholten, 2025. To contact me you can email or send a message via telegram (via phone +31648816383), viber, 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.