One of my ongoing mental projects: is there a sensation of being induced into an emotional state, or having a response elicited from me, which under neutral circumstances or in retrospect I would not be happy about? If so, can I train myself to notice this sensation and respond in real time?
Alternatively, how do I notice when people are fleecing me for trivial amounts of money, so I don’t feel like a chump afterwards?
I have an especially distressing example of this from a year ago, when I was approached after dark by a homeless woman asking me for money. In spite of saying no about half a dozen times, in the end I still found myself handing over a bunch of spare change. I should point out that I’m no stranger to interacting with beggars and homeless people, but the exchange was so unlike how I expect those interactions to go, I simply wasn’t equipped to deal with it.
In retrospect I can recognise some reasonably sophisticated Dark Arts in play: she spun an obviously false but highly confusing story about her situation, which created a sense of urgency, and managed to combine a very aggressive conversational tone while still portraying herself as a victim. The result was me feeling placed in an unprecedentedly distressing situation where the path of least resistance was to hand over an inconsequential amount of money and feel like the aforementioned chump afterwards.
Unfortunately I’m not exposed to aggressively devious beggars on a regular enough basis to gauge how well I’d now respond to similar situations.
Alternatively, how do I notice when people are fleecing me for trivial amounts of money, so I don’t feel like a chump afterwards?
Absolutely perfect wording. My same thought at the register was that $2.97 was hardly worth fussing over. When my mental playback set in on the way out the door and to my car, my emotions/self-image begged to differ.
I’m pretty sure the feeling of being a chump (for me at least) is a social response to someone having gotten more out of you than you needed to give them, rather than a response to being unhappy with the exchange.
I sometimes get it when I retrospectively discover I paid more for something than I needed to, but it’s at its strongest when there’s an actual agent involved who I can point to and say “you, you took more money from me than you needed to, you scoundrel!” If I buy something online, when I could’ve gotten it somewhat cheaper on a different site, I just shrug it off.
One of my ongoing mental projects: is there a sensation of being induced into an emotional state, or having a response elicited from me, which under neutral circumstances or in retrospect I would not be happy about? If so, can I train myself to notice this sensation and respond in real time?
Alternatively, how do I notice when people are fleecing me for trivial amounts of money, so I don’t feel like a chump afterwards?
I have an especially distressing example of this from a year ago, when I was approached after dark by a homeless woman asking me for money. In spite of saying no about half a dozen times, in the end I still found myself handing over a bunch of spare change. I should point out that I’m no stranger to interacting with beggars and homeless people, but the exchange was so unlike how I expect those interactions to go, I simply wasn’t equipped to deal with it.
In retrospect I can recognise some reasonably sophisticated Dark Arts in play: she spun an obviously false but highly confusing story about her situation, which created a sense of urgency, and managed to combine a very aggressive conversational tone while still portraying herself as a victim. The result was me feeling placed in an unprecedentedly distressing situation where the path of least resistance was to hand over an inconsequential amount of money and feel like the aforementioned chump afterwards.
Unfortunately I’m not exposed to aggressively devious beggars on a regular enough basis to gauge how well I’d now respond to similar situations.
Absolutely perfect wording. My same thought at the register was that $2.97 was hardly worth fussing over. When my mental playback set in on the way out the door and to my car, my emotions/self-image begged to differ.
I’m pretty sure the feeling of being a chump (for me at least) is a social response to someone having gotten more out of you than you needed to give them, rather than a response to being unhappy with the exchange.
I sometimes get it when I retrospectively discover I paid more for something than I needed to, but it’s at its strongest when there’s an actual agent involved who I can point to and say “you, you took more money from me than you needed to, you scoundrel!” If I buy something online, when I could’ve gotten it somewhat cheaper on a different site, I just shrug it off.
Maybe people with skills like that are less likely to become beggars.
On the other hand, beggars are clearly rewarded for developing such skills.
Most people aren’t very entrepreneurial.
Also, that style of successful begging involves increasing the risk of annoying people and getting nothing while you’re learning.