Anon should’ve showered more often
Middle school kids he mighta done nothing wrong at all. Those kids at that age are terrors and will oust people from a friend group for the dumbest reasons imaginable.
Sucks because that person may have done everything right and years later still can’t trust people or open up to them.
If there is even just a chance that others wouldn’t understand, let alone disapprove you associating with kid X, you can accomplish 2 things by ousting them: 1. You get rid of the potential disapproval (wich is mostly just insecurity) 2. You help an ingroup getting rid of unambiguousness, by drawing/strengthening the border to the outgroup, while with the same move placing yourself on the inside.
I work with kids, and so far I think this is the objective rationality behind most or at least many acts of cruel exclusion.
The only long term, non authoritarian solution is the kids developing a moral compass, that makes violent exclusion more important to them than short term insecurity-management and of course beeing less insecure. (Plus the “weird ones” often have fluffin interesting perspectives)
As we can see in comments like “shower more” even many adults didn’t recover from the competitive-acceptance-bs other kids/their parents/ this fucked up society gave them.
Ok hol up. I had to read this 10 times. Reads like AI
Are you saying you think kids are quick to push otherness away because they themselves are insecure? And as a bonus, alot of them don’t gain confidence even into adulthood?
kids developing a moral compass
Yeah, not happening. I’ve really tried, and the most effective thing is providing external consequences for undesirable behavior, as in loss of privileges. I was a pretty chill kid, and I can’t say I had a properly working “moral compass” until my mid-20s, if that. I didn’t bully anyone, but I was secretly happy when bad things happened to people I didn’t like.
So yeah, stick with the first two, you’ll probably have more success than trying to instill morality into kids who are still harboring resentment at not getting to pick the first slice of pizza last week.
I mean, it sucks that you pinned your hopes on your crush having to follow a social pressure to kiss/fondle/fuck/whatever the “forfeit” for spin the bottle was in the first place.
It sucks that you had to go through that, but at what point does that declination of your advances suck less?
I mean, society has unfortunately favoured shitty games like “pull the bull” and “poke the bear” over any sort of genuine attraction which has usually disadvantaged women anyway - that’s not to turn it into a gender thing, but maybe the idea of sparking a relationship from a forced interaction sucks from the outset.
Anon didn’t make up the rules, and I wouldn’t wager that he was the one who decided to start that game. Everyone chose to play knowing they wouldn’t be comfortable getting anon. It doesn’t seem to me like anon made any advance at all. Rejecting someone’s advances for whatever reason is not morally incorrect, nor is denying them physical displays of affection. But going up to someone unprompted and telling them you find them unattractive and wouldn’t feel comfortable touching them is. This seem like an intermediate situation where they willingly and knowingly created a situation where they would have to do the latter. Refusing to kiss or touch anon wasn’t the fault here, initiating the game was.
It sounds like he joined (sat down into) an existing game, which if this story was true, which it isn’t, because it’s 4chan, would be pretty different?
Anon self pities instead of self reflecting and fails to grow because of it
I don’t think that we have enough information to draw that conclusion. It is a legit horrible experience though. I can’t imagine what it would be like.
I can’t say I’ve had the exact same experience, but I did get picked on by a bunch of “friends” at a birthday party. Tried to play truth or dare and I was a really honest, open kid (mostly), so when it was my turn I said, “truth” and someone asked me if I’d ever kissed a girl, and I said, “no”. They decided that I had to be lying so they asked me a different question, “have I ever had a crush on a girl” to which I also said, “no”. They didn’t believe that either, and one of them jokingly asked, “have you (me being AMAB) ever kissed a boy?” That was coming from a kid in a really conservative Christian family, and it caught me off-guard. The truth was that no, I had never kissed a boy either, but the question made me hesitate. They lept on that.
Honestly, kids can be horrible little creatures. They learn it from their parents, all those little prejudices that the grown ups hold but hold back on to be polite or to fit into changing worlds, they get magnified in children who don’t know who and what and why, only that authority figures have taught them through their actions and the words they don’t even realize the kids are paying attention to.
Agreed. I think people who blame anon for being in pain fail to see the problem with the behavior of the selfish, stupid people at the party, which is ironic.
I can. Been there. Couple times. My foster brother and I used to hang out with a bunch of other kids from ages 8-14, and whenever someone had a bright idea for a game like that, completely unprompted would come “but I’m not kissing Dharmacurious.” Shut fucking hurt. I never asked to play those games, never tried to join in. Would try my best to excuse myself before someone suggested a game like that. I didn’t have my first kiss until years and years and years after I lost my virginity, because I only ever did hookups with random strangers online, because I never felt like I was even capable of being desired in anyway other than a quick lay. Being ugly sucks. It truly, honestly does. I shower religiously, I brush my teeth (which, somehow, I still managed to get fucked in that department). Still, I send a picture online, blocked. I’m not an Incel or anything, I don’t think I’m owed a damn thing, it’s just the reality of the situation. I’m a fun, interesting person, with a good sense of humor, thick skin, intelligent, caring, loyal to a fault, and all the other things my shrink has helped me realize. But no one gets to know that, because there has to be some physical attraction for someone to want to get to that point. Can’t fault em for that. But being a bridge troll is lonely, and it sucks. And up thread someone suggested they should shower. That’s a fucked up thing to say, you don’t know their life. And I know green text=fiction, but this one rings fucking true for some of us.
I’m sorry random Internet stranger. Kids are brutal and can surely crush anyone’s ego without hesitation. And people telling you “to shower more” are just idiots with a nematode’s mental capacity and the emotional spectrum of a black&white-tv that’s out of black.
I don’t know anything about your environment, but you will find that special someone. Most likely when you least expect it. With those mentioned qualities you’re a steal. I, personally, would totally prefer a bridge-troll (your words) with character and true values over any empty peacock. The older i got the more obvious that became.
I hope you’ll find your lady. Everyone deserves to be loved. And your chances are way better being a troll than bring rich. That’s a positive hm? 😉
As a kid I was the weird one. It wasn’t my physical attraction, it was just my personality. I’m adhd as fuck and maybe also autistic, so I was hyper around others and couldn’t really read situations/know when to stop talking. I got excluded more times than I can count because of that stuff. These days it feels like my social “success” comes from me muting myself and not having a good time.
(do people really get upset about this? Im asexual and cannot tell. Sometimes this kind of thing seems fake like why would you waste energy on this? But at the same time i am aromantic and asexual so i dont know. Im probably just weird or something and a “freak of nature” as some might say.)
do people really get upset about this?
Yes. I’ll dive in, assuming that the greentext is real; the scenario is plausible enough.
Romantic rejection is painful, as it’s based on an instinct to achieve a strong mutual bond with someone else. This may or may not be conflated with a drive to reproduce, depending on the level of sexual attraction involved. The sensation of loss here, can manifest in actual physical pain in one’s head and/or viscera, and is proportional to the level of “drive”. This also gets coupled with a sensation of loss as the reward for achieving that mutuality is a moment that is usually followed by intense pleasure (even without sex); suddenly realizing that reward isn’t coming, hurts.
The second part, where the group continues without Anon, is similar but a different phenomenon. It’s rejection from the entire social group. Our instincts to be social creatures causes us to feel this as a loss (painful), because we’re safer and stronger in groups. Instinctively, the sensation will subside once Anon figures out how be confident with being alone, or (more likely) finds a more compatible social group.
Attempting to introspect the above sensations without support can also go to bad places. Anon mentions his self-esteem - they are blaming themself since that’s a position of “control”, but ignoring the reality that this was all impossible to predict or avoid. In reality, the other partygoers are a bunch of insensitive assholes and carry 100% of the blame here. This person really needs to be around people with more empathy.
Combined, Anon is in a world of physical and psychological pain. They were denied a potential romantic and/or sexual reward, and were rejected by the entire social group. Both forms of rejection provoke instinct and our reward centers in ways that just make a person miserable.
Yeah, people can get upset about this kind of thing.
14 yr olds triply so.
Remove the romance element from it.
If the bottle spins, someone has to spend time in your company doing something you enjoy. You and your friends all agree. The bottle lands on you, and suddenly whatever it was you enjoy is not just “unenjoyable” but is actively repulsive to the other people. Ironically, I’d expect people to be repulsed by having to do half my hobbies, so this isn’t a perfect reframing.
Apologies if I’m not being sensitive to your thought patterns. But there must be a way of reframing this that you can see why someone would be upset that their “friends” find them actively repulsive to even be around.
(i really still dont get it. I dont see whats repulsive about it. But it is interesting. Like i guess its just weird to me. Like if you know there is a possibility of it landing on the one everyone is repulsed by, why play? Like mathematically youre better off playing when that person isnt around? Or is that just not really a concern until it eventually does happen?)
I think you’ve got a good approach. I’m not fully allosexual myself, but it seems to me the most painful part of this would be the loss of esteem. To be excluded from anything so blatantly…
People want to be liked. It means social safety, inclusion in a group. Sexuality is just one of its expressions.
(is it possible i just dont understand social stuff at all? I still dont get it. Maybe im just this damaged.)
4chan is made to make people feel bad about themselves.