MBTI - What Is It Good For?

Everyone gets this shit wrong. Personality Type Systems are extremely limited and narrow in scope, but within their very limited range, can be very useful. People just keep wanting to widen their applicability, and that's when they turn to shit. These are not newspaper horoscopes, putting you in boxes and telling you how to run your life. They're merely a set of language that *you* decide which describes you, that can help you understand yourself and others *in narrow ranges* that you can use to better communicate with people who you want to understand and who you want to understand you.

ttps://www.quora.com/How-should-one-view-their-Myers-Briggs-type-Would-it-be-wise-to-base-your-relationships-and-employment-on-what-it-says/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. How should one view their Myers–Briggs type? Would it be wise to base your relationships and employment on what it says?
Joreth Innkeeper, teaches workshops on Type Systems like MBTI & 5LL

A. MBTI is, at best, a communication tool. It should not be used to make any kind of decisions for anything. It can be used to explain to another person how you work, so that they know what to expect from you, and to then offer you some shorthand to reference these points later.

For instance, I am an INTJ. One of the characteristics of this category is that I really like having my plans on the calendar and scheduled, and I get very uncomfortable and anxious when the plan is changed.

My former sweetie, who works with the actual institution that controls the MBTI (not one of these knock-offs that just make up online quizzes based on some workshop they once took on MBTI), introduced me to the “hit and run” method.

This is when we have plans, and suddenly something comes up that has to change the plans, like if we were going away for a weekend vacation and on Friday morning his boss tells him that he will have to stay late instead of leaving after lunch for our trip. So then he would have to call me and tell me that the plans have changed.

For someone of his type (ENTP) to be dating someone of my type, we often had scheduling challenges because I prefer more structure and he is very spontaneous and can more easily roll with change. So this might be mildly irksome to him to have his boss delay his vacation plans, but to me it would be a huge deal. I would have a lot of strong, negative emotions about it when he would be over it already.

So, he would call me up, say “sorry, sweetie, plans have changed, we have to leave tonight instead of this afternoon, oops, gotta go bye!” and let me stew by myself. Then my own processes would kick in and I would get back to planning a contingency and backup plans, which alleviates my anxiety about the change. By the time he would call me back in an hour or so, I would feel better because I “solved the problem” by creating a new plan. He would ask how I’m doing, and I could say “OK, here’s what we’re gonna do…” and lay out the new plan.

I would be happy because now I have a new plan, he would be happy because he doesn’t have to plan anything, and even though things wouldn’t be our ideal, we would have solved the issue.

If he had stayed on the phone with me, he would have had to listen to me get upset at the change in plans, and the anxiety of “what are we going to do now?” He would have wanted to try and reassure me or console me and try to tell me to relax, to just roll with it, everything will work itself out.

For someone with my type, telling me to just relax and not worry, to just let things work themselves out, would be the wrong thing to say. But to someone with his type, it would have made *him* feel better if the situation was reversed. So he would have been upset because I was upset, and then I would have gotten upset because he wasn’t helping me figure out a plan and he was making things worse by dismissing my concerns.

The “hit and run” worked a lot better for us. Once we realized that our conflict was a product of our personality types, we could come up with a solution. And then later, I had some terminology to explain to both him and to other people how to solve this problem with me in the future.

When I started dating other people, I could tell them “I am an INTJ, which means I feel this way about scheduling and change and plans and organizing.” They could tell me how they feel about those topics, and then if they happened to also be one of the categories that likes spontaneity, I could say “OK, then, if this situation comes up between us, the hit-and-run method is the best way to deal with me.”

Then, later, when I am faced with a plan change and I start freaking out about it, if the new person is just standing there looking lost at me, wondering what to do, I can remind them “I’m just being INTJ right now, remember how this goes?” and they can say “Oh, right, we talked about this - the hit-and-run, OK then, I’ll leave you to your planning and not take your freaking out about this as personal or as something that I need to fix for you”.

Knowing the processes going on behind the behaviour and the emotions helps two people communicate with each other and helps them to find solutions that work for their particular dynamic. MBTI is one system among many that offers language and a structure to facilitate that communication and solution-finding process.

But it is absolutely not meant to help you make decisions. MBTI is not a set of boxes that we all fit into. It’s more like a spectrum of handed-ness. If you were to draw 2 lines from left to right, one line on top of the other, and put 0 on one side and 100 on the other, and then place an x somewhere on the top line for how often you use your right hand, and another x on the bottom line for how often you use your left hand, you could use those two lines to determine if you were right handed or left handed.

Handedness is a category. People are either right or left handed (let’s leave out ambidextrousness for now). But that doesn’t mean that they don’t use both hands on occasion. And it doesn’t even mean that there is a spectrum with left handed use on one side and right handed use on the other. You have an individual spectrum for each hand. The one that gets used the most is your dominant hand, but if you added up the amount you use each hand, you would get more than 100% because the amount you use each hand overlaps.

Same thing with types. You are not in an either/or box. You are on a spectrum of each individual trait where you use some more than others, or where some come more easily to you than others. You will still use the others a little bit, and you can learn to use the others the way you can learn to use your off-hand if you want to.

In addition to that, our experiences throughout life teach us skills in those traits that are not our dominant traits. Many of those experiences come very early in life, so it can be difficult to tell if your skill with those traits are “natural” or “learned”. Scheduling, for example - our society encourages good scheduling skills from our very early days in primary or elementary school.

Many people learn how to schedule well, whether it’s “natural” for them or not. That same partner I was talking about above has diabetes, so as a young child, he learned how to schedule his day around his eating needs, to prevent any diabetic complications. Yet scheduling is not “natural” to him and not something that he likes doing. But he’s very good at it … when he wants to be.

So you can’t make decisions based on your category because there are too many things that can influence individual people - life experiences, deliberate training, where on the spectrums they fall, etc.

DO NOT use MBTI to make decisions about who to date or what kind of job to take. I can’t stress this enough.

DO NOT MAKE DECISIONS BASED ON MBTI.

Use MBTI for its intended use - as a communication tool to better understand yourself and the people you are relating to such as partners, family, coworkers, etc.

But I'm Just Being Honest!

This is the problem I have with the Radical Truthers. Much like NVC, I tend to only see it being used by people who want to be assholes and pass off responsibility for how their behaviour affects other people's feelings.

You can be truthful AND kind.

But if you're going to be truthful without being kind, at least be honest *about that*. I am quite often not kind. But I'm not going to defend myself by blaming the other person's hurt feelings on "but I'm just being honest!" No, I am trying to make people feel consequences for their actions, so I will say things intended to be *felt* because that's my point.

But when it comes to interpersonal relationships - those connections that I value among people I want to keep in my life such as friends, partners, and family, there is no need to "just be honest". I can be both honest and kind.

That doesn't mean that it will never hurt, even if I'm trying to be kind. It means that I am delivering my honesty with compassion and understanding of the impact of my words and I'm not saying "truth" just to say the truth. I'm taking responsibility for the effect I'm having on the people around me.

Honesty is not a virtue. Courage is a virtue. "Just being honest" is not being courageous. Being compassionate, considerate, and thoughtful is being courageous. Take the Path of Greatest Courage and don't hide behind "just being honest". Honesty, by itself, is not enough.

How Do You Deal With Jealousy In Your Open Relationship?

www.quora.com/How-do-I-decrease-jealousy-to-a-minimum-when-in-an-open-relationschip/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. How do you personally deal with jealousy in your open relationship?

A. The same way I deal with any negative emotion - by introspecting and talking it out until I find the root cause, and then I address the root cause.

Honestly, it’s like people think jealousy is some magical mystery compulsion that comes over people from out of nowhere and totally takes them over like a brain-eating parasite or something.

Jealousy is just an emotion. So is anger. So is sadness. It’s not magic, it’s not a curse, it’s not a parasite or a disease, it’s just an emotion. We have emotions, we deal with them. Monogamy never prevented anyone from feeling jealousy either, I just don’t try to control my partners when I feel something negative. I look at it head-on and actually solve the problem.

Stop Asking Me About Having Children

www.quora.com/What-is-a-tactful-way-to-respond-to-my-step-mother-in-law-when-she-pesters-my-husband-and-I-about-having-kids-when-we-told-her-we-do-not-want-any-children/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. What is a tactful way to respond to my step mother-in-law when she pesters my husband and I about having kids when we told her we do not want any children?

A. The original question asked for "tactful" responses. Trust me, for me, this IS "tactful".

• "I'm concerned about why you’re asking me this. Are you getting everything you need at home?"


• "I actually like being happy."


• "Sweetie, I couldn't keep my goldfish alive as a kid, what makes you think I should be in charge of a child?"


• "I'd rather spend my money on beer" - you could go with a totally frivolous item meant to show you as totally unsuitable like "beer" or "drugs", or you could go for high-ticket items that show how expensive children are like "a new house" or "a dream vacation"


• "The world is overpopulated already."


• "I just found out I'm infertile, but thanks for bringing up such a painful and private subject."


• "The cat would get jealous."


• "I love my husband as a person, but frankly, I'm not passing on my genes unless they merge with Jason Momoa [insert celebrity hottie here]."


• "I need to be the only one in the house who has temper tantrums and cries for no reason."


• "After the last 'incident', the courts warned me to stay away from children if I value my freedom."


• "I'm an atheist / feminist, I don't birth children, I eat them." (full disclosure - I’m both, this is a joke) (this also works for "pagan")


• "I don't know why women need to have children to be seen as complete human beings." ~ Marissa Tomei


• "Childhood was heartbreaking enough." ~ Chelsea Handler


• "We thought we might try renting one first, to make sure we don't kill it before having our own."

When are you going to have children? -

• "I'll let you know when I change my mind. In the meantime, I'm sure there are more important things in your own life that you could be thinking about."


• "When you learn to mind your own business."


• "Why? Are you finally sick of talking about yours?"


• "What answer could I give you so that you'll stop asking?"


• "I'm sorry, what did you say? Oh, I thought you said something else that's completely none of your business."


• "Only God knows, and He hasn't told me yet."


• "As soon as I figure out how. Got any suggestions?"


• "I already have one - your step-son."


• "Tomorrow."


• "Can I get back to you? How soon do you need to know?"


• "Did you know that 1 in 6 couples, who desperately want to have a child, struggle with infertility? I'm not going to tell you if I'm one of those people, but maybe you'll think about how hurtful your question might be to someone who is."


• "You know, that's a really personal question you shouldn't ask everyone. Some people have a hard time getting pregnant, and questions like that could really make them feel bad about their situation."


• "We're waiting to see how yours turn out before we decide."


• "As soon as their value goes up to an acceptable level on the black market."


• "Oh, soon I hope! I found this great recipe for roasted babies that I've been dying to try out!"


• "I'm waiting to meet Mr. Right." (especially funny since you're talking to your husband's parents)


• "When I can be sure of doing a better job of teaching manners than your parents."

When Doesn't A Pre-Nup Work?

www.quora.com/When-doesn-t-a-pre-nup-work/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q.   When doesn't a pre-nup work?
Joreth Innkeeper, is currently writing a book with her ex on how to break up

A.  Times when a pre-nup doesn't work:

1. When you don't have one / haven't signed one / don't use a proper pre-nup form, etc


2. When you don't disclose or include something so that it's not accounted for in the contract and/or it can be contested in court because it wasn't disclosed or included.


3. When you focus only on tangible or liquid assets and then you start a business with your spouse but don't include any exit strategies on how to divide up the business in case of divorce.


4. When you're talking about things with emotional value, sentimental value, or intangible things like the well-being of the participants.


5. When it's clearly one-sided and a judge rules that it's not a fair protection of both parties and is therefore null.


6. When it's signed under duress or false pretenses or otherwise one or more signer is not eligible by law to sign a legal contract.


7. When it's not valid in the region or jurisdiction under which you are trying to enact it.

Since I am not a lawyer, do not take anything I've said as legal advice. I may be wrong, and I am certainly not familiar with contract law in any region I haven’t tried to engage in contracts under.

GET A PRENUP. GET A PRENUP. GET A PRENUP. GET A PRENUP.

I can’t stress that enough. I don’t care how much in love you are or how pure of heart you both are, if you are going to entangle yourself legally with another person, get your exit strategy down on paper in the most legal way possible, and do it while y’all still like each other so that it’s written as fair as possible.

No one has ever walked down the aisle and thought “I bet this person whom I love dearly with all my heart and am choosing today to commit to for the rest of my life will probably turn out to be a raging douchebag and someday try to leave me penniless.” Every single person in divorce court, at one time, thought the person they are now squaring off across the table with was a decent human being.

If you turn out to be right, and your spouse is a decent human being, then this is just a piece of paper that probably does nothing more than spark a conversation between the two of you about entangled finances, turning some implicit assumptions into an explicit discussion about expectations and intentions. Yay!

If you turn out to be wrong, this document could save your ass, or even your life. And you don’t want to wait until after you discover that you were wrong to also discover that you have no safety net.

By the way, there is also such a thing as a “post-nup”, although that’s not what it’s called (it’s not technically called a “pre-nup” either, but most people know what you’re talking about when you say that). It’s basically the exact same thing as a prenup except all the verb tenses reflect the fact that the marriage has already happened.

Like a will, the very last document signed is the one that rules in the courts. It is to your benefit to revisit your prenup after the wedding periodically and update it as a post-nup with however your assets have changed over time.

And if you got married without a prenup, you can still get a post-nup. Just like responsible adults have hard conversations about wills and what to do with assets in case of death, you should have this conversation with your partners in case of separation too.

This doesn’t have to be framed as “so, I’ve been thinking about divorcing you, and I thought we should hammer out the details early.” Nobody says “so, I’ve been thinking about intentionally dying in the next few years and I thought we should work out how to handle my arrangements now.”

Just be a grown-up and sit down to discuss worst-case scenarios with your partner - you know, that person who you pledged yourself to supposedly because they were your “best friend”? If you can’t have these kinds of hard conversations with your life partner, your helpmeet, your “best friend”, your soulmate, well … perhaps you shouldn’t have chosen this one to marry and these documents are more necessary than you think.

How To Not Catch Teh Feelz In Casual Sex

www.quora.com/How-do-I-keep-from-falling-in-love-with-my-fwb/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. How do you handle a casual sex relationship without developing feelings?

A. You don't. You can't control your feelings. Your feelings will do what they will. When I have casual sex, it's *because I don't have a strong emotional connection*, not the other way around. I don't get into a sexual relationship and then try to keep my emotions casual. I have a low emotional connection to someone with a high sexual connection, so I structure the relationship to be a casual sex one because *those ARE my feelings for them*.

Some people just seem to be wired to have their emotional connections and their sexual attractions linked in some way - either having sex causes an emotional attachment or they can't have sexual attraction without that emotional connection first (see: demisexual).

I am not one of those people. I can have sex with or without emotional attachment and I can have emotional attachment with or without sex. If I start a relationship under one premise and then discover that my feelings about the relationship fall under another premise, I discuss with my partner what our options are. If they are open to renegotiating the relationship to match, then great!

If not, I decide if it's possible for me to just have my feelings while in a relationship that doesn't match. My feelings are my own. They are not the responsibility of the other person to manage, and I do not have to act upon them. I can have whatever feelings I have, I can feel them, experience them, lean into them, and my behaviour is whatever I believe is most appropriate for the situation.

I have had romantic feelings for a number of people who did not return my feelings, so we maintained a platonic friendship for a long time. I did not pressure them to get into a different sort of relationship with me, I did not remind them of my feelings for them (thereby making them uncomfortable), I did not behave in any way other than platonically, I did not pine away for them, I did not plot or scheme to use our friendship as a vehicle to steer, convince, or "trick" them into another kind of relationship, I just felt what I felt, and I appreciated the friendship for being what it was.

Sometimes I have romantic feelings for a casual sex partner that are not compatible with remaining in a casual sex relationship, for some reason. Wanting something different from them makes what I *do* have with them feel hollow or inappropriate. When that happens, I have to end the casual relationship for my own well-being. I do not stay in a casual relationship hoping that, if I just stick around long enough and am good enough in bed, he'll eventually come around and give me the kind of relationship I'm really hoping for.

You can't control your feelings, you can only control your behaviour. You can't stop yourself from "catching" feelings, if that's just what your feelings want to be. You can reduce exposure to certain activities that might encourage emotional bonding, such as not having any in-depth conversations, not going out in public together in ways that feel like "a date", meeting at neutral locations, not meeting their parents or friends, etc.

But if your feelings are going to develop through sexual activity, there's nothing you can do about that. Have a conversation with them to see if they'd be amenable to a more emotionally intimate relationship with you if that happens.

If they are not, you choose - continue to have a sexual relationship without a reciprocal emotional attachment from them and enjoy it for what it is without pressuring, cajoling, convincing, coercing, or hoping for something "more"; or end the sexual relationship if you are not happy having one with them where they don't reciprocate your emotional attachment.

But the best way to minimize the odds of developing an emotional attachment to a casual sex partner is to not get into casual sex relationships when you have an emotional attachment to them in the first place. Get into casual sex relationships *because the feelings you have for them are casual sex feelings*. Those are legitimate feelings to have for a person.

It's not a "lack" of feelings, it's a particular type of feeling. You may still catch teh feelingz, but, for most of us, if we're capable of having that particular kind of feeling in the first place, we are less likely to be the sorts of people who develop emotional connections just because we're having sex with someone. Our sexual-attachment-without-emotional-connection-feelings are real, valid, legitimate feelings in their own right.

People who tend to develop emotional attachment through sexual relationships tend not to really feel that low-emotional-attachment-high-sexual-connection in the first place, so they are always fighting the development of what's more natural for them to feel. I don't have to fight that because I am already feeling the feelings that are appropriate for the relationship style that I'm in.

So, have the feelings first (or at least, recognize the potential of what your feelings might want to become), and then structure the relationship to accommodate. Have casual sex relationships *because you have casual sex feelings*. Trying to structure the relationship first and then force your feelings to fit the structure is often a recipe for disaster.

Feel Your Feelings Then Choose The Relationship To Match

Answering that last question about casual sex without feelings verbalized something that I felt but hadn't quite brought to the forefront of my brain yet.

I have always been confused by people who ask things like how to have casual sex without developing feelings. And I think it's because they're coming at it from literally the opposite direction as I do.

I don't have casual sex and then try to make my feelings match. I have casual sex BECAUSE CASUAL ARE MY FEELINGS.

They're choosing the structure and then trying to shoehorn the feelings in to match the structure.

I'm looking at my feelings and going "what structure works best with these feelings?" and then I have that kind of relationship.

And it occurs to me that this is exactly the same problem as the Unicorn Hunters and like every poly newbie ever. They're all picking a structure first and then interviewing people for a job position that requires a mandatory suite of emotions.

Whether it's casual sex or emotionally intimate partnerships, I have the feelings first, and then pick the structure to match. If a person is simply not prone to high sexual attraction / low emotional attachment, then by having the feelings first and choosing a matching structure, they will, just by the "signal flow" if you will, rarely or never have casual sex.

If a person tends to have high sexual attraction for people without a strong emotional attachment, and they have the feelings first and pick the structure to match, then they will just naturally have lots of casual sex without "catching feelings".

But if a person picks the structure first, and either they pick a structure that runs contrary to their natural tendencies of sexual attraction vs. emotional attachment or they are the sort of person that is capable of a variety of mixtures of those two things, then they try to fit people into the structure, they are likely to wind up having the "wrong" feelings for the type of relationships they are in.

And then, if that person has any sense of entitlement or lack of respect for their partners' agency, they are likely to use that relationship structure to coerce their partners into something they don't want.

This is being girlfriendzoned. This is when someone sabotages condoms to get someone pregnant to keep them around. This is when they dismiss the other person's feelings with "you knew the rules when you signed up". This is cowboying and cuckooing.

We, as a culture, pick our relationship structures first and then try to fit people in them. We do this with friends, with intimate partnerships, and with fuckbuddies.

Don't do that.

Feel your feelings, and then pick the relationship structure to match. If you don't have casual-sex-feelings, then don't get into a casual sex relationship. That's how this works. It doesn't work by getting into a casual sex relationship first and then trying to prevent yourself from developing feelings other than casual-sex-feelings.

I don't worry about "catching feelings" for my casual sex partners because the whole reason they are casual sex partners is because the feelings I have for them are casual-sex-feelings. I'm not going to "catch feelings" because I already HAVE feelings. The feelings I have are casual sex ones. I have high sexual attraction + low emotional connection feelings. That's why it's a casual sex relationship.

This doesn't mean that my feelings absolutely won't change over time, but that's a different discussion. All relationships metamorphose over time. My point is that the reason why people have such a hard time with the concept of casual sex and how to handle "catching feelings" is the same reason why certain types of poly people try to prescript their relationships into equilateral triads or whatever - they pick the structure first and then try to find people to fit.

You will have much more success in all your relationships if you have your feelings first and then pick the relationship to match. And "casual-sex-feelings" are valid feelings. There is no need to prevent "catching feelings" in the event of a casual sex relationship if the feelings you have are the ones that match.

Image at www.instagram.com/p/BVOHz8YhnWU/

What's The Most Challenging Part Of Open Relationships For You?

www.quora.com/Are-you-in-an-open-relationship-If-so-what-is-the-most-challenging-part-for-you/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. Are you in an open relationship? If so, what is the most challenging part for you?

A. Having to constantly answer questions about how “difficult” my relationships are, or people wondering how I deal with jealousy or scheduling … basically dealing with other people thinking that I’m doing anything at all different in my relationships than they’re doing.

I have relationships, just like everyone else. Some of them are effortless, some of them take work, some of them are totally wrong for me, some of them are bliss, pretty much all of them are some combination of the above, just like everyone else.

The only difference is that I have more than one romantic relationship at a time. Everyone has more than one relationship at a time - you all have parents, siblings, friends, coworkers, in-laws, relatives, exes, co-parents, etc. You all have to manage and juggle multiple important people in your lives. Those relationships are all different from each other, even when they have similarities.

We are having all the same relationships and they feel the same way to all of us. I’m just overlapping my romantic ones, that’s all. There’s nothing more or less challenging about my multiple romantic relationships than about any of my other relationships or about other people’s relationships.

This History & Meaning Of The Term "Open Relationship" Is Not What You Think

Q. What is a open marriage?

A. The term "open marriage" was coined by Nena and George O'Neill, and they intended it to mean a partnership between two equal individuals that fostered and encouraged personal growth through the development of a complex network of interpersonal relationships outside of the marriage. They felt (and the research supports) that interpersonal relationships were healthier when the individuality of each person in the relationship was maintained and celebrated and ties to other people were welcomed.

The context in which the concept was developed was post WWII when women had spent time in the work force, being independent and heads of their own households while the men were at war, and now the men were coming home and pushing the women back in the kitchen.

In order to convince women that their place was in the home, the US started a campaign to make marriage the cornerstone of the family, and to make one's marriage be one's everything - friend, lover, soulmate, confidante, the person who could satisfy your every single need, to supersede all other relationships with extended family and even with religion and community. This way, it was thought, women wouldn't be tempted to go outside of the home and take jobs away from men or congregate in public where men were used to going.

This turned out to lead to some extremely dysfunctional and deeply unsatisfying relationships. The O'Neills believed that spouses needed to retain their individuality and their independence by maintaining close relationships with other people in order to come together as partners, who could then bring their best selves to the partnership to build resilience into the partnership.

All subsequent research into romantic relationships supports this theory. People who have a strong emotional support network outside of their romantic partner report more satisfaction within their romantic relationships, better conflict resolution skills, stronger bonds during both good times and bad, and more resilience when it comes to breakups and the death of a loved one.

Gender studies that show women having better social support networks vs. men maintaining only superficial ties to other men (leaving their spouse to be their sole source of emotional support) reveal that these women who experience the death of their spouse are better able to live fulfilling lives after their widowhood and they live longer than their male counterparts, for instance. This is thought to be a contributing factor to the difference in mortality rate between the genders.

In the O'Neill's book, they mentioned in one little section deep in the middle that having a romantic relationship in which both partners are open and honest with each other about who they are, what they think, what they feel, and what they want, and in which the partners support and encourage each other's personal growth, just might possibly maybe potentially allow room for extramarital sexual relationships, perhaps.

Because sex sells, this is the one thing that everyone remembered about the book, and now "open marriage" is synonymous with "extramarital sexual relationships". The O'Neills hated this and Nena O'Neill wrote a follow-up book where she backtracked and tried to put that genie back in the bottle. But it was too late. Now everyone thinks it means a married couple that has sex with other people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Marriage_(book)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201101/open-marriage-healthy-marriage
https://people.com/archive/george-and-nena-oneill-helped-to-open-marriage-now-theyd-like-to-close-it-a-little-vol-8-no-25

Help, My Friend Did Not Out Herself To Me!

 

www.quora.com/Should-I-be-offended-that-my-friend-of-about-8-months-didn-t-tell-me-that-she-s-a-lesbian-Do-I-bring-it-up-or-wait-for-her-to-tell-me/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. Should I be offended that my friend (of about 8 months) didn’t tell me that she’s a lesbian? Do I bring it up, or wait for her to tell me?

A. She didn’t tell you because:

A) It’s none of your business
B) Straight people don’t announce their straightness to their friends, so why should gay people?
C) She might have thought it was obvious that she didn’t need to make an announcement.
D) She didn’t know you well enough yet to know if you were safe enough to come out to.

In any case, who she chooses to love or who she is attracted to has nothing to do with you and is all about her, so you getting offended at how she handles her sexuality is pretty selfish and self-centered of you.

Let it go. Stop making her sexuality all about you. If you’re not going to be up in their genitals, what they choose to do with them isn’t your business. Even your friends don’t have to tell you anything about themselves that they don’t want to.

Men Think #MeToo Ruined the Art of Flirting

www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a19598317/men-cant-get-a-date-because-of-feminism-metoo-movement/

"But if you are a man who can't get a date with someone who actually likes you, it's not because of feminism. It's because you are someone people do not want to date. Possibly because you spend a lot of time whining about how women having rights has made dating impossible for you."

"Basically, this means that men have to be someone who people want to date. They can not simply exist, as a man."

"This is one of the first eras where men have to bring something to the dating and flirting table beyond the very fact of their being a male who is willing to date a women. Which means that they have to actually respond to women's cues. They have to learn how to read women."

"Women have accepted, from birth, the notion that dating is about bringing qualities to the table. ...Maybe it's about time men started doing the same."

And no, men, "bringing home the bacon", "being a provider", and "doesn't beat her" are not sufficient qualities you can bring to the table. For some women they might be *necessary* qualities, but they're not sufficient.

Like being "nice", it's a *baseline*. It's the bare minimum required for us to not automatically disqualify you, but it's not enough to put you in the running. You still have to be an interesting person and you still have to pay attention to your partner.

What Are Signs A Relationship Is Ending That People Don't Know?

www.quora.com/What-is-a-common-sign-that-a-marriage-relationship-is-heading-for-a-breakup-which-many-people-often-neglect-or-dont-know/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. What is a common sign that a marriage/relationship is heading for a breakup, which many people often neglect or don't know?

A. Dr. John Gottman and his team of relationship researchers have identified what they call the Four Horsemen of the Relationship Apocalypse. When these 4 traits appear in a romantic relationship, Dr. Gottman can predict the demise of said relationship with a ridiculously high degree of accuracy (most reports are over 90% accuracy). So if your relationship has these 4 things, it's probably doomed.

The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling - https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/

2 things that most people don't know is that 1) just having conflict in a relationship or feeling anger is NOT, by itself, a sign that a relationship is heading for a breakup - people have arguments and conflict and feel anger and that's just the nature of interacting with other people in intimate settings, so just having arguments doesn't mean that the relationship is unhealthy or about to end, but that 2) there is a ratio of how *often* or how *much* conflict or unhappiness a relationship can withstand and it's much lower than most people think.

In a relationship, Gottman and other researchers also discovered that there should be a ratio of "negative interactions" to "positive interactions" overall in a relationship that is 1:5. That means that for every bit of ";negative interactions", there should be 5 bits of "positive interactions". Lots of people think that they should stay in relationships until the happiness ratio tips over to where you are unhappy more than half of the time. That's not true.

The Magic Relationship Ratio, According to Science - https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-magic-relationship-ratio-according-science/

So, the predictors of the ending of a romantic relationship are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Anger is not among the predictors. If you have these criteria in your relationship more often than 1:5 compared to positive interactions, the relationship is probably on its way out.

The Ultimate Baby Shark Cover List #YouAreWelcome

Because I fell down the rabbit hole, now I'm going to subject y'all to it too.

The Ultimate Baby Shark Cover List:

R&B edition - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_LytKN0bRo

Watch on YouTube

Latin dance version - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9yoaqAVH8M

Watch on YouTube

Violin solo version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXdwlQkkfDg

Watch on YouTube

So many metal covers! Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op6JY1Eq5Fs

Watch on YouTube

Another metal cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POdbe-_bYbs

Watch on YouTube

Because James Corden - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yZSM4_-sgA

Watch on YouTube

Wedding edition! 4 strings - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwBUC3fmXI0

Watch on YouTube

Asian Salsa version? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqupyl3Qn54


Jazz version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbNVdNIJhjs

Watch on YouTube

Performing Arts & Overworked Staff: Let's Not Pretend We're OK

www.theatreartlife.com/technical/performing-arts-overworked-staff

"We need to stop pretending we're okay. We're not. We're tired, and crying in the dimmer room. Let's come out of the shadows into the light and do something about it."

I am pretty sure I know how I will die. It will likely happen one of two ways - I will suffocate to death because of the fucking chronic respiratory problems I developed after getting whooping cough when vaccination rates dropped, or I will be killed in an accident or die from something related to my shitty eating / sleeping / overworking habits on job site.

We have a saying - there are no old stagehands. I mean, of course there are, but so many more of us die early than we should, and most of the time it's preventable. We eat crappy food, we don't sleep enough, we stay awake too long doing dangerous manual labor, we work physically harder than necessary (dude, we have a forklift to unstack those!), we drink too much and do way too many recreational drugs.

One year, I actually stopped keeping track of the number of conversations I got into that started out like "hey, did you hear who died last week?!"

Our employers want to treat us like real employees when it benefits *them*, with dress codes and long lists of behaviour rules, but then turn around and treat us like freelancers in the monopoly days when it doesn't, with "oh, you can just push through one more hour without a break, can't you?" and "the show starts in 2 days so we will stay as long as necessary to get it going rather than schedule an extra couple of days for a reasonable work day length" and "sorry, we don't compensate for the $25 parking fee" and "no you can't wear that piece of clothing for medical reasons because it doesn't match our aesthetic" and and "but we gave you 8 hours between shifts, that should be plenty of rest even though you have to drive 2 hours each way and have things to do when you get home!" and "what do you mean you need a different person for each job position? Can't you do 3 job roles by yourself?"

No, we need a break every 2-2.5 hours, with a meal break on the 4-5 hour mark. We need OT for ever hour worked past 8-10 hours, and we need days that don't go past 10 hours *regularly*. We need enough time between our shifts to GET 8 hours of sleep, which includes our commute time and eating dinner when we get home and doing laundry and showering, not exactly 8 hours from the time you stop paying us to the time you start paying us again.

We need enough guys on site to accomplish the job safely, not as few as is *possible* to set a Guinness record. We need equipment that works. We need heavy equipment to do the heavy labor, like forklifts and scissor lifts, not rickety A-frame ladders and 4 tall dudes just because you think "tall" = "strong enough to lift this case that you used a forklift to stack back in the shop".

WE NEED ACTUAL MEAL BREAKS. 30 minutes is barely sufficient if food is provided and sitting there, hot and ready, the moment we go on break. An hour is the minimum if we have to go off property to find our own food, because it's still a 10 minute walk to the parking lot and another 15 minute or more drive to find food. And no, the solution to a crew who is not doing a satisfactory job is NOT withholding meals, but sending them home. If the crew is truly doing a poor job, you don't get to keep working them 10 hours without food. Fucking send them home and hire another crew.

And the clothing! We're fucking backstage! As long as our clothing is protective and not hindering our abilities, IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER WHAT WE LOOK LIKE. I can lift the exact same amount of weight in a polo shirt as I do in a tank top. Except in a tank top, I won't overheat when I lift. I can run my camera to the exact same skill level in a jacket as in a dress shirt. Except I won't be shaking the camera with my shivering if I'm warm enough and I can focus slightly better when I cut the wind from the a/c blowing in my face and drying out my eyes. When we are not in a public-facing customer service position, our attire does not matter past the point of legality or job performance.

If you want to pretend like you're a &"regular corporation" with all the rules and shit, then I want a fucking annual job performance review where someone sits down with me in an adult fucking manner and goes over my accomplishments and my areas for improvement, training opportunities, and a goddamn annual raise every year I work for you. I want anonymous supervisor surveys. I want salary standardization. I want an HR department that holds the company accountable for not treating people well. And I want some structure.

If the company can't provide all that shit, then don't pretend you're like a regular job. We're freelancers, either we get the benefits of freelancing that go along with the shit, or we get the benefits of a regular corporation that goes along with that shit. We should not get the shit of a corporation with the shit of freelance.

So stop treating us like shit.

#backstage #AVTech #AVLife #roadies #stagehand #entertainment #IMayHaveSomeOpinionsAboutThis #SoTired #AndYetStillSoPoor

Your Hubby Hangs Out With A Gold Digger?!

www.quora.com/Wives-would-you-be-upset-if-you-are-overseas-and-your-husband-hangs-out-with-a-gold-digging-female-friend/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. Wives, would you be upset if you are overseas and your husband hangs out with a gold digging female friend?

A.

1. I am not overseas but I am literally about as far away from my spouse as I can possibly get without crossing an ocean or international borders. We live on opposite coasts and also on opposite north/south borders.


2. I do not police who my spouse hangs out with. He's a grownup, he can manage his own friendships. Nobody can do anything to him that he doesn't permit (short of actual robbery or violence). I have nothing to fear from any other person. Should my spouse do something with another person that makes me upset, that would be his fault, not hers, because he is responsible for his own actions.


3. I do not make assumptions about the motivations of other people. This question implies the assumption that said "female friend" is not just interested in securing economic stability, but that she is planning on doing so at the expense of my spouse. That's a whole lot of unspoken assumptions right there.


4. Should any woman attempt to manipulate my spouse into some kind of con for the purpose of getting his money, I probably wouldn't do anything about it but laugh at her. My spouse is broke. Of the two of us, I'm the one with the money, and even I live below the poverty line. Plus, we have a pre-nup and our finances are separate and we maintain separate households. He might get swindled, but my finances won't be touched. And then he might learn a lesson about being too trusting too soon.


5. I do not throw other women under the bus. Other women are not my enemy. The term "gold digger" was deliberately and consciously subverted by a wealthy patriarchal class who was offended at the idea of women achieving any socioeconomic power of their own: https://nationalpost.com/life/relationships/in-defence-of-the-gold-digger-and-the-fight-for-class-economic-and-gender-equality & http://skepchick.org/2013/10/in-defense-of-the-gold-digger/

tl;dr - No I would not be upset if my spouse was hanging around with anyone, let alone a woman who prioritizes her economic stability. Good partner selection solves an awful lot of problems before they ever come up, and treating people as individual agents rather than children, dependents, servants, or things solve most of the other problems.

How To Find A Discreet, Suitable Man For My Wife

www.quora.com/What-is-the-safest-most-discreet-way-to-find-a-suitable-man-for-my-wife-to-have-sex-with-We-are-new-to-this-type-of-open-relationship/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. What is the safest, most discreet way to find a suitable man for my wife to have sex with? We are new to this type of open relationship.

A. For the love of whatever you find holy, don't "find a suitable man for [your] wife". She is an adult woman. She has her own preferences, desires, opinions, needs, wants, and boundaries. And since it's her body and her experiences that'll be involved here, none of those things have anything at all to do with you.

I know, I know, "but she's my wife! What happens to her affects me!" Sorry, but in this case, it has nothing to do with you. She is the sole arbiter of her. Only she should have any say at all in what she does with her body, mind, emotions, and time. If she loves you, she'll take into consideration how her actions with another affect you, but ultimately, this is something that is happening *to her*. It's something that *she* is experiencing, not you. You are not relevant in this equation.

Therefore, you should not insert yourself into this experience for her - not to "find a suitable man" for her, not to control or dictate the encounter, not for anything. This is all about her, not you. Stay the fuck out of it.

As for "safe" and "discreet", several online dating apps are adequate for people looking for hookups. Your wife (and her alone) can create a profile sharing what she (and only she) is looking for, and she can be a grown up and do her own homework on vetting potential partners.
She chose you, didn't she? Either she is capable of finding her own partners that are good enough for her, or she isn't. If she isn't, that says something about you. If she is, then let her go about her business and trust that she loves you enough to take care of her relationship with you.

Relevant:

• You Can't Be Trusted - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/294586.html


• Before We Open Up, Let's Discuss Some Boundaries - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/359151.html


• It's Not All About You - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/313759.html


• Don't I Get A Say In Their Relationship? - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/311860.html


• But We NEED Rules To Keep People From Lying To Us! - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/310810.html

Related:

• What Kind Of Partner Will You Be When Your Partner Wants To Do Something Scary? - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/371654.html


• How do you bring a healthy third person into an existing marriage? - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/368069.html


• It Is Never OK To Restrict Someone Else Even If They "Agree" To It - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/363349.html


• On Autonomy And Agreements And "Boundaries" In Poly Relationships - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/359626.html


• I Love You, Just Don't Disrupt Anything - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/275094.html

How Can I Convince Him To Let Me...

I do not believe in "converting" people to polyamory, or any other relationship style or sexuality for that matter. I don't believe it can be done and I believe that attempting to do so is inherently coercive. I believe people have the right to choose whatever relationship style or sexual behaviour they want, no matter what it is or why they choose it, with the exception of anything that violates other people's agency (sorry, you don't have the right to choose to force young boys to give you blowjobs behind the alter just because you're their priest, you just don't).

You can *introduce* people to new things, but I don't think you can *convert* them to something they're not or don't have their own internal motivation to try and become. And I would rather not have these people being pushed into my communities because they flail around and smack up everyone who gets near them. If you don't want to try it, then don't. Please, don't. Stay out of my communities unless you actually want to be there.

www.quora.com/How-can-I-convince-my-husband-to-let-me-sleep-with-other-men-He-has-slept-with-many-women-before-our-marriage-and-I-am-jealous-that-I-did-not-have-that-experience/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. How can I convince my husband to let me sleep with other men? He has slept with many women before our marriage and I am jealous that I did not have that experience.

A. You can't "convince" him. At worst, that would be coercion. You can lay out your desires and your reasons for them, and then you can A) accept his decision to not consent to an open marriage, B) accept his acceptance of an open marriage, C) cheat, or D) leave.

You have to decide, ultimately, what is more important to you - having other sexual experiences or remaining married. When you know what your answer to that question is, then you will know how to proceed with talking to your husband about deconstructing and reconstructing your marriage into an open one ("Opening Up" A Relationship Doesn't Work, Try This Method Instead - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/375573.html)

If your marriage is more important, then be prepared for him to say that he does not want an open marriage and you will have to give up your fantasy. If the sexual encounters are more important, then be prepared for him to say that he does not want an open marriage and you will have to divorce him if you want to remain an ethical person.

You are allowed to have your desires. But he is also allowed to only consent to the kind of relationships that he wants to have. Once you know where the line in the sand is drawn, you can share that information with him so that he can make an informed decision about what kind of relationship he will engage in with you.

Just be careful not to make it an ultimatum (Can Polyamorous Hierarchies Be Ethical pt. 2 - Influence & Control - https://joreth.dreamwidth.org/349226.html). This shouldn't be a way to control the outcome of the discussion. You shouldn't go into it thinking "you better let me have other sexual partners or else I will divorce you!" That's punitive. If you are relying on the threat of divorce to get your way, that's coercion.

But if his "no" is an equally acceptable answer to his "yes", then saying "honey, I love you, but this is a thing I really need to do for myself, and if you don't want to share this journey with me, I'll understand, but I do have to travel this path one way or another and I hope I can share it with you" is not an act of coercion, it's an act of love and acceptance and of giving him the information he needs to make a decision. He might not feel that way in the moment, though. Sometimes it's hard to see the difference.

There are tons of books and forums and websites everywhere that can help people wrap their brains around open relationships. I'm sure others will share those resources in the comments. You can try giving him those resources and see if that helps. My favorite is the book More Than Two (www.MoreThanTwo.com).

But ultimately, you cannot "convince" someone to have an open relationship. Dragging a partner into any kind of relationship they don't want grudgingly makes things much worse. That goes in both directions, btw. You staying in a monogamous relationship grudgingly will make everything worse for you both too. Should you decide that your marriage is ultimately more important than having extramarital sexual relationships, make sure you own that choice. Make that choice *yours*, not something he forced you into. Don't frame it as "he won't let me have sex with other men", frame it as a choice you made to be with him. Otherwise, you might end up losing the marriage anyway.

First, look at all the worst case scenarios - you have other lovers and get divorced, you stay with him and feel resentful, you cheat and damage your integrity, his trust, and possibly get divorced anyway, etc. - and decide which worst case scenario is the one you are most willing to risk. Then come to your husband with that in mind. Lay it all out for him, including the consequences for what happens if he doesn't give his consent, so that he can make an informed decision.

And then live with your choices.

Have You Ever Considered Being Dumped As A Blessing?

www.quora.com/Have-you-ever-considered-being-dumped-as-a-blessing/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. Have you ever considered being 'dumped' as a blessing?

A. Yes. I was dating a man who was abusing his other partners. I do not feel that he abused me, but only because I, coincidentally, hadn’t done anything that triggered his insecurities that led him to abuse his partners.

Abuse comes from a belief that it is OK to control another person. At the time, how I behaved was exactly what he wanted from me. So he had no need to attempt to exert his control over me because I was already doing what he wanted.

Then he got another girlfriend, and shortly thereafter she started dating someone else. That triggered his insecurities. So he attempted to control her to assuage his insecurities. She resisted that control, so he tried harder to control her, and it spiraled into abuse.

By the time I finally saw what was going on between them, *really* saw what was happening and not just believing what he was telling me about their relationship, I was in a position to be open and available to new relationships myself.

But because I saw how he was treating her, I got angry at him. I decided that I would not coddle him by making any concessions in my new relationship to make him feel better. I was just going to throw him in the deep end by allowing my new relationship to progress however it wanted, with no feedback from him.

He *really* did not like that. He had never before had a partner who didn’t give him a voice in her other relationships. He felt personally betrayed because his vote in my other relationship didn’t count.

Because his relationship with his victim had escalated to a ridiculous level, *all* of his other relationships were suffering. So he was constantly putting out fires - first trying to rein in his victim, and then trying to soothe his other partners (who he had already cowed into submission) who felt neglected by how much time he was spending reining in his victim.

Every relationship in his life was falling apart because of his one partner who kept resisting his control. His other partners had long since given up control to him, and I (until that point) hadn’t needed any controlling.

So his reserves were low. He had no more patience and no more ability to handle a partner who resisted him. And then I came along and did something that freaked him out (I started dating someone new), and not only did I resist his control, but I did so easily and without any conciliatory or apologetic attitude about how my resistance to his control might make him feel.

His victim, who did not realize he was trying to control her and all the drama was because she knew something was wrong but she couldn’t figure out what - she would resist his control but she would feel really badly about it because she couldn’t seem to understand why she kept "hurting" him.

I, however, had no such confusion. When he attempted to insert himself into my other relationship, I said plainly and immediately that he had absolutely no say in the matter of what I did with my body or time or emotions and he certainly did not get a say in what my new partner could do with his own body, time, or emotions.

I stood my ground. This shocked him so much that he dumped me with almost no build-up, surprising everyone around us. To all of us in the network, it seemed that my relationship with him was the only stable one he had. We didn’t have any of the constant drama that came with his victim trying to figure out why the gaslights kept changing levels (that’s a reference to the movie from whence the term "gaslighting" comes), and we didn’t have any of the arguments that he had with his other partners about how they never got to see him anymore because all of his time was taken up trying to manage his victim.

He and I were wickedly compatible in almost every way. We were even more compatible in some ways than he was with his wife of 20 years. So, to everyone in our network, our breakup came out of nowhere. It took one email exchange over this new partner of mine, where he insisted he should have a say in our relationship and I said absolutely not, and then he dumped me.

At the time I was hurt and angry. I had just lost my place to live and had to be "rescued" by a friend offering me a spare room, only to have that "friend" torture my cats while I was away resulting in both of their deaths. That was the 2nd of what turned out to be 7 moves in 2 years. I lost my housing, my cats, my boyfriend, and even my new partner decided to move to another state right when we got started (although we did not break up), and even my local community staged a coup against me when I tried to oust a guy who was beating his wife so I lost my entire social network too.

It was too much for me all at once, and I fell into a suicidal depression. A few months after that breakup, his victim finally escaped and she and I had several opportunities to talk about our experiences with him. I learned about a lot of things that happened in their relationship that I hadn’t known at the time because of the way that he controlled the narrative of their relationship.

So, in hindsight, him dumping me was probably the best thing he could have done. If he hadn’t, I would have stayed with him and continued to try and work with him on getting past his insecurities when he actually had no intention of getting past them because they were too valuable as a tool he could use to control his partners. I would have continued to minimize his abuse of his victim because I couldn’t see her side as clearly while I was romantically linked to him (although I had begun to see more of the truth before we broke up).

I was not ready to leave him, so I would have stayed with an abuser for much longer had he not made the decision for me. And I’m glad now that it didn’t drag on longer. I didn’t get out of there without scars. I’m not sure how bad the damage would be if I had stayed longer. As it is, I’m still not fully recovered. So I can only be grateful that he didn’t string me along any further.

When I look back over my past and think "would I really erase this from my history if I could?", most of the time I don’t think I would. As many people have said in other contexts, the experiences I went through have made me who I am today. Going back in time and preventing myself from having some of those bad experiences means I would not have come out the other side as the person I am now. So a lot of those experiences I would go through anyway.

But not this one. I would erase this entire relationship if I could. I would erase all the good memories along with the bad ones. I would do this for a couple of reasons - 1) I don’t like having all those happy memories tarnished by the after-knowledge that he was ultimately abusive and he fundamentally does not believe his partners can make decisions for themselves; and 2) I do not think that he deserves the memories of our good times or of my intimacy and vulnerability. I would take that away from him if I could.

Since I can’t rewrite history, all I can do is be grateful that he ended our relationship before I would have.