Do you believe me?

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Prompted by the Myers Briggs thread, I have been thinking about my relative inability to take things at face value. I certainly do read too much into people's behavior and have a tendency to over-interpret what I perceive to be 'hidden meanings'.

Am I mental? Or do you have trouble taking things at face value?

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 09:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I seem to focus more on why the person is saying something rather than what they are saying and then make value judgments. I wonder why I can't just accept and believe. It would make life a lot simpler.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 09:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I *totally* do this. I used to take people utterly at face value, to the point where a lot of people used to think of me as gullible.

An Evil Person trained me out of this habit by, basically, lying, manipulating, twisting everything I or anyone else said (the joke goes: How do you tell if Person X is lying? His lips are moving) until I was so mixed up and scared that I no longer knew what to believe.

With him, everything was a game, nothing EVER meant what was face value, if you couldn't *guess* the real intention behind what he was saying, then you faced Horrible Consequences.

I'm really angry and bitter about this, because I am no longer able to take *anything* at face value, I have to think about why it's being said, what is really meant - even when it's something simple and there really is nothing else intended. I hate this. :-(

― kate, Thursday, 13 February 2003 09:33 (twenty-three years ago)

you need a Good Person to turn you around then. Why can't you just see that the behavior was a result of interaction with the Evil Person, and distance yourself from it (as you've already identified it)

― Vic (Vic), Thursday, 13 February 2003 09:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think that experience has led me to act in this way, like it has Kate. I wonder if it's a defense mechanism or whether it's pure common sense.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 09:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I am skeptical, but also have an incredible amount of faith in human nature too. Emma's much less inclined to believe people than I am, and much more likely to make the negative inferrence of any given situation, whereas I generally take the more positive side but not unassumingly or without a sense of awareness. I guess that's the difference between cynicism and skepticism. William and I are both very skeptical and analytical, but also incredibly idealist too.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 13 February 2003 09:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Reading things into people's behavior and taking a person's words at face value are very different things.

To the extent the two conflict, perhaps what you call value judgments may be a way of resolving any cognitive dissonance that may exist.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 09:59 (twenty-three years ago)

I do.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 10:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The conflict is my issue Felicity. Taking an example within a friendship: I can perfectly well understand how someone could love me but when someone tells me that they do, I wonder why they are telling me at this moment (i.e. is there a significance) and become conscious of their mannerisms etc.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 10:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, I am naturally suspicious when people articulate things that seem to go without saying, but having someone tell you they love you is also kind of nice in itself.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 10:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh lara, I was responding to Kate's post, not yours - SORRY! I should use NAMES!

― Vic (Vic), Thursday, 13 February 2003 10:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, I am naturally suspicious when people articulate things that seem to go without saying, but having someone tell you they love you is also kind of nice in itself.

Not if you don't think they mean it. Or if you're wonderign what they mean by love.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:00 (twenty-three years ago)

New entry for TYPO QUEEN.

Let this thread not focus purely on believing whether someone loves you or not. That opens up a whole different kettle of badgers. My initial question was meant to be much more general than that.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I think this is a very difficult area to generalize about. The inductive method of proof can also be useful.

I agree it would be lame for a person to say "I love you" if I had reason to think it weren't true. If I weren't sure I'd like to think I could give them the benefit of the doubt. But talk is cheap.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:10 (twenty-three years ago)

But talk is cheap.

Yeah, he should have to buy you stuff to prove it.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:15 (twenty-three years ago)

I respectfully disagree.

But he should at least clean up or something.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Ha ha. I was disrespectfully joking. I can but my own stuff that *suits* and *fits* and the like.

If I weren't sure I'd like to think I could give them the benefit of the doubt.

Why should I be making the logical leap? Why don't I just accept it? I mean, I met a chap last night who said that he likes women with lost of shoes. Now, I am a woman with lost of shoes and I immediately started thinking that he's been doing research rather than wondering what in God's name his statement said about him.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:28 (twenty-three years ago)

I tend to be the opposite, being too trusting and giving people the benefit of the doubt when they really shouldn't be. Even now when I really should know better I can't break myself of the habit of doing this.

― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:28 (twenty-three years ago)

I wonder which one of us is more deluded?

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:30 (twenty-three years ago)

There are probably sensible people somewhere in the middle, I'm guessing.

― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Why should I be making the logical leap? Why don't I just accept it?

Those are excellent questions. I think only you can ever know. I was speaking for myself about taking it on faith. I wasn't implying that anyone else should.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:33 (twenty-three years ago)

No. no. That's understood.

Imagine how well adapted (and goddamn, downright sexy, intelligent, alluring etc. etc.) a Lara-Nicole hybrid would be?

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:36 (twenty-three years ago)

nine years pass...

but it would be awful awful sad
to give love and you treat me so bad

― Tome Cruise (Matt P), Sunday, 25 November 2012 10:10 (thirteen years ago)

i believe you Tome Curise (Matt P)

― Tome Cruise (Matt P), Sunday, 25 November 2012 10:18 (thirteen years ago)

thank you

― Tome Cruise (Matt P), Sunday, 25 November 2012 10:18 (thirteen years ago)

so much

― Tome Cruise (Matt P), Sunday, 25 November 2012 10:19 (thirteen years ago)

THIS GROOVE IS BAD SEE SKYY

― Tome Cruise (Matt P), Sunday, 25 November 2012 10:20 (thirteen years ago)

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