Posts by Emma Hart
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Up Front: The Missing Stair and the…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Maybe a couple of people whose mental health isn’t always tip-top, including a friend’s partner who I didn’t feel safe around for a while, but who now has a better handle on her issues, and who I like and respect as a battler. But that’s not really the same thing, is it?
Yeah, I've known a couple of people who've veered into this territory because of stress or other mental health issues, and pulled out again. One who turned into what's apparently Old Bart for a while, and simply could not let any little thing go and had to be right all the time, even if that meant ruining everyone's evening. But they were, as Max says, Worth It.
The two (and there are only two) that I've had to put up with long-term were because they were connected to me by a relationship I really didn't want to give up: our mutual mother, and a dear friend. You make that determination, that you're going to stick it out for the sake of the other person, and then you need coping strategies. One thing I've recently started doing with Friend's Partner is not smoothing things over. When she says something horrible and then laughs, now I just let the awkward silence fall.
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Up Front: The Missing Stair and the…, in reply to Marcus Turner,
Thus, I can’t get behind the concept of the “Necessary Bastard”. It’s a tactic used by those who can’t find a better way. I’ve considered that this might be because the person is under stress, or has formed a lifetiime habit of certain behaviours, or is simply unaware of the other possibilities available. I suspect that fear plays a part in many such situations: how easy can it be to confront someone who causes you pain?
Or, perhaps, as I've already said to you, the problem is not the person being the Necessary Bastard, but the Missing Stair. That they have already tried other things, which is something I recommend in the post, and they haven't worked.
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Up Front: The Missing Stair and the…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Perhaps there’s got to be a point where we give ourselves permission to declare missing stairs unacceptable risks.
Jesus fuck yes. And everyone gets to make their own call about where their tipping point is.
But if you asked them, I’m almost positive that they’d say the problem is me.
You mean the way you shoe-horn your ridiculous homo-loving liberal views into every unrelated conversation and then get pissy when people disagree with you? Like that?
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See, I reckon Hadyn is biasing us in favour of the French jersey by dint of the Hottie wearing it. Nonetheless, I have allowed myself to by thusly manipulated.
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Up Front: The Missing Stair and the…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
So in some ways treading on one of the missing stairs is a nice reminder that what I experience in the group of friends is special and valuable. Sometimes it’s important to be reminded that in some groups “those comments” are considered normal.
There is that. My own Inner Circle is pretty great, it's the next ring out, the next set of connections, where the problems are. Which of course means there are enablers in the inner ring... but what do you do? The essential thing about these people is that normal social defusing tactics don't work on them.
It is tempting to try to make, say, the Friend responsible for the Partner's behaviour. Take them aside for a quiet word and say, "Dave, listen, can you have a word to Doug about X? It's not fun to be around." But another adult human isn't actually their responsibility.
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Up Front: The Missing Stair and the…, in reply to Marcus Turner,
You may find some of this useful, in striving to cope with the situation like an adult:
One of the most useful concepts I found at Captain Awkward, which does a lot of assertiveness stuff using different language, is “No is a whole sentence.” That was a huge eye-opener for me. You can just say, “No,” to people. You don’t have to try to justify it and offer them openings for argument. You can just say no. Mind, blown.
However. Last year I had some issues with a dear old friend of mine, and his partner. He demanded I apologise to her for being upset that she slut-shamed me. I refused. In conversation with both of them, I was text-book assertive. Firm and polite. Neither of them has spoken to me since. That friendship is gone. That’s the price of the Missing Stair.
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Up Front: The Missing Stair and the…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I always have the suspicion that they really do hold those views but frame it as a “joke” if they get challenged. They get the pleasure of stating their repugnant views but can’t be admonished because they use the humour defense.
In the most genuinely puzzled tone you can manage, "I don't understand. Why is that funny?" Try to push them to explain the basis for the humour in the joke, which of course is some kind of repulsive stereotype. You're not 'failing to take a joke', you just don't get it, and please could they help you out.
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Up Front: The Missing Stair and the…, in reply to Deborah,
I’ve come across people who from time to time say nasty sexist racist homophobic classist body policing things (sometimes all in one utterance which is a very impressive feat) as a (really not very funny at all) joke, because they know it’s offensive and horrid, and that it will upset me, and I’ve come across people who from time to time say nasty racist homophobic classist body policing things because they really, really believe them.
Very roughly (because there are always borderline cases and stuf) the former are always missing stairs, the latter sometimes are. There are people who believe those things who never are, because, say, they wouldn't say something incredibly sexist and demeaning TO a woman. But if they will, there's already an element of not caring how you feel about it going on. A Missing Stair will never back down from an argument, they'll keep pushing. They won't accept polite deflection. And the same situations will arise over and over.
My brother is genuinely racist. (For those of you who know one of my brothers, not that one.) He's also a Missing Stair. OTOH, there was a woman I had to deal with through school, who... I stood next to her once and heard her say to a newly-arrived Egyptian woman, "Well I'm sure it's lovely, it's just not what we would wear." A bunch of stuff like that. I didn't really start thinking of her as a Missing Stair until she wouldn't stop badgering me trying to get me to sign a petition to repeal prostitution law reform. My partner had to bodily remove her from the house.
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Darling daughter. At one point, we got a bit nervous about filling in another set of ACC forms, in case we got a visit from CYPFS.
My mother didn't so much encourage me into danger as just not pay much attention if I wasn't around. She used to gratefully leave me in the care of her best friend's slightly older son, Lincoln. He made his own fireworks. I think the parents were probably slightly alarmed the time we accidentally burnt his shed down.
The tribe of kids I grew up with in my street used to play in the abandoned quarry across the back paddocks. Twenty foot high cliffs, and a big shed full of... quarry stuff. As long as we were home for dinner, nobody really cared what we were doing.
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Up Front: Everyone is Wrong. And Right. Whatever., in reply to Chris Waugh,
Funny, that’s how I thought this place worked. Could it scale up to Twitter, though?
IMO, no. Because Twitter is too big and too diffuse to be a coherent community.
I think it’ll make a big difference.
I... yeah. I think they need to do it. I don't think it'll make a big difference to Twitter as a whole. But it will make a difference to the people who need to use it, as long as Twitter manages it properly.
