Had someone tell me, while mid-conversation Monday-morning quarterbacking some Burn work from 2018, that if I'd been more vulnerable, people would have believed me about a twisted ankle. They went on in the vein of advice of "be more emotionally vulnerable!", and did not seem pleased when my emotional vulnerability revealed in a whole lot of rage as the predominant emotion. I shouldn't have to perform the vulnerability dance to be believed when I say I'm injured or overloaded - that is some asinine shit.
There was a lot going on in that conversation, but the entire thing, plus somebody else getting upset at me for an encouraging comment that didn't strike the right note, has caused me to severely narrow my desire to deal with wide swathes of my Internet friends today.
This isn't the first time someone's told me I need to open up more as the solution to people being assholes. It's not even the first time they were surprised and unhappy to find out that the result of them not liking what they find when I am more emotive, was me being filled with rage. Sitting here, remembering how bad it felt to hobble around on that ankle: and also be told by other camp members I'd been desperately trying to cat herd and get support from all year, that I wasn't doing enough, I can't find it in me to be sorry. Or sympathetic.
On Tumblr, one of the folks I follow talks a lot about how the drive to be emotionally genuine and open almost forces people to do that when they're not comfortable in a situation. She also talks about writing assignments delving into traumatic events. I think I'm maybe seeing another side of it: clearly vulnerability is working for this guy, and his social bonds. So perhaps he has a hammer, and this is the nail.
I don't know. I just think this guy is just being such a shit, so much so that it drowns out his argument.