Rebelling against popularity rule

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There are two popularity rules:

1. First impression rule (even if you are a saint, if you didn't do well on a first date, then their opinion of you is not great)

2. Friends opinion rule (even if you do great with a person you date, if their friends don't like you, then your date might have some reservations, too)

Now, ppl who are dishonest (most of the NT-s) try their best on both of htem. They make good first impressions and make good image in terms of friend's opinion, but it is only because they are more skillful, NOT because they actually are better ppl. After all, the quality of person is reflected by what they do on a daily basis, NOT what they happened to be doing on a first date. The only reason first date is any different is that you are TRYING to look better than you are really are. Likewise, the quality of a person is decided by their long term interaction with their date, not what their friends happened to think which might be baseless. So judging ppl by these shallow things is unfair ... Its like you dislike someone for being "too clumsy" to jump through this hoop.

Anyway, since dishonest ppl try to make their best on the above two things, ultra-honest ppl should do the opposite. They should DELIBERATELY act on a first date WORSE than they normally are, and also they should deliberately be rude whenever they are introduced to the friends of a person they are dating. Now, of course, deliberately being rude is not about being ultra-honest, it is about being a jerk (even if it happens to be your "first meeting" or "someone's friend"). Nevertheless, when you were really angry at the way the world operates, did you ever have a temptation do do just that? That is, either be deliberately rude during first meeting, or deliberately rude when someone introduces you to your friend?

Even though rude is rude, do you think that may be it is not AS bad as being rude in other situaitons since, at least, you are doing that "honestly"? Or do you think it is actually worse, since it is about deliberately do things to piss ppl off and/or because you believe the world has some wisdom so if most NT-s think its worse, it got to be worse?

Why be rude? What purpose does it serve?

I know that if someone was rude to me it wouldn't feel nice. I believe that people should treat others as they would like to be treated.

No I mean, be all nice to your date. But when your date introduces you to his/her friends, be rude to THEM. And then when your date doesn't like you becaues of what THEY said, confront him/her on why he/she trusts in popularity rule.

Now I konw the answer to this question is that, quite independently of "popularity", what I do EMBARASSES the person I am dating, not just myself. Besides, the fact that I am "using" their friend to play out my own grudges is disrespectful to their friend. Thats why every single poll option says it is bad. But perhaps the "popularity" component makes it less bad since, at least part of it, is embarassing ONESELF, not her, and embarassing ONESELF is a sign of honesty.

If someone was rude to my friends, I would assume that the first behaviour was pretence. The same as if a person on a date was rude to waiters/servers and not to me. A persons behaviour with others reflects how they will treat a person later in the relationship usually.

This really doesn't make sense. LostAlien is correct; if you're nasty to people around you, then your date is going to presume that you are just pretending to be a nice person when you're with her.

Your date is not trusting popularity rule, she is trusting her friends, people whose judgement she knows from experience that she can rely on. She is seeing and hearing about you being horrible to people she cares about and making up her own mind that you are not a nice person.

I think I know what you are trying to say; you want your date to judge you herself, not on what her friends think of you. That's fair enough, but if you deliberately set out to be rude to her friends, how is that any less dishonest than if you were to suck up to them and act ultra-charming? The honest thing to do would be to be pleasant and friendly to them like you would any group of people you have just met.

Like it or not, to most people their friends are very important to them and they rely on them to point things out that they themselves may have maybe missed in the haze of new romance/infatuation. Collateral history can be very important in deciding someone's true character, so if her friends tell her you acted horribly, then she should not dismiss their reports. She may want to know why they think you are horrible, and may confront you about it, but if you turn around and say "yeah, I was deliberately rude to them" then you can probably kiss goodbye your chances of another date. These are people she cares about and you are using them as pawns in whatever mind game you are trying to play.



Wtf? How does the fact that you are embarassing yourself as well make it ok to embarass other people or put down their friends? Embarassment has nothing to do with honesty. If anything, the more honest you are the less you should be ashamed of yourself.

Just because you make an ass out of yourself in the process of your mind games, doesn't make it any better. You have still humiliated your date and her friends. She is embarrassed because she thought you were a nice guy, and now that you've behaved like an arse to her friends, it looks like she has really poor judgement in men.

Honesty
on·es·ty
   /ˈɒnəsti/ Show Spelled[on-uh-stee] Show IPA
–noun,plural-ties.
1.
the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness.
2.
truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness.
3.
freedom from deceit or fraud.
4.
Botany. a plant, Lunaria annua, of the mustard family, having clusters of purple flowers and semitransparent, satiny pods.
5.
Obsolete. chastity.

I don't see embarassing oneself up there

Primary topic aside....

This is absurd. And your attempt to separate people by 'how honest they are' is naive at best, conveniently simplified and self-deluding in general, and willfully destructive at worst.

Good luck with that. Tell us how it goes.

I'm not a man of faith, but there's a prayer that comes to mind:
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I really like that prayer.

This thread brings up some issues I really find interesting and, in a "former life" so to speak, terribly frustrating.

If I were suddenly thrust into the dating arena again, I would personally avoid anyone who could be easily swayed by her friends. I've dated, however briefly, one girl who insisted I pass the approval of her friends--people who already didn't like me and relished the opportunity to pass judgment. It was a doomed relationship from the beginning, and I'm relieved it didn't last very long!

I've also suffered the misfortune of a lasting relationship in which the girl's friends didn't like me. Even worse, she seemed to be truly in love with me. But her representation of me to her buddies was horribly unfavorable. Naturally, a girl's friends are going to take up her side. She wins every time. She gets to complain to her friends how much of an idiot I am and they get to reinforce those behaviors. I could go on and on about it, but the short story is those kinds of relationships should not be allowed to stand. You have a girl that treats you like that, RUN FOR THE HILLS!! !!

The approval of friends should never be prerequisite for a meaningful relationship.

Turn the tables. Let's say you date a sweet lady who, for whatever reason, doesn't fit the physical or social bill and yet is a wonderful partner--loving, kind, laughs at your lame jokes, and so on, and is likewise kind and respectful (if a little socially awkward) to and of your friends. And yet your friends give you a hard time about her. Wouldn't you want to slap them down if you could and defend the honors that she does possess? Or at least tell them to show enough decency to keep their mouths shut about it around you?

If my girlfriend is hanging out with the kind of people I fear will turn her against me, I'll give her two options: Either stand up to them or get new friends. But DON'T make ME look like an idiot. I do that well enough on my own!

It reminds me of some much older friends I have who have been badly burned by women in their past. When I first started hanging out with these guys, it wasn't long before conversations turned towards woman-bashing. I caught myself joining in--not out of sincerity, but just out of that in-the-moment peer pressure kind of thing. I thought about it on the way home and said to myself, "That's not how I really feel." I haven't spoken to ANYONE negatively about my significant other since, and what I've noticed is the woman-bashing thing among my friends came to a halt--not because I told them about how I felt, but because they started to notice I didn't take part in those kinds of conversations. I make it a point even if I am angry or upset by something, I KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT about it. She's worth more than that to me.

So even if I was back into dating, I'd find a woman with the same attitude.

That whole popularity, personality thing is crap. Don't buy into it. And don't stand for anyone who does.

This blows my mind. I cannot see where on Earth your logic is. Why would you be deliberately rude to someone who has done nothing to you? Honesty is not about being rude. It is about being yourself. The date would be concerned with you being deliberately rude to others because that's wrong. Now she knows that you are a jerk to people other than her and now she wonders if you will be rude to her once you get comfortable. I think you are doing this as some sort of childish attempt at anti-conformity you mistake for nonconformity. Anti-conformity is just as pointless as conformity. If you want to be a true nonconformist, be yourself and stop playing mindgames.

That isn't actually turning the tables since it posits a "sweet lady", "wonderful partner" and many other positive qualities who is "kind and respectful to you and your friends". Of course such a person should be defended. But the OP actually contemplated being purposefully rude to the friends, not "kind and respectful". Sp let's truly turn the tables- if you were dating a lady who was nice to you but absolutely a horrible b****** to your friends, would you defend her to them? And on what grounds?

If you're rude to someones friends in front of them, the person is going to think you're a prick regardless of what the friends say.

If your rude to the friends (not in front of the date) Then the person will probably argue that you seemed nice, but take what they say into consideration. Why? Not because of some stupid rule.

Because people trust opinions of friends, who the know well and try to look out for them.

First of all, I can't comprehend why the OP posits deliberate rudeness as a means to a favorable outlook from a mate's friends. Most of us seem to agree this doesn't really make any kind of sense. My response was in the spirit of giving others the esteem you'd want for yourself.

But in response to Janissy, I won't say what I WOULD do, but rather what I DID do in a situation very much like what Janissy (and the OP) describes. Yes, I would defend her on the basis that, having gotten to know her personally, I know her better than my friends do. I would do this because I would hope that someone else would give me the same kind of chance and take the time to get to know me before passing unkind judgments. But as soon as I could be alone with my girl, I'd gently explain that this behavior is inappropriate and must never happen again. If she persists in doggin' my friends, I'll either decide not to trust her around my friends and keep her away from them or I'll just cut her loose. I dated someone like that, and as fragile as I am socially, I was afraid to take her with me to college parties. Not bringing your date to social events is just wrong. But even worse is bringing her and being scared of how much she's going to embarrass me.

I'm guessing that what he's talking about is a theoretical institutional change, so-as to separate the so-called honest people from dishonest people by making the difference obvious - Those who make a good impression are clearly lying and being dishonest, while those who make a bad impression are being utterly honest, and are thus making faux pas. I'm guessing it's just a thought experiment that he's talking about here, without any intended basis in reality. A flight of fancy whereas he can more ably prove how much better a person he is by pointedly changing nothing about himself or how he presents himself for a first impression.

Too bad for him that, other obvious issues aside, first impressions, and peoples' stereotypical reactions to them, are there for a extremely good, valid, logical reasons. Being unable to make a good first impression is usually indicative of other serious issues that seriously hamper a relationships health via the health of that individual.

And that there's no such separation between honest people and dishonest people that exists in reality. By our unconsciously self-centered human nature, those who attempt to define honesty will generally include themselves within that group. Case and point here.

Would you apply this statement to aspies (provided that you are one of them)? After all Asperger is all about being "too clumsy" to make good first impression.

I think the bolded word is important. Aspies are a minority. General social rules are crafted based around the majority. The point sound makes about a good first impression usually being indicative of more significant issues is exactly why the dating realm is so hard for many Aspies. It sucks, but that doesn't make it senseless.

And can we please lay off the "most NT's suck/lie/cheat/manipulate/abuse, etc." line? it's really pretty tiresome.

Although I agree that this is a basically accurate, if coarse, stereotype, I don't believe it is an accurate conclusion. We tend to be socially clumsy, but we need not be too clumsy to be socially effective.

Having AS does not necessitate being socially unaware/unskilled.
It means we tend to intuit social stuff slower, and it makes the process more difficult, but it does not prevent us from learning it nonetheless, particularly via non-intuitive means.
If you do what it takes to improve your social capacities, then you can close most of the performance gap between us and NTs, over time. The more effective your own process of improvement, the faster you close the gap.
This is also possible to do while being an honest person.

And, Yes, I have been diagnosed via a carefully moderated 9 hour battery of tests by a very experienced PhD Neurologist, further correlated to the experiences and judgment with my primary counselor.
According to the test results, my cognitive potential in some areas seemed to be really down in the pits, incredibly underdeveloped, compared to my other mental capacities. Presumably those underdeveloped capacities correlate with my social sensitivity, as I was extremely clumsy before my mid 20s. Still clumsy now, but far, far less.