this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
107 points (86.9% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26707 readers
2277 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics.


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] fubo@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Take their concerns seriously, but not necessarily literally.

Maybe they're accurately describing something you do. Maybe not.

Do you try to continue conversations when the other person is trying to disengage? That's an actual thing that many people do; maybe that includes you. Try different approaches, like "Hmm, I still disagree, but I don't need to continue talking about this either" — or just noticing whether it's really important to you to press the subject, and whether the other person is receptive.

Pay attention to the other person's discomfort there. Even if you're right and even if it's important, if someone is tired of hearing your opinion, they're not going to change their mind.

Even if they're not accurately describing you, they're still describing what you seem like to them, at that moment. They may be insecure about their own understanding or judgment, and feel like you have more power than them in the situation, and that you're using it poorly. (But the one thing not to do to an insecure person is to call them insecure.)

One thing they're almost certainly not trying to do, is to escalate the argument to the meta-level of arguing about how good or bad you are at arguing.

If it's a loved one, maybe they don't want an argument; maybe they want a hug. (Ask.)

[–] kakes@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep, 90+% of any conversation is about how you're making the other person feel, not about any actual content of the words being said.

And if anyone just read that and thought "bullshit, that's stupid and illogical," I have some bad news for you about how brains work. (Also: I used to think like that too.)

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Our ancestors used their mouths to make emotional noises long before they used their mouths to express logical propositions.

We can never do just one thing with language. Every time we're making a factual statement, we're also saying something about our mood, and our relationship to our audience, and so on. That's just part of what language does.