questioning the way relationships with people work?

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This topic has 12 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 8 months ago by Brandy.

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April 20, 2020 at 11:47 pm #350846

Soph
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hi i’m a 17 year of female and over the course of my life there’s certain trends i’ve noticed i wanted to see if anyone else has noticed them

there’s always the people that individuals gravitate to, like everyone WANTS them around and tries to impress them and prioritise them over other people you know those people that everyone likes and feels the need to have them around.

like for example you make a group of friends but there’s a person who everyone in the group seems to try to be closer with it’s not because the person is nicer or funnier but everyone WANTS that persons attention.

ive never been that person and have lost friends because my friends have wanted to be a part of that persons life more than mine.

people never work for my attention or my kindness and respect it’s just naturally given to them cause that’s who i am

but these people that everyone gravitates to it feels like their respect and kindness is so exclusive and needs to be worked for. i don’t get why people prefer these people? i guess idek if any of that makes sense but it’s just what i’ve noticed

lemme know what u guys think 🙂

April 21, 2020 at 9:36 am #350888
Anonymous
Guest
Dear Serife:

“these people that everyone gravitates to, it feels like their respect and kindness is so exclusive and needs to be worked for. I don’t get why people prefer these people?”-

If the situation is like this: a popular person A is ignoring/ disrespecting persons X, Y and Z. Persons X, Y and Z then work very hard to gain A’s approval, acceptance and respect (I’ll refer to these three as Love). After a while, A loves X, Y and Z on the condition that they continue to work hard to maintain his love. Every once in a while, A shows his disapproval of any of the three, so to stimulate them to work harder.

Question is: what is motivating X, Y and Z to work so hard to gain A’s love, while person B (you) already showed them love, and is willing to love them without them having to work so hard for it?

My answer: X, Y and Z had earlier life experiences, likely they grew up in households where a parent didn’t love them unless they worked hard for it, for example, getting good grades in school. When that happened, X, Y and Z received the love they desperately needed (although temporarily and conditionally: they will have to keep working hard for a repeat of that love), and they felt very, very good. It’s this very, very good feeling that they are after: the feeling of being loved after being unloved.

Fast forward, they come across A in school. A reminds them of their unloving parent. That stimulates their desire to earn the love of their unloving parent. Next they do all that they can do to get A to love them, and when they succeed (although temporarily and conditionally), they get this very, very good feeling back.

But when X,Y and Z come across you, you don’t remind them of their parents, because you don’t look disapproving and rejecting, so they don’t get the desire to repeat the pattern of their childhood. They are gravitating instead to A, gravitating toward that very, very good feeling.

Does this make sense to you?

anita
- This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by .
April 21, 2020 at 9:40 am #350890

Brandy
Participant

Hi Serife,

Status, or where a person is in relation to his/her peers, is important to many people so they gravitate toward those who they believe will elevate their status. Good-looking, strong, independent, out-going, athletic, successful, intelligent, funny, popular people are generally perceived as having higher status than unattractive, weak, needy, introverted, unathletic, unsuccessful, less intelligent, serious, loner-types, and being associated with the higher status group is generally considered more advantageous. Maybe it goes back to the ‘survival of the fittest’ concept; by aligning ourselves with the “fittest” we increase our own chances of survival. So people post photos on social media to make themselves appear to have high status, and they brag about their kids’ accomplishments, and even their own, all in an attempt to attract others to themselves. When you’re caught up in it it can be difficult to make sense of, but once you see it for what it is it’s quite eye-opening! As you enter different phases in your life it’s nice to know what motivates people.

B

April 21, 2020 at 6:35 pm #350978

Soph
Participant

anita that was a great explanation, relating this odd occurrence to childhood “trauma” i guess feels like a good justification. however i want to ask you which person you would want to be in this case A or B.

also with person a or b does that mean they don’t have this will to please other people? why is that?

thank u for responding x

April 21, 2020 at 6:39 pm #350980

Soph
Participant

hey brandy i guess it probably is something to do with seeking a higher status it’s kinda sad that this is a reality. in my personal life someone could be outgoing, athletic or intelligent and people would still gravitate to other people i just find it odd and kind of sad :/

do u think this need for approval by people with higher status comes from the need to feel ‘protected’ or to conform to social standards?

April 21, 2020 at 7:05 pm #350984

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Serife:

My explanation is not about justifying anyone’s behavior, it is about what motivate people. You asked who in the situation I’d rather be: XYZ or A or B (you)- I would rather be you:

I wouldn’t want to be X, Y,Z because they are dishonestly manipulated by A (held by conditional acceptance/ threat of rejection), and I wouldn’t want to be A because I don’t want to dishonestly manipulate others. I would want to be you assuming you are honest with people, neither manipulated nor manipulating.

I will soon be away from the computer for the next 12 hours or so.

anita

April 21, 2020 at 7:53 pm #350986

Soph
Participant

personally i consider myself a person b however i feel so lonely, irrelevant and of lesser value because people don’t really value my affection or respect as much as other people’s and it’s kind of degrading idk.

Being a person B seems morally correct in retrospect however the way it has impacted my self-worth has been detrimental i guess

thanks for responding x

April 21, 2020 at 7:56 pm #350988

Soph
Participant

i was just thinking about what i wrote

it’s really shallow of me to base my self-worth on how much other people value me i know

i wish i could change how much i cared about what other people thought of me ://

April 21, 2020 at 11:35 pm #351022

Brandy
Participant

Hi Serife,

I need to do a better job at proofreading my posts before submitting them. I just now re-read what I had written earlier and it doesn’t read how I wish it did. While I do believe that many people are looking to elevate their status through their relationships, I also believe that many others are not and that those are the friends to find.

You say “In my personal life someone could be outgoing, athletic or intelligent and people would still gravitate to other people.” It could be that those particular people don’t value the outgoing, athletic, and intelligent qualities as much as they do other qualities. When I was your age most of my peers seemed drawn toward those who were having the most fun, you know, those organizing parties on the weekends, buying groups of tickets to live concerts, etc. And to be totally honest they were usually the most attractive and the most popular in my high school.

But not all friendships start this way. You’ll know it when it happens, when you meet someone you connect with who is excited to get to know you and be your friend just because of the person you are. Connections like this don’t happen every day. That’s what makes them special.

You ask “do u think this need for approval by people with higher status comes from the need to feel ‘protected’ or to conform to social standards?” I’d say the latter. I think people see social status as something that greatly affects their quality of life. By conforming to social standards they are essentially avoiding negative responses from the people they’re trying to align themselves with. What do you think?

B

April 22, 2020 at 6:56 am #351050

Soph
Participant

hey brandy

thank u for replying and clarifying ur response it’s really insightful:)

i get what you mean about people wanting to be with the people who have the most fun it makes a lot of sense especially for people around my age.

i guess it’s important to realise that having a connection with someone is preferable over someone seeking my approval.

i think people are also afraid of the consequences of non-conformity, a lot of the times the person people gravitate toward (let’s call person A) is often intimidating/have connections to intimidating group of friends or people. as a result people would rather appease person A as to avoid the repercussions of person A and their friends not liking them. for example i work at a fast food restaurant and there was a conflict between two team members one was a “person A” the other was not. Every team member chose to defend and back up person A despite him being in the wrong. The other team member was being ‘attacked’. i tried to defend the second team member and got told to “shut up” repeatedly by other team members. it’s sad to see that people choose to appease people over their own morals and values.

as a young impressionable person surrounded by young impressionable people it’s hard not to conform and i don’t blame people for seeking Person A’s approval i cant say i’ve never done this. but i think it’s ignorant of them to not see what they’re doing and its reign over their morality

April 22, 2020 at 7:13 am #351056

Lewis
Participant

Hi Serife

I just want to give you one piece of wisdom that I only learned a couple of years ago; live up to your own standards, approve of yourself and then the opinions of you from others will have no effect. You only need to live up to your own standards because when you do, the people with whom you connect will do so naturally, you won’t have to fight for it and neither will they. Simply be who you are, and if you recognise something you don’t like within you, change it, develop it and you will be happy. The vessel is not as important as the spirit within.

Peace and love.

April 22, 2020 at 7:43 am #351060

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Serife:

You have Brandy’s posts, Lewis’s recent post, and my following post to you is long and has lots in it, so please take your time, do not rush through the responses you are getting. There is no time limit here, we can communicate over a long time and over many pages, if you need to.

In my following post I will ask you a few questions (italicized). It is fine with me if you choose to not answer them. I ask questions because I believe it can help you to look into what I will be bringing up to you:

Everyone needs to be valued by other people. It is impossible for me (it is true to you and to every other person) to value myself if someone outside of me didn’t value me first. To experience self esteem we have to first see it in a mirror, and that mirror is another person. If a parent adequately values a child (mirroring value to the child), then the child has a good start in life. But too often, this is not the case.

Once a child/ teenager is in school, among her peers, she/ he needs the peers’ to value her. If the child was not/ is not valued at home, her need to be valued by her peers may be even stronger than otherwise.

We are social animals, and that’s why we need to be valued by other people. Therefore it is natural, not shallow of you to care about other people valuing you (“It’s really shallow of me to base my self-worth on how much other people value me”).

1. You wrote: “I wish I could change how much I cared about what other people thought of me”- maybe “how much” you care has to do with you not having that good start in life, that is, being adequately valued by a parent or parents. Does it?

“there’s always the people that individuals gravitate to, like everyone WANTS them around and tries to impress them and prioritise them over other people”- I will refer to the individuals gravitating, like before, as X, Y, and Z, three individuals. And I will refer to the individual they are gravitating toward as A.

Every person (and animal) is motivated by a pleasant, good feeling. For example, it feels good to eat sweets, so we are motivated to look for sweets and to eat sweets. The good feeling is either something we are already experiencing (eating sweets), or something we anticipate. X, Y, and Z gravitate toward A because they feel good around A or because they anticipate to feel good around.

ex.: X – A reminds X of X’s father who is rejecting but at times accepting, and because the accepting is rare, her father’s acceptance feels intensely good; A appears rejecting, therefore the anticipation of getting A’s approval feels intensely good (this is what I suggested to you in a previous post). Motivation: to gain acceptance from a rejecting person.

Y- peers sometimes pick on her, on the other hand, it looks like no one picks on A or on the people in A’s group. It feels bad to be vulnerable to being picked on, and the thought of being protected feels good. Motivation: to be protected from being picked on.

Z – she often finds herself alone, and she feels sad being alone. A has many friends and she acts like the leader of the group, the one deciding who is in and who is out of the group. The individuals in the group seem to have fun. Z feels good anticipating being part of A’s group. Motivation: to be a part of a group.

In other words, different people, different motivations, but all motivations have one common, basic motivation: to feel good.

“people never work for my attention or my kindness and respect, it’s just naturally given to them cause that’s who I am… people don’t really value my affection or respect”-

2. Can you give a few examples of how you give your attention, kindness and respect to your parent or parents, and how they respond?

3. Can you give a few examples of how you give your attention, kindness and respect to your peers and how they respond?

anita

April 22, 2020 at 9:14 pm #351184

Brandy
Participant

Hi Serife,

I agree that many fear the consequences of non-conformity. What happened at your place of work is typical in my experience. You did the right thing. Now if I had observed that situation myself I would walk away thinking that you, Serife, aren’t afraid to do the right thing and I’d want to gravitate toward you! I really would.

I know what you’re experiencing with your friends is frustrating and hurtful. I wonder if others in your group feel it too — I’ll bet they do. Friend groups are hard sometimes. I think a lot of us have felt exactly the way you do.

B
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