![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Milestones of Maturity
Aug. 14th, 2006 10:00 pmA lot of people seem to be confused about what maturity actually is. It isn't about playfulness (or "childishness" as it's sometimes called). It's about knowing when to stop playing. And for that, it's a matter of understanding respect for the boundaries of others.
For Example: when someone hits me, and I know them and like them, I will usually say "ow!" and sometimes hit them back (depending on who it is, whether I deserved it, whether they deserve a return smack, and so on). Context is important here for how exactly I might respond, and whether they should've hit me in the first place.
When someone new that I don't know hits me, I get annoyed. What happens immediately afterward then determines whether I find them worth talking to in any serious way in the future. There seems to be two general responses when I tell someone that they've annoyed me:
1. Something along the lines of "but what I did was perfectly reasonable and not annoying, here's a list of reasons why, and here's how you should have reacted instead."
2. "Sorry, I won't do it again."
Guess which one I consider to be more mature. Let me see if I can break down why.
The first response means that the other person thinks my feelings are invalid. They want me to correct this invalidity by feeling what they think I should feel instead. This conveys a total lack of respect for me as a person.
In the case of the second response, the other person demonstrates that they understand how to respect the boundaries of the people around them. Although they may stumble into them while new, once they learn where the lines are, they stop crossing them. These people are then able to go on and ask the next question if they wish: "Why do you find it annoying?" And I will probably respond openly to explain the boundary and why it's there.
When I talk about specific boundaries, incidentally, I'm talking about me personally. My lines are not other people's lines, and each person has their own set of buttons that should not be pressed. It's all part of the getting-to-know-people process to learn where those buttons are and how to not press them.
And again, all of this depends on context. If you are the new person on the scene, and I'm the regular, then it behooves you to watch and observe the way interactions work within the scene and get some understanding of it, before you start dictating how you think those interactions should work. If a regular corrects you, accept it and learn from it. It's not up to us to learn how to fit you. If you dislike how things work, then you can leave and find somewhere else to hang out that is more compatible with you.
(Of course, there are also wrong ways to correct the new people who have inadvertently stumbled into something disliked within a given scene. Most people do not deserve harsh treatment until they've proven otherwise. Those of you who remember some of the arguments we've had in the past about this, and how I seem to stick up for blundering newbies all the time: those opinions haven't changed. The key is in whether they push the buttons on purpose because they know it's annoying, or if it's that they don't know better (yet). I'm probably still more lenient than a lot of people, though we've not had that tested in recent months, thankfully.)
And while I'm ranting, let me talk once and for all about hugs. I do not like hugs in any form, online or off. This is a personal boundary, and it seems to be a recurring issue for some people who refuse to understand that they should stop crossing it, regardless of whether I've ever explained why it's there. I don't find it funny, and don't appreciate joking about it. I would prefer that it were a non-issue, that people just accept it, quietly omit me from the parting rounds of huggling (and let me emphasize quietly - don't make a big fuss about it by naming me explicitly for not being hugged, etc.), and move on.
Why is that there? Because I'm a standoffish person in general. I'm that way in real life. In large part, it's because I have an unusually large amount of "personal space", and this personal space is violated regularly by everyone around me. Because people do not see it there, because how I appear is not how I am. In general, men have larger amounts of personal space than women, and aren't much for cuddling.*
And so I would prefer not to have it violated in my online interactions. Each specific incident is not that troubling by itself. In the past I tried to blow it off with humor, but that only seemed to escalate things. It's when all of it is added together that the sum total comes to "I'm seriously annoyed by this now."
And there we have my first draft braindump version of some things I've been thinking about for quite a long time now. Maturity, respect of boundaries, acceptable social interactions. I think I feel better now...
*If you're one of those that finds that sentence confusing, I'd prefer you ask about it in private rather than posting the query as a comment here.
EDITED TO ADD: This post was written in response to something that happened with a visitor/newcomer to the chat last night. It is not directed at anyone who reads this LJ regularly. If you see useful bits of advice in it to apply to yourself, I'm glad I said something helpful, but in no way did I intend to attack anyone on a personal level. Most people seem to have figured out the hugging thing by now, for which I'm very thankful.
For Example: when someone hits me, and I know them and like them, I will usually say "ow!" and sometimes hit them back (depending on who it is, whether I deserved it, whether they deserve a return smack, and so on). Context is important here for how exactly I might respond, and whether they should've hit me in the first place.
When someone new that I don't know hits me, I get annoyed. What happens immediately afterward then determines whether I find them worth talking to in any serious way in the future. There seems to be two general responses when I tell someone that they've annoyed me:
1. Something along the lines of "but what I did was perfectly reasonable and not annoying, here's a list of reasons why, and here's how you should have reacted instead."
2. "Sorry, I won't do it again."
Guess which one I consider to be more mature. Let me see if I can break down why.
The first response means that the other person thinks my feelings are invalid. They want me to correct this invalidity by feeling what they think I should feel instead. This conveys a total lack of respect for me as a person.
In the case of the second response, the other person demonstrates that they understand how to respect the boundaries of the people around them. Although they may stumble into them while new, once they learn where the lines are, they stop crossing them. These people are then able to go on and ask the next question if they wish: "Why do you find it annoying?" And I will probably respond openly to explain the boundary and why it's there.
When I talk about specific boundaries, incidentally, I'm talking about me personally. My lines are not other people's lines, and each person has their own set of buttons that should not be pressed. It's all part of the getting-to-know-people process to learn where those buttons are and how to not press them.
And again, all of this depends on context. If you are the new person on the scene, and I'm the regular, then it behooves you to watch and observe the way interactions work within the scene and get some understanding of it, before you start dictating how you think those interactions should work. If a regular corrects you, accept it and learn from it. It's not up to us to learn how to fit you. If you dislike how things work, then you can leave and find somewhere else to hang out that is more compatible with you.
(Of course, there are also wrong ways to correct the new people who have inadvertently stumbled into something disliked within a given scene. Most people do not deserve harsh treatment until they've proven otherwise. Those of you who remember some of the arguments we've had in the past about this, and how I seem to stick up for blundering newbies all the time: those opinions haven't changed. The key is in whether they push the buttons on purpose because they know it's annoying, or if it's that they don't know better (yet). I'm probably still more lenient than a lot of people, though we've not had that tested in recent months, thankfully.)
And while I'm ranting, let me talk once and for all about hugs. I do not like hugs in any form, online or off. This is a personal boundary, and it seems to be a recurring issue for some people who refuse to understand that they should stop crossing it, regardless of whether I've ever explained why it's there. I don't find it funny, and don't appreciate joking about it. I would prefer that it were a non-issue, that people just accept it, quietly omit me from the parting rounds of huggling (and let me emphasize quietly - don't make a big fuss about it by naming me explicitly for not being hugged, etc.), and move on.
Why is that there? Because I'm a standoffish person in general. I'm that way in real life. In large part, it's because I have an unusually large amount of "personal space", and this personal space is violated regularly by everyone around me. Because people do not see it there, because how I appear is not how I am. In general, men have larger amounts of personal space than women, and aren't much for cuddling.*
And so I would prefer not to have it violated in my online interactions. Each specific incident is not that troubling by itself. In the past I tried to blow it off with humor, but that only seemed to escalate things. It's when all of it is added together that the sum total comes to "I'm seriously annoyed by this now."
And there we have my first draft braindump version of some things I've been thinking about for quite a long time now. Maturity, respect of boundaries, acceptable social interactions. I think I feel better now...
*If you're one of those that finds that sentence confusing, I'd prefer you ask about it in private rather than posting the query as a comment here.
EDITED TO ADD: This post was written in response to something that happened with a visitor/newcomer to the chat last night. It is not directed at anyone who reads this LJ regularly. If you see useful bits of advice in it to apply to yourself, I'm glad I said something helpful, but in no way did I intend to attack anyone on a personal level. Most people seem to have figured out the hugging thing by now, for which I'm very thankful.
