We are capable of various forms of deceit but what bothers me the most is the conspicuous attempt made by individuals to manipulate a person or a group of persons for no meaningful end or gain. The betrayal is harder to digest when it happens within a group of close friends. Sometimes we come across an event in our life which reminds us that we were correct in our assessment of the said individual the first time around. Our first impressions are rarely wrong, especially if we are capable of feeling a sense of empathy with the people we interact with. It is understandable when a person is faced with a surprising turn of events that he may need to share the same with his group of close people, be it friends or family. It is also part of his expectation that the listening ears will be sympathetic towards him. If the people he talks to really do care about him, they will always stand by him no matter what. But the individual must understand that he cannot manipulate their responses and corner them so they are left with no choice but to only remain formal with him.
Some news in our lives take us by surprise and yes we take a little more time to perhaps digest it, or wrap our heads around the truth of our lives. It does not give anyone the excuse to make a conditional statement and ask for a verbal agreement to accept whatever he says and only make positive comments on the issue. The idle mind is truly a devil’s toolshed, because the more the group thinks about it the clearer it becomes that the said individual was orchestrating an event of telling the truth or confessing up to a fact in such a way so he can manipulate the rest of the audience into a certain response of positive or negative nature as he desires. It is like the attempt made by the prosecutor or defending lawyer to push the jury’s verdict one way or the other.
It is always an assumption that within the sacred boundaries of close friendship, judgment is always lesser than in other places yet to manipulate a group of friends into accepting whatever we say so that they are left feeling suspicious of the conversation that they have had, not as a general flow of events, but as one dramatic dialogue written by a cunning playwright. By all means we may ask for sympathy and understanding but we cannot make a serious allegation against people close to us by assuming that there is a need to ensure positive responses by any means. That’s just being selfish and childish at the same time. We may take some life changing decisions, or some life changing events may be thrust upon us, but to defend against the feeling of alienation if we decide to manipulate the people who are there to give the black and white of the scene, and always see our actions with a feeling of empathy, then we will only feed on our paranoia and end up being alienated for real.
Ask for unadulterated support, ask for sympathy, demand understanding, expect optimism but do not try to manipulate the response of close friends, because they will eventually see through the little plan to modulate a conversation towards a topic in a group. They will see through the insecurities, attempts to gain sympathy and we will drop down a few notch in their esteem. We must never forget that our past doesn’t really remain forgotten, someone always remembers. And although over the years people may choose to forget indiscreet communications full of melodramatic life events – sometimes conveniently time delayed terminal and very much real diseases, they may return to haunt people’s memory in case of failed attempts to manipulate that lacks creativity and discretion.
The worse outcome is of course when having achieved the manipulated response, the individual is so confused or perhaps addicted to melodrama that he constantly negates the positives mouthed by the polite and concerned friends in order to continue to remain negative himself and continuously expect each and every one to come to the rescue of the subject and inject optimism into it.
It is after all your life, and if you are having trouble dealing with your decisions, after all they are your decisions – choosing not to do anything is also a decision – ask for support but do not give out mixed confused signals after having pretty much blackmailed your close friends into a ‘line of controlled thought and opinion’. If you are paranoid and do not want to be fed by other’s frenzy learn to avoid or filter things and if you can’t, then at least don’t play the helpless waif who has no one to listen to him or take care of him and who is left to fend for himself on the road side. Being a manipulative person does not suit the pretentious – holier than thou – innocent little thing in distress – the self-confessed un diagnosed sufferer of OCD and other non-terminal diseases – persona you have so carefully created over the years.
You have made a choice live with it, please don’t badger others with your negativity and expect optimism and silver linings,
THE END.
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