Let's Talk about Feelings (Conditions Apply)
Let's talk about feelings. More precisely: let's talk about feelings in the good way. Because there's a profound distinction between two different ways of talking about feelings. One is prosocial. The other is antisocial.
To talk about your feelings in a prosocial way is simply to share your feelings sincerely and openly, for the purpose of informing others, maintaining the health and longevity of a relationship, or avoiding overall harm.
To say that this way of talking is prosocial is not to say that it is always positive, or always has positive effects. Being open and honest about how you feel can be ill-advised. It can cause harm to yourself or to others and, as a result, the choice to be open and honest about how you feel can be ethically wrong or blameworthy. Moreover, while these matters are always subjective, being open and honest about how you feel can incur a social cost (especially for men, or for women in positions of leadership or power). Rightly or wrongly, being open and honest about how you feel can be seen as a sign of weakness, and it can also be viewed as inappropriate, cringeworthy, or unduly burdensome.
Talking openly and honestly about feelings is also complicated in cases in which the speaker is a man and the listener is a woman. Admittedly, there is societal pressure on men (even in 2017) to avoid being open and honest about how they feel. It is at least arguable that this is at the core of so-called toxic masculinity. Accordingly, one might expect that men, as a rule, will tend to be insufficiently open and honest about how they feel. However, conversely, there is also a societal pressure on women to provide emotional labour; and especially unreciprocated or underappreciated emotional labour. For this reason, if a man is the speaker and a woman is the listener, and the man is being open and honest about how he feels without warning, or without providing the woman with a face-saving way to decline or avoid the situation, then it would be reasonable for the woman to view the man's action as privileged. It would be reasonable for her to suspect that the man feels entitled to her emotional labour, regardless of what she wants. The woman might even view the man's action as coercive with respect to her emotional labour
However, all of these negative aspects are independent of the underlying prosociality of the act. Ultimately, to share your feelings sincerely and openly is generous and constructive. In order for any relationship to remain healthy, it is imperative that its participants share any relevant feelings in an open and honest way. In light of what I have just said about privilege and the expectation of emotional labour, it is important to acknowledge that such self-reports must be volunteered and unsolicited, in many if not most cases. However, the fact that such reports may be volunteered and unsolicited is typically a tacit implication of the relationship or emotional bond. In particular, it is a tacit implication of reciprocal or mutualistic relationship types, and it is tacitly implied by the fact that a relationship or bond cannot be maintained and kept healthy unless such self-reports can be volunteered in an open and honest way.
This is not to say that you can be honest and open about how you feel without warning, or without providing the other person with a face-saving way to defer the exchange. However, it does mean that such self-reports should be explicitly respected and appreciated within an interpersonal relationship. Moreover, it means that such exchanges can only be deferred, and never declined or ignored outright. In the context of a mutualistic relationship or bond, this is an emotionally abusive action. More generally, it is incompatible with the health and longevity of a relationship. Lastly, it also means that open and honest exhanges about participants' feelings must be balanced as much as possible, and that participants' self-reports must be equally prioritised and appreciated within a relationship. (To put it another way: the division of emotional labour must be fair. The emotional labour must be evenly distributed and decentralised.)
The other way of talking about feelings is antisocial. In particular, the profound distinction that I want to address is the following: Being open and honest about how you feel is very different from making disingenuous claims about how you feel, for the purpose of pressuring another person into doing what you want. Being open and honest about how you feel is the first step to having a constructive conversation, establishing boundaries, resolving a conflict, planning a compromise, or cooperating towards a shared goal. In contrast, using disingenuous reports about your feelings, for the purpose of pressuring someone into doing what you want, is just emotional blackmail. It's abusive. It's an act of coercion and manipulation. It does not promote constructive conversation, or establish boundaries, or resolve a conflict, or facilitate compromise, or contribute towards a shared goal. Rather, its purpose and effects are of precisely the opposite kind. It is geared towards avoiding constructive conversation, disregarding or violating boundaries, generating or escalating conflict, refusing compromise, and coercing or manipulating rather than cooperating.
The profundity of this distinction is emphasised by an interesting psychological fact. People who habitually talk about feelings in the antisocial way almost always struggle to talk about feelings in the prosocial way. I.e. people who make disingenuous claims about how they feel, for the purpose of emotionally manipulating others, invariably also struggle to be open and honest about how they feel. They might be terrified of taking the risk, and making themselves genuinely vulnerable. Alternatively, they might feel superior to others, and entitled to getting their way no matter way; i.e. they might feel that they are above compromising or cooperating with others; they might be sufficiently grandiose that they expect their own feelings or desires to be the only ones that matter. It should be noted that psychologists often view the former, fear-based motivation for antisocial behaviour as not being distinct, in any substantive or consequential way, from the latter entitlement-based motivation for anti-social behaviour.
Regardless of the motivation, the reason that people talk about feelings in the antisocial way is, in effect, that they are unwilling or unable to talk about feelings in the prosocial way. Even if a person is unwilling or unable to be open and honest about how she feels, she will have feelings or desires of her own. Some of these will relate to or depend on what other people do. And since she is unwilling or unable to be open and honest about she feels, she is also unwilling or unable to satisfy these feelings or desires in a prosocial way. She cannot or will not do so by starting a constructive conversation, or discussing boundaries, or negotiating a compromise, or planning a cooperative effort. Accordingly, however she chooses to go about getting what she wants, she will tend to hurt others, avoid or sabotage constructive conversation, disregard or violate boundaries, generate or escalate conflict, or coerce or manipulate others rather than cooperating with them. One of the ways in which she might try to get what she wants, in lieu of doing so prosocially, is to talk about feelings in the antisocial way. I.e. she might use disingenuous claims about how she feels, in order to pressure or manipulate the other person into doing what she wants.
The psychological connection between being unwilling or unable to talk about feelings in the prosocial way, and habitually talking about feelings in the antisocial way, drives home the profundity of the distinction between these two ways of talking about feelings. People tend to emotionally manipulate or coerce others precisely because they are unwilling or unable to trust them, treat them as equals, or be emotionally vulnerable to them. In particular, the reason that people use disingenuous claims about how they feel, for the purpose of manipulating or coercing others, is that they are unwilling or unable to be open and honest about how they feel. When it comes to intentions and probable consequences, the two ways of talking about feelings could not be more different. Needless to say, it is essential that they not be confused.
