Research indicates that attention=survival. For example, premmies who are picked up more, gain weight faster, etc. At the other end of the timeline, oldsters with partners tend to live longer, fuller lives. Perhaps it's something in the physical brain. We humans are pack animals. In a very concrete way, we need others of our kind.
Unhealed childhood traumas can aggravate and distort this need. Wise help is possible. Wise compassion is also good. Using a term from Waking Down in Mutuality, I'd say that it's the Hyper Masculine that denigrates the human need for attention and has no compassion for the distortions of it. Fortunately healthy masculinity is on the rise. ________________________________ From: turquoiseb <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 6:29 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Making Someone Your Bitch I walked into this pub to get out of the rain, but it turns out to be a pretty writer-friendly pub, featuring Westmalle and Murphy's Irish Red and WiFi, and it's dry, so what is not to like? Besides, I find myself sitting under a poster that shows a fairly distinguished old Scot sitting in his leather chair in front of the fireplace, dressed in a classic three-piece tweed suit, smoking a pipe. In front of him are two large dogs. The ad copy to the right of the photo reads, "I love Irn-Bru and so do my bitches." http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_117/1175855/file/irn-bru-bitches-small-28446.jpg Irn-Bru, for those not of Scot heritage, is Scotland's second-favorite beverage, after...duh...Scotch. It's a soft drink, and a thoroughly loathsome one from my point of view, with a color that looks like someone took one of those fluorescent orange road signs and distilled it and put it into a bottle. And with a taste to match. So I ordered a Scotch. But the poster has given me something to write about on this rainy Sunday afternoon, so cool. The poster makes me realize that I don't really know what someone means when they say they're going "make someone their bitch." It gets said a lot, especially on American television, but as I sit here I realize that I'm not sure what is meant by that phrase. Is the person saying it a wizard, and about to turn the victim into a female dog? If the victim is a woman, is the person threatening to turn her more nasty and insensitive? Why would anyone want to do that? Perhaps Curtis can help me out here, and explain how this phrase is used in the 'hood. Me, about the only thing I can relate it to is a particular behavioral pattern that is common on the Internet. In my somewhat subjective definition of "making someone your bitch," it's kinda synonymous with what other people call "trolling." The mechanics of making someone your bitch on the Internet involve using whatever works -- *whatever* works -- to capture the victim's attention and *hold onto it*. Another term I've heard applied to this behavioral pattern is "attention vampirism." As far as I can tell, having been a veteran of the Internet since before it was called that and went by the name of Arpanet, the goal of this behavior is best expressed by the last of the three terms. Some attempt to capture the attention they seek by being needy, others by being abusive, still others by trying to suck someone into an intellectual argument, and yet others by picking nits and urging the victim to pick back. But don't get me wrong...all of these behaviors can be fairly benevolent and inoffensive, if practiced in moderation. How you can tell when it's gone over the line into not-quite-as-benevolent and offensive is to watch what happens when the victim wishes to withdraw from the thing that the perpetrator has come to think of as a "relationship." If the perpetrator allows the victim to leave, without any nasty "parting shots," it's still in my book benevolent and inoffensive. But if the perp throws a snit fit and gets pissy, he or she is IMO trying to make someone his or her bitch, and is pissed off that it isn't working. What happens next is often sad to watch. Fans of the term "attention vampirism" liken it to watching an old vampire realize that although he's never grown old he *has* grown toothless, and his lunch is about to walk away undrained. Others just act as if they've been "dumped," even though there was no real "relationship" other than a few exchanged posts between two people who have never met and in all likelihood never will. Still others act as if the other person has committed some kind of mortal sin by choosing not to interact with them any more, and that they should either repent and *apologize* for their sin, or be punished for it. And yet others turn into stalkers, hounding the person who walked away and refused to be their bitch for weeks. Or months. Or years. Or decades, in extreme cases. Go figure. I just don't understand it. I'm not terribly possessive when it comes to relationships, much less those fleeting and transitory ones I form on the Net. Ask my former girlfriends; those who dumped me will testify that I'm the easiest boyfriend in the world to break up with. If they tell me that they want to tune the knob a few notches back and "just be friends," I take them at their word and become their friend. In the rare case where they've told me that they're moving on and don't want any contact from me or anyone else in their past, I have allowed them to do so. I have no idea what became of either of them, and have never been tempted to stalk them on the Net to try to find out. It was their absolute right to move on when they felt the need to do so, and I support that right and wish them well on their Way. So I really don't *get* the opposite, wanting to hang onto a person's attention when they've expressed a desire to withdraw it. *Especially* when there has never been any real "relationship" between the two people. It strikes me as rude and needy, and if it persists over time, downright stalking. Curtis has spoken of this behavior in the past as a "boundary violation," and I think that's about as good a phrase to describe it as any. Maybe my 'tude about all this is because I think of the Internet as more of a pub than anything else. People drift in and out in a pub, and exchange a few words over a Scotch or an Irn-Bru. Sometimes the words are pleasant, and others times not so much, but there is a tacit understanding underlying the fact that the words are being spoken in a pub -- when someone gets up to leave, you let them. The conversation ceases, and the argument, if you were having one, also ceases. I have literally never seen an argument carry over in a pub to the next day, with the exception of married couples. When the two arguers meet over a pint the next day, it's a brand new day, and if they find something to argue about, it's a *new* argument, not an elongation of yesterday's argument. Call me crazy, but I think of this as a more spiritually evolved way of having conversations, or even arguments. Holding onto grudges, or trying *whatever* one can think of to lure the person into an old argument or prevent them from leaving one...not so much. That strikes me as fairly low-vibe, and trying to make someone your bitch. Am I alone in this?
