[LINK] An internet source of offended people misunderstanding each other.

19 points

expand_less expand_more

Mar 8, 2013

I was planning to post this at some point, but now it's relevant as an interesting example of people perceiving the same event differently when they're offended. Now, we can observe the effects of offendedness on people's cognition! A Bad Case of the Dates is one of those internet humor sites that curate stories of weird behavior on dates. Some of the stories read like the person is suffering a psychotic break, but some of them just read like inexplicable weirdness.

Except now they're posting rebuttals! Which means you can read both peoples' perceptions of the events!

I didn't read that many, but here are some observations from reading a few pairs:

Offended people are good at keeping track of what general topic is being talked about but not what is said about or how it is being discussed.
Offended people easily distort things like time, the number of times something repetitive happened, etc.
Offended people write about their own actions as if they are doing everything they can to keep the situation peaceful, while describing the other person's actions as hostile and escalating. Is this because offended people think they are keeping their offendedness perfectly hidden, while in reality the other person can see it?
Offended people seem to read more additional offensiveness from the actions of the other person without sufficient evidence. They stop taking the person's words at face value and start reading more into connotation.

Overall, I used to think this site was pretty funny because some of the stories are really weird. But after reading this section, I just can't quite read it anymore because now I can roughly extrapolate all the distortions that the person is putting onto the non-rebutted stories. And the whole thing seems tragic now because it seems like these people go in with good intentions and then something really tiny just flips a switch in their brain and they turn defensive and stop communicating/cooperating and instead start cherrypicking their experience for false evidence that the other person is an inexplicably evil.

(And, of course, given that this is the internet, I realize that all of these could be completely fictional even though they claim that they're not.)

EDIT: I guess I'd say that definitely the stories are over-dramatized, which is rewarded by the website, so I wouldn't claim that these are real data. But I do think they are useful cautionary tales of not framing your narratives as "one time I met a crazy person who acted weird and crazy" and instead "one time I met a person who acted in a way that looked weird to me because I don't know / didn't realize something. Maybe they had this set of plausible reasons." More practice for making and testing hypotheses!

19 points

expand_less expand_more

Comments

sorted by

Highlighting new comments since Today at 1:03 AM

All comments loaded

ABadCaseOfTheDates

14 points

expand_less expand_more

I'm Jared. I run abadcaseofthedates.com, and I really appreciate the discussion.

Early on, I realized that it's very likely possible that it may be just one thing that upsets someone on a date, which they then explode out into a full date's worth of offense, in the subsequent story. I'm no expert in cognition, but in my unscientific opinion, and having read thousands of these stories, what I can surmise is that there is no such thing as the simple truth. There are, however, a lot of people who are incompatible, from a romantic standpoint. If the site can make someone smile, then at least some good may have come out of it.

14 points

expand_less expand_more

7 points

expand_less expand_more

Whoaaaa. Hi Jared! Did we sent you traffic? =]

Can you give us some insight about how you decide which stories are too boring and which stories are too unbelievable? And maybe the approximate breakdown! What percentage of submitted stories do you throw away?

7 points

expand_less expand_more

ABadCaseOfTheDates

10 points

expand_less expand_more

You did, indeed, and thanks for it.

Most stories that are sent in don't make it up. Many run along the lines of, "We went out and she didn't talk the whole time and it was boring and the end" or "We went out and he stared at my chest the whole time and the end." I like stories that are well-told, and very clearly about specific people with specific quirks. Those are the most interesting to me, and I hope that those are the most interesting to my audience. I edit most posts to conform to spelling, grammar, logic, and readability considerations. Of course, I have absolutely no way to verify the veracity of submitted stories, but if I'm on the fence as to whether or not it seems possible, I usually give the writer the benefit of the doubt. Mostly because I've been on some bad dates, myself, and I know how strange some people can behave. At least, from my perspective. I've been posting rebuttals since I received the first one, back in 2011. I don't receive them too often (after all, the odds that someone will find a story about themselves on there is quite low), but am grateful for those I've received.

I can understand how some of it comes across as "tragic," as a majority of conflict seems to come from misunderstandings. However, as my grandfather said, "better the divorce should come before the wedding." I hope that you and your readers can continue to find some laughs in the site, going forward.

10 points

expand_less expand_more

13 points

expand_less expand_more

Now, we can observe the effects of offendedness on people's cognition! A Bad Case of the Dates is one of those internet humor sites that curate stories of weird behavior on dates.

Wow. An entire site devoted to happy endings! In all cases at least one of the individuals reveals their obnoxious side early (either one of them is a jackass, one of them gets offended too easily or their social interaction styles are incompatible). Both parties then move straight to finding people they are compatible with. Leaves me with a warm glow of hope.

13 points

expand_less expand_more

1 points

expand_less expand_more

Yeah, that's definitely a good thing. But sometimes they're people that got along fine in their philosophy class or whatever and suddenly they can't interact outside of it. Those are the ones that make me sad. Some of them are so inexplicably weird that the only explanation I can think of is the person just ... didn't know how to leave politely? So they invented crazy excuses?

1 points

expand_less expand_more

7 points

expand_less expand_more

Some people (cough Luke A Somers cough but not only) when offended have a real problem noticing if the fundamental cause of their offense was a misinterpretation. They demand an apology, and are told (correctly) that the offending remark was never made, or that there is an alternate interpretation - but are unable to perceive this alternate interpretation. This response, in their view, compounds the offense by a refusal to take responsibility and apologize.

It's tough to get out of, but simply being aware that this happens is a big help. "I have a blind spot" is very useful information.

7 points

expand_less expand_more

6 points

expand_less expand_more

People dramatize to get published. What they write says little about how they perceived the situation.

6 points

expand_less expand_more

6 points

expand_less expand_more

Offended people are good at keeping track of what general topic is being talked about but not what is said about or how it is being discussed.

Seems to me that instead of specific details they remember a generalization, but the problem is that (at least from the other person's view) they generalized it incorrectly.

Example: I say that I disagree with something specific that some other person X said. The other person decides to remember that I hate [a large group of people X belongs to]. The specific argument I disagreed with or the specific person X is forgotten.

Offended people easily distort things like time, the number of times something repetitive happened, etc.

Also, they can artificially increase the number of repetitions by recalling the offending topic.

For example, on day 1 I say "X" and the other person gets offended. I apologize and decide to avoid the topic further. However, on day 2, the person reminds me: "you are the one who said X, aren't you?". The same thing happens on days 3, 4, 5. At the end, the person remembers that I spent five days offending them.

Offended people write about their own actions as if they are doing everything they can to keep the situation peaceful

Sometimes the proposed peace plan is: "you call off everything you ever said, whether related or unrelated to the offensive topic, and you also precommit to agree with me on everything in the future". And then the person is surprised how could such a generous offer get rejected.

Offended people [...] stop taking the person's words at face value and start reading more into connotation.

I would call it: at some moment they start arguing with themselves (with their mental image of The Enemy). You could stay completely quiet or walk away, and the conflict would still escalate. Every word you say only makes the situation worse, because by mere act of responding you legitimize their monologue.

(Meta: Having this experience first-hand could also be an evidence for my low communication skills. Or at least the low skill of detecting and carefully avoiding mentally unstable people.)

6 points

expand_less expand_more

3 points

expand_less expand_more

You could stay completely quiet or walk away, and the conflict would still escalate.

Fortunately, the conflict doesn't have me in it.

Or at least the low skill of detecting and carefully avoiding mentally unstable people.

My favorite skill. In fact, this almost deserves an entry into that "Advice" thread that is floating around!

3 points

expand_less expand_more

AspiringRationalist

5 points

expand_less expand_more

My favorite skill. In fact, this almost deserves an entry into that "Advice" thread that is floating around!

Any particular advice on how to detect/avoid mentally unstable people?

5 points

expand_less expand_more

10 points

expand_less expand_more

Usually my intuition warns me "with this person there will be some trouble", but I understand that this information is not very helpful. Perhaps only in form: If you have a feeling that this person may cause trouble, notice the feeling and remember it, even if you don't or can't act on in.

Specific things which warned me about a person, and later were confirmed; possible confirmation bias here:

There was a new guy at a workplace, and he immediately tried to be friendly with me, spoke about becoming allies in case of a conflict, and gave me unsolicited advice about how to defend or counter-attack in case of a conflict. I was generally polite but refused any deeper discussion. Later he created many conflicts with many people because of his incompetence and unethical behavior, and despite having some powerful allies he was finally fired.
There was a lady I met at a meetup from a different website. We changed contacts and she started sending me e-mails, at least three every day; and if I didn't respond within a few hours, she sent another e-mail asking whether I was angry at her. When I said I simply didn't have time, she said I should not lie because she saw me commenting on the website. Then she stalked me for three years and blackmailed me, but I cut off all communication with her, so after three years she gave up.
There was a guy recommended to me by mutual friends, because he wanted to start some computer project, so my friends thought I should talk with him because he is extremely smart and the project may be interesting for me. So I met him. He seemed and smelled like a homeless person, and he started by offending me; but he really was very smart, and I admit that while talking with him for a few hours I learned a lot about programming (and I learned more later reading the list of books he recommended me). Despite that, I wanted to avoid him. My friends kept pressing me into cooperating with him, saying that yes he is weird, but he is so smart the he will become a millionaire soon. At the end I lended him some money for his project. I never saw those money again; the guy gradually became crazy, lost his business, all money, home, friends, and today he really is homeless.
There was a teacher at university who started her first lesson by saying: "I never make problems to students, if they study my lessons carefully." She did a lot of problems to many students.
There was an older guy on a (non-LW) meetup I organized once. He did not fit in the group, so he focused on me, and wanted my attention all the time. While other people had fun for the next few hours (I suppose), I kept answering his questions about why his e-mail does not work, why his printer does not work, and thousand other IT support questions. At the end I was so tired that I never organized another meetup for the same audience.
There was a girl in my class who said everyone hated her. At the first day I said "Hello" and she said "You probably hate me too". I said I don't. I tried to talk a bit, but she reacted offended at everything, especially the things I did not say but she heard them anyway. At the end of the day I really hated her. Then I just avoided her, and everything was okay.

These are the examples that came to my mind quickly. Is there a common pattern?

One pattern seems to be: People who have many conflicts learn to expect conflicts. So if you meet someone who expects conflicts and talks about it, consider that maybe they start all the conflicts. Either by doing something evil, or by reacting insanely disproportionally on normal behavior of other people. They are probably doing this for years, so they are unlikely to change tomorrow.

Other pattern: If something strange happens in the beginning, expect 10 times more strange things following later. So if the first contact felt unpleasant to you, run!

10 points

expand_less expand_more

-3 points

expand_less expand_more

There was a guy recommended to me by mutual friends, because he wanted to start some computer project, so my friends thought I should talk with him because he is extremely smart and the project may be interesting for me. So I met him. He seemed and smelled like a homeless person, and he started by offending me; but he really was very smart, and I admit that while talking with him for a few hours I learned a lot about programming (and I learned more later reading the list of books he recommended me). Despite that, I wanted to avoid him. My friends kept pressing me into cooperating with him, saying that yes he is weird, but he is so smart the he will become a millionaire soon. At the end I lended him some money for his project. I never saw those money again; the guy gradually became crazy, lost his business, all money, home, friends, and today he really is homeless.

Is this Richard Stallman by any chance?

-3 points

expand_less expand_more

1 points

expand_less expand_more

When did Stallman start a business?

1 points

expand_less expand_more

1 points

expand_less expand_more

I figured he might have talked about starting one when he was working on lisp machines.

1 points

expand_less expand_more

5 points

expand_less expand_more

I'd add that sometimes offended people manage to interpret attempts at apologizing or defending oneself as further offensiveness.

5 points

expand_less expand_more

1 points

expand_less expand_more

I don't think why that's wrong. If someone defends very offensive behavior that defense itself can be offensive.

An apology can also be offensive. If you say: "I apology that I didn't communicate in a way that takes your low IQ into account", you are appologising and you are also offensive.

1 points

expand_less expand_more

1 points

expand_less expand_more

I actually was sort of trying to describe something that actually is bad. People sometimes seem to get angry somehow along the lines of 'how dare you not be innately evil' when someone defends something that was seen as offensive.

1 points

expand_less expand_more

4 points

expand_less expand_more

I had a roommate once who had the most remarkable luck: every woman he interacted with on a regular basis was a horrible bitch who would promptly start a vendetta against him. To hear him tell it, he never antagonizes anyone in any way, and yet he winds up with a statistically remarkable number of women inexplicably pissed off at him. He got pretty angry and self-righteous about it! As far as I can tell, he never noticed that the common factor in all of his stories is him.

People can be remarkably poor judges of their own behavior.

4 points

expand_less expand_more

4 points

expand_less expand_more

What I've noticed reading these is that most of the stories are really inconsistent. Often it's not even in the small ways like what tone things were said in, or connotation, but in major facts. For example, they agree they went hiking, but he says she ran off from him during lunch and then after looking for a while he found her by the car, and she says he ran off on her after lunch and after failing to find him she started walking home and then he passed her in the car (having gone to town). Most inconsistencies are smaller than that, but either way, clearly one or both are either making things up to sound more interesting, or they remember what happened only vaguely and then they fill in a whole lot from general impressions (or something along those lines).

Which is a reminder that, in general, you probably shouldn't trust people when they tell you what happened. (Although it's probably worse in cases when they were offended, since they're more motivated to alter what happened.)

Also,

Offended people write about their own actions as if they are doing everything they can to keep the situation peaceful, while describing the other person's actions as hostile and escalating. Is this because offended people think they are keeping their offendedness perfectly hidden, while in reality the other person can see it?

I think they mostly want to show you that they're an amazing person who, even in insane circumstances like these, acts like a perfect human being (and by extension, that the circumstances, and the other person, were the absolute worst believable). Also, when they leave the offended state, they think of what they should have done, and then they probably reinterpret what they remember of what their actions to more closely match that. The reverse thing happens to the other person's actions and they get reinterpreted in light of how evil they turned out to be.

4 points

expand_less expand_more

4 points

expand_less expand_more

Oh, you're saying it's like thinking really hard about not forgetting the thing and then forgetting the thing? They think really hard about what they should have done and then they think that's what they did do? Those are problematic in much the same way.

Most inconsistencies are smaller than that, but either way, clearly one or both are either making things up to sound more interesting, or they remember what happened only vaguely and then they fill in a whole lot from general impressions (or something along those lines).

I keep oscillating between "these accounts of the same event are so different!" and "given how different these accounts are, they agree pretty well on this one thing!" I guess it would help to know if people find the site and dig up a distorted story out of their memory, or if they have a bad date and immediately go post on the site the way you would with a restaurant review.

4 points

expand_less expand_more

2 points

expand_less expand_more

They think really hard about what they should have done and then they think that's what they did do?

Mostly this, yes, but more "they think what they probably did based on the kind of person they are". Like, maybe, in this one, the guy reached over to the girl, and held on lightly to her sleeve and bumped the table, causing his drink to tilt slightly and spill over slightly (this being my theory for what "really" happened). So he thinks "Well, I'm not the type of person to grab someone to stop them from leaving, and I obviously didn't do that. What I did was I reached out to her, asking her to stay." And she thinks "This crazy bunny-killer grabbed me and he practically turned over the table and he spilled his drink". And then they tell it to someone and any qualifiers go out the window and they exaggerate a bit more just to better convey their distress/innocence.

And hm, that's a good point. I was modelling most of the posts as being put up immediately, but it really could be either one. I think the ones with rebuttals probably were posted immediately, because it seems like it's a lot less likely that ones with a delay will get rebutted.

2 points

expand_less expand_more

2 points

expand_less expand_more

Offended people write about their own actions as if they are doing everything they can to keep the situation peaceful, while describing the other person's actions as hostile and escalating. Is this because offended people think they are keeping their offendedness perfectly hidden, while in reality the other person can see it?

This is called fundamental attribution error and it doesn't just happen when people are offended.

2 points

expand_less expand_more

2 points

expand_less expand_more

But they're writing down their own behavior wrong. They say that they said, "How can I help you make this evening better?" and the person reports that they said something like "Look, can we make this evening better?!" So that's not just about causation, it's attributing actions to themselves.

2 points

expand_less expand_more

2 points

expand_less expand_more

When two people are saying different things, it seems unreasonable to assume that the person is describing their own behavior wrong, as opposed to the other party reporting it inaccurately.

Especially on a website where you'll get karma/attention/sympathy for making the other party out as a crazy loon or a sadistic villain...

To say nothing of cultural differences that genuinely lead to one person saying X, and the other person understanding Y instead[1].

And then there's the weird tendency to hold first dates in noisy environments, where it's easy to mishear...

[1] I almost broke up with my girlfriend recently over similar. She told me "I would have shown up if it was planned" and I took that to mean "You failed to make a concrete date, so I felt okay blowing you off" when it was actually "I got dragged in to support an unplanned intervention for a family member" >.> That was awkward, especially since she really had been blowing me off due to insufficiently concrete plans a month ago.

2 points

expand_less expand_more

0 points

expand_less expand_more

Nono, I mean they describe their nice behavior as super-nice, while the other person describes it as ok/slightly defensive? I'm still inclined to think people don't realize that their own defensiveness is showing when they think it isn't. Also, I think I wouldn't expect someone to be especially accommodating for a crazy loon.

0 points

expand_less expand_more

3 points

expand_less expand_more

I'm just saying, my experience is that it does go both ways: Alice is offended, and so plays Bob off as being middle-of-the road when he was super-nice, and crazy-loon when he was middle-of-the-road. Or Bob is genuinely a loon, but insists that okay, he was maybe middle of the road a few times, but super nice the rest of the time.

I've seen this as an impartial observer, and I've been on both sides of the fence. My friends know not to take me too seriously when I'm upset about someone...

EDIT: You're probably also right about defensiveness not being apparent. I'm not suggesting this is ALWAYS the case, just that it's a bad idea to seriously assume that the first poster is ALWAYS in the right and that the rebuttals MUST be mere defensiveness and not genuine outrage at such a false portrayal.

3 points

expand_less expand_more

0 points

expand_less expand_more

Oh sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I meant one poster writes themselves as trying really hard to help and the other writes that poster as medium-to-not helpful. And vice versa! I wasn't distinguishing between original and rebuttal posters.

0 points

expand_less expand_more

-1 points

expand_less expand_more

It's never as bad as you think

Corollary: It's never as good as you think

-1 points

expand_less expand_more