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Ask vs. Guess Culture

jeanhsu.substack.com

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Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#171

Post by pjerem »

boppo1 wrote: post #104
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I’ve learned anything in my 20 year mental health journey, it’s that until you’ve addressed your childhood trauma, nothing you do will be a lasting fix for any interpersonal issues you may have.

>addressed your childhood trauma This is pretty frustrating as 90s-kid who had a Good Childhood™ and struggles with interpersonal issues. I have a close friend from childhood who also had quite a Good Childhood™ and he can't shut up about "trauma" and it seems like every two years he has this big epiphany about how he addressed some "trauma" he was previously repressing and how now that he's done so he's All Better N…

idk

I also had Good ChildhoodTM by your definition.

Still I’m pretty sure I have been traumatized by the two big moves of my childhood, loosing my childhood friendships twice.

It doesn’t look big, I am ok at socializing so I have friends but I know that when shit hits the fan, it happens that I dream of my first childhood friend and I’m pretty convinced that this is why I sometimes feel alone even when I’m well surrounded.

The point wasn’t to tell my life but to say that you can’t really judge other’s "traumas". It’s highly personal how you feel about something and when someone doesn’t have something you have (in my case childhood friends) it’s easy to feel like it’s not important (maybe you can’t understand because your own childhood friendship eroded normally and you don’t feel like it’s an issue)

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#172

Post by gottorf »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #149
burlesona wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating to me, because I'm from the southern US and strongly align to "ask culture" and my wife is from the northwest and strongly aligns to "guess" culture. I wonder how much it's about individual family background and not strongly regional?

yeah im from the south and there is definitely a level of up-front-ness that i'm not sure the parent comment is talking about. like a level of exuberance and get-it-out-ness that often borders on belligerence "yall doin okay?"

> "yall doin okay?"

Speaking as a Southerner, this sentence is so on point.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#173

Post by reddit_clone »

flatline wrote: post #44
smeej wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I think I've primarily experienced the really dark side of guess culture, so I appreciate your framing of it as a desire for understanding when it's in a healthy context. I've experienced it in the contexts of narcissism and borderline personality, where the underlying thought is, "I am so obviously the center of the world that anyone with half a brain who's paying a whit of attention should to intuit my needs w…

I have lived this too. Likewise ask culture can only be healthy if there is not a power imbalance: is the asked party really free to say no? The title is catchy but I’m not sure how useful this dichotomy really is.

It is also true that for some (many?) people it is very hard to say 'No'. I don't know any psychological/technical name for this but it is simply true and it is in their nature.

When asked directly, they will give in even if they don't like doing what is being asked.

'Asking' in these cases is actually exploitation (if done with prior knowledge).

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#174

Post by hinkley »

boppo1 wrote: post #104
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I’ve learned anything in my 20 year mental health journey, it’s that until you’ve addressed your childhood trauma, nothing you do will be a lasting fix for any interpersonal issues you may have.

>addressed your childhood trauma This is pretty frustrating as 90s-kid who had a Good Childhood™ and struggles with interpersonal issues. I have a close friend from childhood who also had quite a Good Childhood™ and he can't shut up about "trauma" and it seems like every two years he has this big epiphany about how he addressed some "trauma" he was previously repressing and how now that he's done so he's All Better N…

In college we hit that age where classmates started losing grandparents. I was one of the oldest grandchildren so I had a few years yet.

Some of these people absolutely fell apart. It was the first time they’d ever lost anyone and they couldn’t process it. When gently pressed, we would find out they had no pets growing up. They had not lost so much as a goldfish.

A painless life can set you up for failure when real adversity comes. You lack the resilience, and in some cases the empathy, to navigate these situations. That’s not trauma, but it is loss.

Those experiences gave me a whole new perspective on peers whose parents got them goldfish or hamsters at a young age. Some of these parents were setting up object lessons. Basically the chicken pox party of loss.

At that point I had lost a dog, and as a sensitive kid it wrecked me. And the worst part of it was every time I caught my breath some new asshole would offer his condolences. Thanks, I wasn’t thinking about my dog for ten minutes and now I’m thinking about her again. Can we just stop talking about it please?

I learned to offer sympathy without an agenda. Engaging them is trying to make them process on your timeline. It’s thoughtless, even a little cruel. Definitely selfish. A good friend will step in and push if weeks later you have not mourned. But the next day? Give them space, Jesus.

I really appreciated, in that moment, the northern midwestern trope of bringing the bereaved food and just sitting with them. Let them talk, or not. I almost pulled a muscle watching Lars and the Real Girl. The little old ladies sitting in his living room, knitting, surrounded by casseroles and hot dishes. Just talking to each other and watching him out of the corner of their eyes. Talking about anything else. Yep that’s about it. Here if you need us, not holding our breath for you to say so.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#175

Post by EGreg »

robotresearcher wrote: post #156
EGreg wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s only a tiny slice of the story. It doesn’t count the people who have opted out of the workforce. It doesn’t count the job insecuroty of the gig economy. Or the people with terrible conditions. It actually underscores the fact that both sexes flooded the labor pool in the last few decades, automation increased and wages got depressed due to all these factors. USSR also had near-total employment, for men and wom…

Agree with all that. I disagree only that demand for labor has decreased, and near-full employment is my evidence for that. Many jobs are shitty, but someone is demanding the labor.

Well, I guess what I am trying to say is that more people are asked to do work, but less work, and paid less for it too, adjusted for inflation.

Gig economy and short stints at jobs are an example of how little employers really value their labor force, as opposed to the “company man” who worked for decades and got a pension.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#177

Post by travem »

EGreg wrote: post #115
boppo1 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>addressed your childhood trauma This is pretty frustrating as 90s-kid who had a Good Childhood™ and struggles with interpersonal issues. I have a close friend from childhood who also had quite a Good Childhood™ and he can't shut up about "trauma" and it seems like every two years he has this big epiphany about how he addressed some "trauma" he was previously repressing and how now that he's done so he's All Better N…

I sometimes like to say the facts out loud and challenge people so here it goes. We live in the safest, least racist, least sexist, least antisemitic generation in history. At the same time, automation and productivity has reduced demand for human labor, and people increasingly can’t afford the rent. Perhaps the answer to many disparities isn’t systemic sexism, racism etc. but economic factors. Whatever you are worri…

> At the same time, automation and productivity has reduced demand for human labor, and people increasingly can’t afford the rent

Given the juxtaposition of the claims above, I think it is useful to note that demand for labor is still relatively high (unemployment rate at ~3.5% in the US). The reason for unaffordable rents is driven more by the supply of housing not growing along with demand IMO.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#178

Post by gottorf »

hosh wrote: post #112
nostrademons wrote: post #89

I've also heard of "Tell" culture. To use the moving example: You call up your best friend and say, "Hey, I'm moving on Saturday, come over and help me." Your friend either says "Sure, I'd love to" or "Sorry, got a hot date, catch you at your housewarming party." Ironically, Ask culture is usually used in transactional settings where you barely know someone, Guess culture is usually used in smaller community settings…

Also, in certain groups, people will deliberately troll each other in order suss out how they’d act under pressure… and whether they can be trusted to perform as part of a team under pressure.

Hazing is the term.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#179

Post by patmcc »

This always strikes me as funny, because I think the default interpretation (and the one shared in the article) is that it's largely a Western/Eastern divide - Americans are 'ask' and Asians are 'guess' - but from where I am in Canada I generally see exactly the opposite. I don't know if that's specific to my circles though.

My friends who are immigrants (or children of immigrants) from Hong Kong, Taiwan, India are all 'askers', whereas those of us with families who've been here 2+ generations are 'guessers'.

Is Canada a 'guess' culture more than America?

Another funny thing from the article - "A squeaky wheel gets the grease" - I've always understood that to be true, but shameful. Like yes, you can put up a fuss and often get what you want, but only by being "squeaky" - annoying, brash, offputting.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#180

Post by RangerScience »

A friend of mine (we're all pretty solidly "Ask", but ofc there's a mix) pointed out that a really important unspoken part of an "Ask" culture is what you are allowed to ask about - thankfully (and anecdotally) you can generally just straight-up ask "what can I ask for?".

Still. Important realization, and definitely something I've failed at before.

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