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wispfoxNew topic in my head! Everyone rejoice! ;)
Also - it'll probably be apparent, but this is stuff I'm still trying to figure out/verbalize/understand.
In general, other people are not quite real to me. I think this is simply because my mind refuses to consider the sheer number of people I interact with, or perhaps the sheer number of people that exist. Whatever, it has an interesting effect on the reality of people in my head. This does *not* mean I will not treat people I don't know with curtesy - I do, even when not using in-person interactions (ie, email, phone - although phone is more difficult. And instance messanging is somewhere between email and phone). That was taught to me well enough, even though most people were even *less* real to me while I was learning this. I think my need to be courteous to people that I don't fully believe exist may also be partly related to empathy. But, I don't know. People are also the most real for me when interacting with them in-person.
People who have caught my attention to some degree appear to also have a very light bond form between me and them, at least from my perspective. This makes them more real in my head, and is something I appear to need in order for me to remember them at *all* later. Being very light, however, it does seem to only serve the purpose of giving people a placeholder in my head. This bond can easily change with interaction with people, either to be more intense, or gone. I will still remember their existence, but that's about it. And that remembering won't happen without external reminders. If I think someone will not be healthy for me to be around, I can pretty easily let this level of bond go.
With a slightly more intense bond, which tends to form with the initial direct in-person interaction with people who are likely to become at least somewhat close to me, I may seek people out without external prompting or reminders of my desire to get to know them better. At the least, the likelyhood is higher that I will want to go to things that they will be at. However, they will still not be completely real in my head when I am not interacting with them.
More intense a bond yet, I will seek the person out on my own, fairly consistantly. This tends to be the point where people are counted as friends by me, sometimes happens during the first in-person interaction, and sometimes takes a bit more interaction to get there. If it happens with first interaction, that's a pretty good sign for the friendship, from my end. This is also a point at which people are most of the way toward completely real, even when not interacting with them. It's exceedingly difficult (I'd almost say not possible) for someone I've never met to get to this point in my head. The closest a person I've not met seems to get to this is for me to have a strong desire to meet them. People in this category are people I will miss sometimes (usually infrequently, unless it's been a *long* time since I saw them last), although it will usually be missing forms of interaction with them, instead of simply missing *them*.
With a very intense bond, people continue to be totally real for me even when I'm not actively interacting with them. I'd once thought I needed a large amount of in person interaction for this to happen. This no longer seems to be completely accurate, although the amount of interaction required with a person that I don't see in person is *much* higher than if I do. And seems to take much longer. But I do still think that I need to have met the person before this is possible. And, for the most part, I tend to have a pretty good sense of this possibility fairly early on in the interaction, but a lack of in-person interaction can make that sense much less useful. People in this category are people I will miss. Not miss interaction, but simply miss. The frequency of missing people in this category tends to be some combination of how secure I feel in whatever the relationship is, whether or not I have a good sense of what to expect of the relationship, and how recently I've gotten good amounts of time with them. The definition of 'good amounts of time' seems to depend at least partly on what kinds of interaction conditions the bond was formed under. And, with effort, can be modified as necessary. Losing people in this category *hurts*, quite a lot. I don't tend to let people get here if I think they are likely to leave, simply because I don't tend to let such people get far enough in my brain to get to this point.
Also - it'll probably be apparent, but this is stuff I'm still trying to figure out/verbalize/understand.
In general, other people are not quite real to me. I think this is simply because my mind refuses to consider the sheer number of people I interact with, or perhaps the sheer number of people that exist. Whatever, it has an interesting effect on the reality of people in my head. This does *not* mean I will not treat people I don't know with curtesy - I do, even when not using in-person interactions (ie, email, phone - although phone is more difficult. And instance messanging is somewhere between email and phone). That was taught to me well enough, even though most people were even *less* real to me while I was learning this. I think my need to be courteous to people that I don't fully believe exist may also be partly related to empathy. But, I don't know. People are also the most real for me when interacting with them in-person.
People who have caught my attention to some degree appear to also have a very light bond form between me and them, at least from my perspective. This makes them more real in my head, and is something I appear to need in order for me to remember them at *all* later. Being very light, however, it does seem to only serve the purpose of giving people a placeholder in my head. This bond can easily change with interaction with people, either to be more intense, or gone. I will still remember their existence, but that's about it. And that remembering won't happen without external reminders. If I think someone will not be healthy for me to be around, I can pretty easily let this level of bond go.
With a slightly more intense bond, which tends to form with the initial direct in-person interaction with people who are likely to become at least somewhat close to me, I may seek people out without external prompting or reminders of my desire to get to know them better. At the least, the likelyhood is higher that I will want to go to things that they will be at. However, they will still not be completely real in my head when I am not interacting with them.
More intense a bond yet, I will seek the person out on my own, fairly consistantly. This tends to be the point where people are counted as friends by me, sometimes happens during the first in-person interaction, and sometimes takes a bit more interaction to get there. If it happens with first interaction, that's a pretty good sign for the friendship, from my end. This is also a point at which people are most of the way toward completely real, even when not interacting with them. It's exceedingly difficult (I'd almost say not possible) for someone I've never met to get to this point in my head. The closest a person I've not met seems to get to this is for me to have a strong desire to meet them. People in this category are people I will miss sometimes (usually infrequently, unless it's been a *long* time since I saw them last), although it will usually be missing forms of interaction with them, instead of simply missing *them*.
With a very intense bond, people continue to be totally real for me even when I'm not actively interacting with them. I'd once thought I needed a large amount of in person interaction for this to happen. This no longer seems to be completely accurate, although the amount of interaction required with a person that I don't see in person is *much* higher than if I do. And seems to take much longer. But I do still think that I need to have met the person before this is possible. And, for the most part, I tend to have a pretty good sense of this possibility fairly early on in the interaction, but a lack of in-person interaction can make that sense much less useful. People in this category are people I will miss. Not miss interaction, but simply miss. The frequency of missing people in this category tends to be some combination of how secure I feel in whatever the relationship is, whether or not I have a good sense of what to expect of the relationship, and how recently I've gotten good amounts of time with them. The definition of 'good amounts of time' seems to depend at least partly on what kinds of interaction conditions the bond was formed under. And, with effort, can be modified as necessary. Losing people in this category *hurts*, quite a lot. I don't tend to let people get here if I think they are likely to leave, simply because I don't tend to let such people get far enough in my brain to get to this point.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-13 04:03 pm (UTC)*looks at her list of readers* Yup.
Re: the rest - interesting.
And re: empathy being a factor in "reality" - I know it's a factor for me. I literally don't notice people who have no spark. To the point where I bump into them sometimes. No one's really real for me without that spark.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-13 07:40 pm (UTC)(spark. sparky!)
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 09:01 pm (UTC)Why?
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 09:10 pm (UTC)Or whether you were ever likely to interact with people without a spark on any substantial basis?
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 09:11 pm (UTC)Poorly written, the lot of it, I know.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-26 09:20 pm (UTC)No, I understand that this topic would be difficult to English. I'm just curious how other people see the world. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-02-13 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-13 04:38 pm (UTC)Actually, to some degree, it *is*. You're firmly associated with monkeys in my head!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-13 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-13 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-13 06:16 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-13 07:08 pm (UTC)“Because we have objectified animals, we are able to treat them impersonally” (Barry Lopez).
Also, depersonalisation. Also, a short hop-skip-jump to solipsism: "Belief that only I myself and my own experiences are real, while anything else—a physical object or another person—is nothing more than an object of my consciousness. As a philosophical position, solipsism is usually the unintended consequence of an over-emphasis on the reliability of internal mental states, which provide no evidence for the existence of external referents."
http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/s7.htm
no subject
Date: 2004-02-13 07:39 pm (UTC)How are people one doesn't know *not* impersonal? I mean, how does one possibly have any sort of sense of them?
*is confused*
Also, thanks for extra verbage! :)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-13 09:21 pm (UTC)Frinst, people who objectify their pets have an easier time of debarking/declawing/abusing/abandoning them, since they are viewed as objects, not as living things with needs and the ability to feel pain.
"Rarely used in modern parapsychology, the popular usage of this term refers to a low-level form of telepathy wherein the empath appears to be aware of the emotional state of a distant person."
So if I were to objectify someone, I would be shutting off my empathy for that person, my emotional connection with that person, regardless of whether I know them that well. Objectification exists in all sorts of places - against women, against races, against animals, against technical service people (*ahem*), against other drivers, and so forth. It's when I fail to look at a person as another human being, and instead focus on one or two traits (asshole driver, idiot tech rep, la la la).
Look at objectifying women, for example. When a man objectified his wife (thinking a few decades back, here), he wouldn't take into account how she felt about things, what she needed and wanted, and so forth. He treated her like a housewife, not as a human being.
And now I am ababble. Beg pardon!
no subject
Date: 2004-02-13 09:45 pm (UTC)*thoughtful*
And yes, I'm aware that you're not the one who suggested the possibility. :)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-13 10:41 pm (UTC)Maybe this?: "I think my need to be courteous to people that I don't fully believe exist may also be partly related to empathy."
no subject
Date: 2004-02-13 09:51 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-15 03:46 pm (UTC)