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The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

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Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#161

Post by Pet_Ant »

demadog wrote: post #154
rel-throwaway wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle with this in my personal life. To most friends and acquaintances I can be friendly, personable, interesting, and engaging when we meet. But at home, with close family, and especially with my wife I struggle to be that person. My default state is that I mostly want to be left alone. All the people closest to me seem to want something -- time, attention, help, emotional support etc. none of which I seem to n…

Just a thought, but what if you set a daily time limit of being fully engaged and present with your wife, say for an hour or two, but then it is understood that you need ~3 hrs of alone time. Sounds like you’re an introvert and need time to recharge from managing a team and you’re burnt out from that. I think she’d be delighted with an hour a day of full presence, perhaps more on the weekend.

I’m not sure how I would feel if my partner wanted to spend 3 times as much time alone as with me. That’s kind of degrading unless you are both into that.

What are you getting out of the relationship at all? Sounds like they should leave and be alone.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#162

Post by 0_____0 »

demadog wrote: post #158
throwaway6299 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How strange, just created an account to say that I am the same way and was thinking about this a lot last night. (Although, I don’t think I am emotionally abusive, as I feel my spouse demands things that are entirely unreasonable, like frequently asking me to leave work in the middle of the day to come help with something or buying a house and dog when we had less than $1,000 in our account). All I wanted my whole li…

She’s likely wanting your presence and testing your loyalty or something? Definitely would help to see a couples therapist but if not, I think setting clear boundaries - like work time is work time - but also scheduling time together would put her at ease and prevent random requests.

100% this. I've been working through similar issues in my personal life (complicated by COVID, natch) and what I've come to is that I need to get way better about setting clear boundaries and expectations with people I care about. This can be done in a compassionate way, and relationships will be better in the long run even if doing the boundary setting feels hard or mean in the short term.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#163

Post by agloeregrets »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #68

Okay, this quote stood out -- “He was a crazy good coder. Except he would always code everything the hardest way possible, kind of like you hired Rembrandt to paint your bathroom. You know it is going to be lit, but over the top.” A good read and a good reminder that people are always much more complex than we think. I wonder sometimes if by being exposed so often to fairly flat depictions of characters in movies and…

Reading that I felt like I saw myself in it, a bit of my earlier self. Perfectionism was required at all costs back then and my work would be very much over-considered compared to a more elegant simplistic solution scoped for the scale of the problem at hand. It's a lonely way to work and generally is less collaborative (so less learning once you get to a level). It's hard to feel like you are making progress over time when your only standard is perfection.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#164

Post by cgriswald »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #37

The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone knows what drives this? My personal theory is that you have some sort of obligations to long term acquaintances but you owe nothing to strangers on the trail. It's this feeling of obligation that leads you to resent people over time.

I had an ex that was sort of like this. She wasn’t necessarily abusive, but she needed everyone to like her and the people that already did she didn’t have to do anything to impress. I interpreted it as a deep insecurity resulting in really fake behavior: a mask as a sibling poster said.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#165

Post by fortran77 »

goodcanadian wrote: post #43
blakesterz wrote: post #4

Somehow I read this and I'm not sure what the actual Unsettling Truth was, but it still was interesting, I learned a few new things, and I've been following this one pretty close. The more I read about this the more I'm reminded of Chris McCandless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_McCandless

I think the "unsettling truth" was that he turned out to be a flawed human being rather than the person that people who didn't even know him built him up to be in their imaginations.

It's even more banal than that. The "unsettling truth" is he's got an ex who is willing to spread some unsubstantiated dirt about him that may not be true, or may be exaggerated. (Was there ever a police report? A restraining order? Probably not, or it would be mentioned.)

That's it. It's a non-story.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#166

Post by throwaway713 »

ksdale wrote: post #131
tppiotrowski wrote: post #37

The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone knows what drives this? My personal theory is that you have some sort of obligations to long term acquaintances but you owe nothing to strangers on the trail. It's this feeling of obligation that leads you to resent people over time.

I think there may be an element of survivorship bias at play. There's kind of a 2x2 you can draw where people can be publicly/privately kind/abusive. People who are kind all the time (or at least, not abusive all the time) are unremarkable, I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind, and people who are both publicly and privately abusive are way more likely to end up in prison, or…

> I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind

Gordon Ramsay perhaps?

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#167

Post by tekromancr »

ksdale wrote: post #131
tppiotrowski wrote: post #37

The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone knows what drives this? My personal theory is that you have some sort of obligations to long term acquaintances but you owe nothing to strangers on the trail. It's this feeling of obligation that leads you to resent people over time.

I think there may be an element of survivorship bias at play. There's kind of a 2x2 you can draw where people can be publicly/privately kind/abusive. People who are kind all the time (or at least, not abusive all the time) are unremarkable, I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind, and people who are both publicly and privately abusive are way more likely to end up in prison, or…

I think you can find people who are publicly abusive and privately kind in online communities.

I just finished listening to a podcast called My Year in Mensa, which centers around an unmoderated Mensa facebook group, and the author's interactions with them. As you can imagine from an unmoderated community, it sucks and a lot of people say shitty things there.

A common refrain the author heard from people defending the group is "They're the nicest people in real life!", which may absolutely be the case, but publicly, they are presenting abusive versions of themselves.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#168

Post by anotherman554 »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #161
demadog wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a thought, but what if you set a daily time limit of being fully engaged and present with your wife, say for an hour or two, but then it is understood that you need ~3 hrs of alone time. Sounds like you’re an introvert and need time to recharge from managing a team and you’re burnt out from that. I think she’d be delighted with an hour a day of full presence, perhaps more on the weekend.

I’m not sure how I would feel if my partner wanted to spend 3 times as much time alone as with me. That’s kind of degrading unless you are both into that. What are you getting out of the relationship at all? Sounds like they should leave and be alone.

In the TV show Six Feet Under one of the couples found happiness when they realized they shouldn't live together but they were happy to date each other and see each other regularly, just not all the time, because the boyfriend went through cycles when he enjoyed socializing and cycles when he wanted to be alone.

That strikes me as fine if both people are happy with the arrangement, but if kids are in the picture or one of the partners is unhappy with this arrangement I don't know if it will work.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#169

Post by ksdale »

tekromancr wrote: post #167
ksdale wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there may be an element of survivorship bias at play. There's kind of a 2x2 you can draw where people can be publicly/privately kind/abusive. People who are kind all the time (or at least, not abusive all the time) are unremarkable, I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind, and people who are both publicly and privately abusive are way more likely to end up in prison, or…

I think you can find people who are publicly abusive and privately kind in online communities. I just finished listening to a podcast called My Year in Mensa, which centers around an unmoderated Mensa facebook group, and the author's interactions with them. As you can imagine from an unmoderated community, it sucks and a lot of people say shitty things there. A common refrain the author heard from people defending th…

Ooh, that's a great example.

Re: The unsettling truth about the ‘Mostly Harmless’ hiker

#170

Post by rel-throwaway »

throwaway6299 wrote: post #153
rel-throwaway wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle with this in my personal life. To most friends and acquaintances I can be friendly, personable, interesting, and engaging when we meet. But at home, with close family, and especially with my wife I struggle to be that person. My default state is that I mostly want to be left alone. All the people closest to me seem to want something -- time, attention, help, emotional support etc. none of which I seem to n…

How strange, just created an account to say that I am the same way and was thinking about this a lot last night. (Although, I don’t think I am emotionally abusive, as I feel my spouse demands things that are entirely unreasonable, like frequently asking me to leave work in the middle of the day to come help with something or buying a house and dog when we had less than $1,000 in our account). All I wanted my whole li…

There has been plenty of unreasonable stuff over the years. Early in our marriage she spent close to 1000$ at the mall which left us short of funds to pay her grad school tuition that I had been saving to pay for her. Till date she refuses to understand our financial picture and will be completely lost if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow. Also, she has not worked for >90% of our ~10 year marriage to follow her passion for art which has made ->$0 so far. I am fine with that because we don't need 2 incomes and I am happy she has the freedom to pursue her passions. Thankfully, like you, I have done pretty well in my career and could probably retire in a cheaper country or some midwestern town tomorrow. This is in addition to all the other things she has anxiety about doing -- driving the car to new places, walking the dog when it is dark outside etc.

I had the exact same wish. I just wanted a happy family like my parents had. I adore my child. Now I just wish we could both get out of this without damaging him too much and I can be left alone.

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