#mental hack

[littlethingspileup]

Just figured out how becoming friends with someone works.

I don't know if any of you have this problem, but I have a very hard time making friends. Like, not the talking to them part, the becoming more than surface level friends part. I always get stuck in the small talk part, and then the friendship peters out because there's only so much smalltalk you can make.

Imaging friendship like this:

Your friendship starts out like rain coming down on a flat plane of earth. Every drop gouges out a little piece of dirt in a circular pattern that represents the whole of who both of you are. Every one of your most conversationable traits sits right on the top layer. Every time it rains (every time you interact) a little more dirt gets gouged away until all of the very surface level dirt is gone.

If you are like me, this is when the friendship would peter out.

If you let all of the conversational layer get washed away before breaking down to the next layer, it's going to feel unnatural. You have to gouge down to the next layer of soil in a way that makes the shape of the whole more convex. More like an inverted cone. One of you needs to be testing the waters, bringing up topics down in that next layer, for your friendship to deepen to something more than a surface level friendship.

You need to test the surface, see if your friend is malleable to further carving (deeper questions). If they are not receptive in one area of conversation, move on to a different topic and try going deeper there. Give up around the same about of information/conversation depth as they do, so as to not scare them off. It's polite to match their level of conversation.

If you are in a compatible friendship, gently testing the waters combined with revealing yourself emotionally in a way that mirrors them, is the path to deepening your friendship.

And scene.

[littlethingspileup]

I've recently decided to start calling people out more.

Turns out if you think someone is talking about something they don't understand, asking them a couple clarifying questions will make it real obvious real quick.

Very low confrontation and in my experience, very effective. I've been trying this out and it's becoming my new favorite thing. Join me in my quest to stop overconfident hu(men) from spreading misinformation willy-nilly, give it a shot. lol

[littlethingspileup]

Dude even when you're in your low phases you just gotta love yourself and do the best you can. Don't expect too much of yourself just do as much as you can comfortably do. Always be looking out for what the easiest helpful way is and do that as much as you can.

Frequent moments of micro improvement are better than infrequent moments of macro improvement.

[littlethingspileup]

Thought I just had about a strategy to end a binge episode. Grab as much as you want, and then put back as much as you can. It's kind of a hack for me, counteracts the eyes bigger than the mouth thing.

[misty-anne]

I don't know if it's an executive dysfunction thing or a low spoons thing or just a me thing, but sometimes it helps to do the 'last' thing first, because that's usually where I got stuck the last time. Like empty the trash/compost/dishwasher or put away whatever clothes I managed to fold before I got distracted when I worked on the laundry two weeks ago. Then it's so much easier to get the rest done.

[fiveyearsnotice]

First rule of recovering buried feelings and memories: if it suddenly makes you want to beat someone in the face to get them to stop talking about it and/or cry and you don't know why, you're probably on the right track.  

-It's like the, 'there is an important item or clue nearby!' notification noise in video games.