Quote from Power Duck on July 17, 2023, 7:39 pm

Hello Bel,

Quote from Bel on July 17, 2023, 5:09 pm

Happy to meet for lunch or dinner one of these days.

I think the other person could misunderstand it with a disinterest to meet due to not expending much effort or even with an "invest more" power move.

I used to respond this way when people I didn't want to meet proposed me to hang out. And when people responded me this way when I invited them we usually didn't end up hanging out.

If I recall this lesson correctly, I remember that I understood it as: not wanting to meet this person due to him possibly being a value taker.

I could be wrong here and be as you say though, the lower status person should indeed adapt to the higher status/experience person.

Cheers.

Quote from B on July 17, 2023, 8:11 pm

Hi Power Duck,

yes, initially I had your same feeling. I thought: if I say this, am I not at risk that the other person may think “he’s just saying it, but he has no interest?”.

But now I think that the general subcommunication one adopts as a straight, high-power person automatically lends credibility to the “bid for connection”.

In other words, I believe it is the context that makes the intention (ie of being available to the time-schedule of the other vs just displaying fake interest) clear to the receiver.

Or, putting it another way: a higher status person receiving  that message may likely interpret it as true rather than false: he or she will assume I really want to meet, because it makes no sense for me to send that to someone who helped me and is higher status in my job.

Also, if I send that message and then do not agree to meet later, I automatically show I was playing a game. Why do so with a high-status person I want to meet and develop a connection with?

As to the PU lesson, I think this same (or similar) script may be in two different lessons: one on keeping manipulators at arm’s length, and the other on how to make friends.

Quote from Power Duck on July 17, 2023, 9:58 pm

Thanks for the clarification Bel.

Quote from Bel on July 17, 2023, 8:11 pm

But now I think that the general subcommunication one adopts as a straight, high-power person automatically lends credibility to the “bid for connection”.

I see, I never thought about this. How certain comments that would be considered power moves if made by a different personality, aren't power moves if made by a high quality person.

However, as you said, context matters too in whether or not it's a nasty game.

Cheers.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 17, 2023, 9:58 pm

Quick interjection;

Yes, confirmed, it was 2 different situations.

Also the pros of that format:

• Persuasive format, since it's a lot more likely to say "yeah sure" to "one of these days" than to a set date. Even if you don't follow through, you still accrue points when someone confirms
• Babystepping: you allow to him say "yes" first, and you still have the option to propose a time later, but without going too fast and coming across as pushy or overpowering to a higher status contact you may want on your good side
• Maintains power, since you also sub-communicating you have your own life and are in no rush to book a slot

Quote from B on July 18, 2023, 8:36 pm

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 17, 2023, 9:58 pm

Quick interjection;

Yes, confirmed, it was 2 different situations.

Also the pros of that format:

• Persuasive format, since it's a lot more likely to say "yeah sure" to "one of these days" than to a set date. Even if you don't follow through, you still accrue points when someone confirms
• Babystepping: you allow to him say "yes" first, and you still have the option to propose a time later, but without going too fast and coming across as pushy or overpowering to a higher status contact you may want on your good side
• Maintains power, since you also sub-communicating you have your own life and are in no rush to book a slot

Thank you Lucio.

I think these are PU-worthy.

Quote from B on July 18, 2023, 8:42 pm

"He wouldn't deserve it, but I'll do it anyway"

I went to my parents' to get something of mine they still had.

It was emotional and confrontational, but better than previous times (when I was really, utterly enraged).

I think this "less emotional" meeting may be a testament to the fact that I'm still improving, and that I could ultimately get back to having a relationship with them (even though I thought not when I discovered what had transpired).

At the end, I still left in a confrontational way.

Then I came back and said I wanted to be more mature and wanted to salute my mother with kindness.

My mother said to me:

Her: Do you want to say goodbye to your father?

Me: He wouldn't deserve it, but I'll do it anyway.

I'm thinking this could be a good script to use for situations where another person sets a double bind, tasking us to do some thing that - as in this case - may be reasonable in abstract, but unreasonable due to the specific circumstances.

Especially in public, the double bind means that:

• if one goes along, he does look like socially appropriate, but may still be submitting given the inside circumstances;
• if one does not go along, he looks like an asshole, because other people may not know nor understand the inside circumstances that justify the refusal.

This move by my mother - "say hi/goodbye to your father" - was in fact a constant (power) move by her on me throughout my adolescence.

As you can imagine, I either submitted, or refused, and this way I always fell into the double bind.

But if we say:

"He wouldn't deserve it, but I'll do it anyway".

Then the power move is checked!

I can now do the socially acceptable thing, and the frame is that I am being the superior / higher-level guy.

Quote from B on July 19, 2023, 2:09 am

Equalizing disinterest/disrespect by remaining at the door of the room of someone who didn't come to greet me

Another thing I did unconsciously here above at my parents':

while my mother came to open the door and greeted me, my father just stayed in his room and did not get up to come and greet me.

When my mother prodded me into going saluting him, I went to his room and said hi, but did not get close to kiss him: instead I stayed near the door of his room, slightly on the inside.

I now believe that I was unconsciously equalizing the fact that he hadn't come to greet me.

The view from the other side: compelling me to "go to his room to say hi" to disrespect me, power-move and establish a hierarchy

This is a dynamic I encountered both at home and at work at my former boss' firm.

Only now I understand it consciously.

When I was adolescent, my father would do atrocious things to me. Without remorse. And I would answer by refusing to talk to him.

And then, I was constantly prodded by my mother to go to his room and say hi or goodbye to him whenever I got in or out of the house.

Several times, I refused. Several times, I complied. In both cases, as I wrote above, I was playing into the double bind: either submit to someone who was abusing me, or play the part of the ill-mannered son.

Now I see that the dynamic was likely consciously established by my mother to make me submit to the abuse and enforce the power-hierarchy.

Because: my father would simply stay in his room and would never come to greet me at the door.

I was the one who was prodded and supposed to to go there to his room to greet him, on top of whatever bad thing he had done to me.

The point became highly evident to me today, when - in contrast to when I was living with them - my father not coming to the door to greet me became immediately evident as a clear sign of disrespect and power-hierarchy imposing.

That's why today I:

• mentioned him "not deserving it"
• and stayed at the door of his room, without going to kiss him, while greeting him.

As I write this, I feel very angry for a lifetime of being dominated by means of this shit.

------

Now where it gets really interesting:

My former boss used to do exactly the same.

I had countless discussions with my former boss, where he basically told me that he expected me to go "say hi" to him every morning when I got at the firm, and go say goodbye every evening when I left.

Apart from the "time control" this would have established, I now see it was an imposition motivated by willingness to establish a personal submission.

I resolved it, at the time, by first refusing, and then telling him:

Ok, no problem boss, if you want me to fake come to you to fake say hi I'll do it, so you'll feel tranquil.

To which he answered that it was "not necessary".

Quote from B on July 19, 2023, 2:12 am

I am going through PU a second time, and I'm learning lots more things that I just was unable to see on my first run.

The lesson on first meetings is especially enlightening, as I see it contained from the start several things I encountered and discussed on the forum.

Also, several opening gambit power moves I encountered, I now see, were due to me not following the rules on introductions (for instance, as to when to stick one's hand out, and how far).

I am also seeing that several things I did after studying PU the first time, that I didn't understand, were in fact me following what I had read, even if I couldn't recall it consciously.

So all in all I'm learning lots of new things, and validating what I applied so far.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 19, 2023, 12:09 pm

Thank you for the note on PU-worthy, Bel, made a note.

And everything you say makes sense.

Just this one struck me a bit above the rest because I wasn't convinced it was true:

Quote from Bel on July 19, 2023, 2:09 am

Now I see that the dynamic was likely consciously established by my mother to make me submit to the abuse and enforce the power-hierarchy.

 

You know better.

We know that.

That being said, as an external observer, I'd think that there are good chances your mother's goal was to at least try to promote functional dynamics.
The power hierarchy may also be a consequences, and not something she set out from the start -ie.: "let's have Bel respect his father and pay homage as it should be", and then all the rest was just a consequence"-.

Not that it changes much in practical terms and you had the right call in both analyzing the dynamics and in acting on them -if you wanted to re-negotiate more power/respect, which also seems fair anyway-.