I really like this post. Thanks for explaining a complicated thing well!
I think this dynamic in relationships, especially in a more minor form, sometimes emerges from a thing where, like … Especially if you’re used to talking with your partner about brains and preferences and philosophy and rationality and etc—like, a close partner who you hang out day-to-day with is interesting! You get access to someone else making different decisions than you’d make, with different heuristics!
When you want to do something hedonic with potential downsides, you know you’ve thought about the tradeoffs. You’re making a rational decision (of course). But this other person? Well, what’s going on in their head? And you ask them and they can’t immediately explain their process in a way that makes sense to you? Well, let’s get into that! You care about them! What if they’re making a mistake?
This isn’t always bad. Sometimes this can be an interesting and helpful exploration to do together. The thing is that from the other side, this can be indistinguishable from “my partner demands I justify things that make me happy and then criticizes whatever I say”, which sucks incredibly and is bad.
If you think you might be the offending partner in this particular situation, some surface-level ideas for not getting to that point:
Get a sense of the other person, and how into this kind of thing, as applied to them, they actually are. You can ask them outright but probably also want a vibe of like “do they participate enthusiastically and non-defensively”.
People also often have boundaries or topics they’re sensitive about. For instance, a lot of women have been policed obnoxiously and repeatedly about their weight and staying attractive—for the ice cream example in particular this could be a painful thing to stray into. Everyone’s are different, you probably have your own, keep this in mind.
Interrogate your own preferences vocally and curiously as often as you do theirs.
Are you coming at it from a place of curiosity and observation? Like, you’re going to support them in doing whatever they want and just go like “huh, people are so interesting, I love you in all your manifold complexity” even if you don’t ultimately understand, right?
If you think you might be doing this in the moment, pause and ask your interlocutor if they’re okay with this and if they’re feeling judged. Perhaps reaffirm that you’re not doing this as a criticism. (If you are doing it as a criticism, that’s kind of beyond the scope of this comment, but refer to the original post + ask them and yourself if this is the time and place, and if it’s any of your business.)
Remember whatever you learned from last time and don’t keep having the same conversation. Also, don’t do it all the time.
Excellent points! Yes, this is definitely a fun and interesting thing to engage with intellectually so long as both people feel like it’s being done in a non-judgmental or agendic way. Part of why I included the paragraphs about non-filtering being hard for some people is that I know there are some brains for which this genuinely doesn’t feel like it “should” be hostile or pressurey, since they don’t perceive it that way… but as in all things, that’s why your point about actually paying attention to what the other person says and taking it seriously is so important.
A slight nitpick: I think this treats their like of the activity applied to them as a scalar, but I think it’s also plausibly a function of how you, the applier, go about it. Like maybe they are very in to this activity as applied to them, but not in the way you do it.
Your wording here makes me curious: Are you saying the same thing twice here, or are you saying two different things? Does the phrase “X sucks” mean the same thing to you as “X is bad”, or is there a distinction?
Mostly saying the same thing twice, a rhetorical flourish. I guess just really doubling down on how this is not good, in case the reader was like “well this sucks incredibly but maybe there’s a good upside” and then got to the second part and was like “ah no I see now it is genuinely bad”, or vice versa.
I really like this post. Thanks for explaining a complicated thing well!
I think this dynamic in relationships, especially in a more minor form, sometimes emerges from a thing where, like … Especially if you’re used to talking with your partner about brains and preferences and philosophy and rationality and etc—like, a close partner who you hang out day-to-day with is interesting! You get access to someone else making different decisions than you’d make, with different heuristics!
When you want to do something hedonic with potential downsides, you know you’ve thought about the tradeoffs. You’re making a rational decision (of course). But this other person? Well, what’s going on in their head? And you ask them and they can’t immediately explain their process in a way that makes sense to you? Well, let’s get into that! You care about them! What if they’re making a mistake?
This isn’t always bad. Sometimes this can be an interesting and helpful exploration to do together. The thing is that from the other side, this can be indistinguishable from “my partner demands I justify things that make me happy and then criticizes whatever I say”, which sucks incredibly and is bad.
If you think you might be the offending partner in this particular situation, some surface-level ideas for not getting to that point:
Get a sense of the other person, and how into this kind of thing, as applied to them, they actually are. You can ask them outright but probably also want a vibe of like “do they participate enthusiastically and non-defensively”.
People also often have boundaries or topics they’re sensitive about. For instance, a lot of women have been policed obnoxiously and repeatedly about their weight and staying attractive—for the ice cream example in particular this could be a painful thing to stray into. Everyone’s are different, you probably have your own, keep this in mind.
Interrogate your own preferences vocally and curiously as often as you do theirs.
Are you coming at it from a place of curiosity and observation? Like, you’re going to support them in doing whatever they want and just go like “huh, people are so interesting, I love you in all your manifold complexity” even if you don’t ultimately understand, right?
If you think you might be doing this in the moment, pause and ask your interlocutor if they’re okay with this and if they’re feeling judged. Perhaps reaffirm that you’re not doing this as a criticism. (If you are doing it as a criticism, that’s kind of beyond the scope of this comment, but refer to the original post + ask them and yourself if this is the time and place, and if it’s any of your business.)
Remember whatever you learned from last time and don’t keep having the same conversation. Also, don’t do it all the time.
Excellent points! Yes, this is definitely a fun and interesting thing to engage with intellectually so long as both people feel like it’s being done in a non-judgmental or agendic way. Part of why I included the paragraphs about non-filtering being hard for some people is that I know there are some brains for which this genuinely doesn’t feel like it “should” be hostile or pressurey, since they don’t perceive it that way… but as in all things, that’s why your point about actually paying attention to what the other person says and taking it seriously is so important.
A slight nitpick: I think this treats their like of the activity applied to them as a scalar, but I think it’s also plausibly a function of how you, the applier, go about it. Like maybe they are very in to this activity as applied to them, but not in the way you do it.
Good point!
Your wording here makes me curious: Are you saying the same thing twice here, or are you saying two different things? Does the phrase “X sucks” mean the same thing to you as “X is bad”, or is there a distinction?
Mostly saying the same thing twice, a rhetorical flourish. I guess just really doubling down on how this is not good, in case the reader was like “well this sucks incredibly but maybe there’s a good upside” and then got to the second part and was like “ah no I see now it is genuinely bad”, or vice versa.