Unethical Discouragement

Hard things. This is a more serious post.

Men and women are hard things. Talking about "men and women" is hard, because every person has an opinion about relations between sexes, and every person thinks their opinion is best. But that's not true. The most expedient is not always the most loving, and therefore some best practices can be morally very dark practices. There can be objectivity--there is a place to discard situational ethics. Situational ethics, imho, is a giant excuse-making machine that allows us to enslave others in order to free ourselves.

Take this situation: Not wanting to lead someone on. In times when I didn't want to lead a man on: I've been unruly, harsh and critical because I didn't want to give off the impression that I would ever be interested in them. I said things that, outside of the context of me proving all the reasons why I could never love them, would be incredible hurtful to hear--incredibly damaging to their soul. Instead of discouraging the idea of a relationship between us, I sent the message that they lacked all the desirable qualities that other men all possessed.

It seemed like the best way of getting my point across clearly. It was expedient.

Having been on the receiving end of that for some time, I think this is not the best approach. What we forget is that a person rarely realizes that you're dissing them to show your disinterest. They rarely have the insight into your motives to know that your cruel commentary is just a small part of a bigger strategy to make an argument.

Not ever having perfect knowledge of another person's motives, we only know this much: someone who calls himself or herself a good friend of ours has a strangely low opinion of us and can often be found discounting us. When we mull the behavior around in our heads, there are so many contradictions. On the one hand, these people want to be around us and seek us out. On the other hand, they have this extraordinary list of our shortcomings and blemishes handy at all times to relay to us and to their friends.

It's an uneasy dissonance, at best. How many times my heart has burned when a "close" guy friend has made me feel undesirable, incompetent and inferior to other women. And it only now, years later {!!}, occurs to me that all of the subtle slights and implicit rejections may have been misguided attempts to discourage potential feelings.

Instead of saying "I don't want to be with you," we say instead, "You're not interesting enough, attractive enough, exciting enough." But that's not the same message. That second one isn't the right message to send to anyone, especially not a friend.

I have done this. I am so sorry.
I have experienced this. I am sorry for this, too.

Like all behaviors low on the ethical totem pole, this is easier to give than to receive.