It allows to talk about the difference in a meaningful way.
It suggests that in general most nerds filter their emotions and don’t suffer if you treat them in a way that isn’t nice.
I don’t think that’s the case.
Apart from the emotional effect of being draining there’s also status signaling. If someone does something that normal people perceive as not nice, they expect you to defend your boundaries. Not defending yourself is a sign of low status. That makes it hard for certain guys to have a relationship with you where they see you as an equal. It makes many woman see you as a Nice Guy with all of the issue that it has.
The idea that using filters to deal with uncomfortable emotions is the way to go is naturally seductive to nerds but it’s the wrong way. There are ready made frameworks such as nonviolent communication that can be picked up in a straightforward way and that are more useful than the proposed perspective of seeing social interactions.
I grant that there are some political social interaction where signaling low status and surpress instead of trying to defend boundaries can be the right move. It might be the best move available to the nerd in high school to accept his low status and think “They’re just saying those mean things because they’re jealous. They don’t really mean it” but that’s far from an ideal.
Personally I do not remember the nerd phase of my youth as painful. My input tact filter didn’t lead to suppressed feelings as far as I can tell (I might be wrong). But I didn’t become introvert by retreating. I was introvert to begin with. I always had my own interests and time and support in following them. And I preferred doing so alone or with significantly older (to learn from) or younger (to teach to) persons. I had a very small number of friends like me and that was great and all I needed. It was a happy time. I ignored bullying (which did happen). This was my tact input filter. Ignoring worked quite fine. I was no target; neither victim nor opponent.
Sure looking back it made me low status. Which is kind of strange given how confident I was and felt. It did make me a Nice Guy (tm). I didn’t care. Really. I mean it was easy. I didn’t have relationships for a long time. But not because I was rejected. I didn’t pursue any. Maybe I in particular was lucky to not feel much attraction (this apparently varies A LOT in people). But surely not because I felt inadequate. The one time I did I fall in love we married in the end. Locking back I clearly rationalize that being an introvert focussed on science gave me a huge head-start in science and the job market compared to my peers, allowing be to become attractive in these dimensions later than most people start relationships.
I wonder whether this generalizes: Do being introvert correlate with late relationships?
But I didn’t become introvert by retreating. I was introvert to begin with. I always had my own interests and time and support in following them.
The definition of introvert I used above isn’t about spending time alone but about being drained by social interaction. Did you felt drained by social interaction at the time?
I do not have detailed memories about how draining it felt when I was young.
But as long as I do remember I have been drained by prolonged social interaction. I often retreat at least a bit. It happens automatically. Even if I enjoy the action.
Independent of my own experiences I’d hazard a guess that needing alone time, preferring being alone and perceiving social interaction as draining are all highly correlated. They have to because they are lumped together by PCA into introversion (at least by Big Five).
I don’t think the goal is just having a relationship. We also care to some extend about quality.
I think the filter reduces relationship quality.
There were times when a girlfriend of me was emotional as a result treated me in a way that she herself doesn’t consider nice. There are two possible responses:
(A) I say “Stop, don’t treat me this way”
(B) I use a tact filter and simply ignore the fact that she’s emotional and doesn’t treat me well
If I do (B) she’s afterwards guilty about having been a person who treated me badly.
If I do (A) she spends less time acting in a way for which she afterwards judges herself.
(A) is also behavior that creates attraction.
I think that it makes sense to work towards being the kind of person who does (A).
Independent of my own experiences I’d hazard a guess that needing alone time, preferring being alone and perceiving social interaction as draining are all highly correlated.
Personality tests are supposed measure traits that aren’t skills.
I think it’s possible to be both good at feeling good alone and feeling good with other people.
It’s possible to be bad at both of them.
I don’t believe in the just-world-hypothesis that people who don’t enjoy one automatically
enjoy the other.
(I use the word “enjoy” vaguely to point in a direction)
I don’t think that personality test tell you about tradeoff. They are not designed for that purpose.
I use a tact filter and simply ignore the fact that she’s emotional and doesn’t treat me well
This seems to point to very different understand of what a tact filter is. I read your sentence as implying that it is an on/off thing. Either information/feelings are let through or not. For me the filter is a more differentiated ‘device’ that e.g. (case outgoing) tones down the intensity or adds compassion or otherwise tries to adapt the message to the receiver—mostly to reduce the emotional impact. Or the incoming case may e.g. interpret messages as exactly lacking these things or information about the sender instead of about the receiver.
I don’t think that personality test tell you about tradeoff. They are not designed for that purpose.
At least the Big Five tests are lexical and thus neither measuring traits nor skills but just adjectives that people use to describe other people. Adjectives that I have to assume are used to describe skills as well as traits (which I’m willing to read to include skills anyway) and other things, history and social. The Wikipedia page lists lots of these. Anyway my guess stands and we can just wait for evidence coming in ;-)
This seems to point to very different understand of what a tact filter is. I read your sentence as implying that it is an on/off thing.
If my girlfriend does something says something not nice, I can mentally say : “Hey, she’s emotional at the moment but that doesn’t mean that she means any harm to me. It’s hormones. Let’s sit through it.” I can do that from a place of compassion without feeling too bad about the interaction.
Alternatively I can connect with the feeling of irritation that arises and assert a boundary. If there a filter there no clear feeling of irritation from which to speak.
It’s basically what I meant above, but above I didn’t put in the details. As a nerd myself that’s a more instinctive response than actually speaking up and asserting boundaries. But I’m fairly certain that asserting boundaries is often the more effective action.
I also think that this lack of this assertion of boundaries is what makes Nice Guys™ unattractive. Woman like guys who are nice in the sense that they give others compliements and improve their surroundings but they find guys who don’t assert boundaries in situations that warrant setting boundaries less attractive.
It suggests that in general most nerds filter their emotions and don’t suffer if you treat them in a way that isn’t nice. I don’t think that’s the case.
Apart from the emotional effect of being draining there’s also status signaling. If someone does something that normal people perceive as not nice, they expect you to defend your boundaries. Not defending yourself is a sign of low status. That makes it hard for certain guys to have a relationship with you where they see you as an equal. It makes many woman see you as a Nice Guy with all of the issue that it has.
The idea that using filters to deal with uncomfortable emotions is the way to go is naturally seductive to nerds but it’s the wrong way. There are ready made frameworks such as nonviolent communication that can be picked up in a straightforward way and that are more useful than the proposed perspective of seeing social interactions.
I grant that there are some political social interaction where signaling low status and surpress instead of trying to defend boundaries can be the right move. It might be the best move available to the nerd in high school to accept his low status and think “They’re just saying those mean things because they’re jealous. They don’t really mean it” but that’s far from an ideal.
Personally I do not remember the nerd phase of my youth as painful. My input tact filter didn’t lead to suppressed feelings as far as I can tell (I might be wrong). But I didn’t become introvert by retreating. I was introvert to begin with. I always had my own interests and time and support in following them. And I preferred doing so alone or with significantly older (to learn from) or younger (to teach to) persons. I had a very small number of friends like me and that was great and all I needed. It was a happy time. I ignored bullying (which did happen). This was my tact input filter. Ignoring worked quite fine. I was no target; neither victim nor opponent.
Sure looking back it made me low status. Which is kind of strange given how confident I was and felt. It did make me a Nice Guy (tm). I didn’t care. Really. I mean it was easy. I didn’t have relationships for a long time. But not because I was rejected. I didn’t pursue any. Maybe I in particular was lucky to not feel much attraction (this apparently varies A LOT in people). But surely not because I felt inadequate. The one time I did I fall in love we married in the end. Locking back I clearly rationalize that being an introvert focussed on science gave me a huge head-start in science and the job market compared to my peers, allowing be to become attractive in these dimensions later than most people start relationships.
I wonder whether this generalizes: Do being introvert correlate with late relationships?
The definition of introvert I used above isn’t about spending time alone but about being drained by social interaction. Did you felt drained by social interaction at the time?
I do not have detailed memories about how draining it felt when I was young.
But as long as I do remember I have been drained by prolonged social interaction. I often retreat at least a bit. It happens automatically. Even if I enjoy the action.
Independent of my own experiences I’d hazard a guess that needing alone time, preferring being alone and perceiving social interaction as draining are all highly correlated. They have to because they are lumped together by PCA into introversion (at least by Big Five).
I don’t think the goal is just having a relationship. We also care to some extend about quality. I think the filter reduces relationship quality.
There were times when a girlfriend of me was emotional as a result treated me in a way that she herself doesn’t consider nice. There are two possible responses: (A) I say “Stop, don’t treat me this way” (B) I use a tact filter and simply ignore the fact that she’s emotional and doesn’t treat me well
If I do (B) she’s afterwards guilty about having been a person who treated me badly. If I do (A) she spends less time acting in a way for which she afterwards judges herself. (A) is also behavior that creates attraction.
I think that it makes sense to work towards being the kind of person who does (A).
Personality tests are supposed measure traits that aren’t skills. I think it’s possible to be both good at feeling good alone and feeling good with other people. It’s possible to be bad at both of them. I don’t believe in the just-world-hypothesis that people who don’t enjoy one automatically enjoy the other. (I use the word “enjoy” vaguely to point in a direction)
I don’t think that personality test tell you about tradeoff. They are not designed for that purpose.
This seems to point to very different understand of what a tact filter is. I read your sentence as implying that it is an on/off thing. Either information/feelings are let through or not. For me the filter is a more differentiated ‘device’ that e.g. (case outgoing) tones down the intensity or adds compassion or otherwise tries to adapt the message to the receiver—mostly to reduce the emotional impact. Or the incoming case may e.g. interpret messages as exactly lacking these things or information about the sender instead of about the receiver.
At least the Big Five tests are lexical and thus neither measuring traits nor skills but just adjectives that people use to describe other people. Adjectives that I have to assume are used to describe skills as well as traits (which I’m willing to read to include skills anyway) and other things, history and social. The Wikipedia page lists lots of these. Anyway my guess stands and we can just wait for evidence coming in ;-)
If my girlfriend does something says something not nice, I can mentally say : “Hey, she’s emotional at the moment but that doesn’t mean that she means any harm to me. It’s hormones. Let’s sit through it.” I can do that from a place of compassion without feeling too bad about the interaction.
Alternatively I can connect with the feeling of irritation that arises and assert a boundary. If there a filter there no clear feeling of irritation from which to speak.
That is a filter as I understand it. A good one maybe, but a filter.
It’s basically what I meant above, but above I didn’t put in the details. As a nerd myself that’s a more instinctive response than actually speaking up and asserting boundaries. But I’m fairly certain that asserting boundaries is often the more effective action.
I also think that this lack of this assertion of boundaries is what makes Nice Guys™ unattractive. Woman like guys who are nice in the sense that they give others compliements and improve their surroundings but they find guys who don’t assert boundaries in situations that warrant setting boundaries less attractive.
OK. Tapping out.