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"FOGKO is fear of being tossed out of the lifeboat, and it’s fueled by knowledge that others may toss you out to ensure that they stay in. The way everyone in the lifeboat—that is, the group—goes along can be what’s most hurtful to the one tossed out. "
"She used all the powers that girls and women have over friends: the competition for closeness, the ability to turn secrets into gossip, and the threat of being left out."
At one point in the evening, one of them, Danielle, turned to her best friend, Abby, and said she wanted to leave. It was an agreed-upon obligation of friendship to leave a party when your friend wanted to.
Danielle then turned to the rest of the group, who promptly fulfilled their obligation—and turned, en masse, against Abby, because she hadn’t. Now that Abby was labeled a bad friend, any other girl who “had issues” with Abby voiced them, and for a month or so, when the group planned activities, Abby was not invited. She had no alternative but to migrate to a different group. After a period in purgatory, Abby was eased back in. Gradually, one or another of her former friends began to let her know when and where they were all hanging out. Girls in the clique who weren’t all that angry at Abby in the first place jumped back into friend mode, and things returned to normal—except that the girls in Abby’s new clique were hurt, because they were abandoned and reminded that they had been a stopgap, second-choice group.
"Melanie’s account is revealing in many ways. I was intrigued by her saying that the ostracized girl had been a “queen bee” in middle school, a “snob” in high school, and “good at every sport and cute.” Among boys, being handsome and excelling at sports would confer high status. But girls disapprove of peers who stand out. “Queen bee” and “snob” are two among many labels by which girls and women punish those who excel or appear to be better in any way. This may explain why her drama group turned on Nicole. She was talented—she went on to have a career in the theater—and regularly got leading roles in plays; that would be enough reason for the other girls to resent her and try to find ways to knock her off her perch."
"Sociologist Donna Eder observed girls in middle school and came to the at first surprising conclusion that popular girls are widely disliked. Isn’t that an oxymoron? Doesn’t “popular” mean, by definition, being widely liked? Here’s how it works. Girls get status by being close to high-status girls. So if a girl has high status—often because of her looks or her popularity with boys, but it could come from other factors as well—all the other girls want to be her friend. That’s the sense in which she’s popular. But she can’t be friends with everyone, especially since girls tell secrets to friends, and only a small number of trusted friends can know her secrets. So she has
better in any way. This may explain why her drama group turned on Nicole. She was talented—she went on to have a career in the theater—and regularly got leading roles in plays; that would be enough reason for the other girls to resent her and try to find ways to knock her off her perch.
Sociologist Donna Eder observed girls in middle school and came to the at first surprising conclusion that popular girls are widely disliked. Isn’t that an oxymoron? Doesn’t “popular” mean, by definition, being widely liked? Here’s how it works. Girls get status by being close to high-status girls. So if a girl has high status—often because of her looks or her popularity with boys, but it could come from other factors as well—all the other girls want to be her friend. That’s the sense in which she’s popular. But she can’t be friends with everyone, especially since girls tell secrets to friends, and only a small number of trusted friends can know her secrets. So she has
to reject the overtures of most other girls, who, as a result, dislike her and brand her a snob.
miyazaki, a genius as usual:
Of course she deserved to be punished in the way that is usual among girls: being kicked out.
The danger of being ostracized results inevitably from the desire, the need, to be in a group. As members of a group jostle to get close to one another, they must distance themselves from those who are not group members."
These contrasts between women’s and men’s groups sound eerily like what researchers have observed among nonhuman species.
The pain of theft is intensified when the thief is a friend: you’ve been robbed of something more valuable and irreplaceable than money and property—trust in a friend, and in your judgment for having mistakenly placed that trust.
Because closeness is typically a goal in women’s friendships—the barometer by which women tend to measure relationships—there is always a risk that a friend will get too close for comfort. It is the flip side of the search for sameness.
Amanda protested, “You’re copying me!” Cathy didn’t think she was. How do you know, when a friend does the same thing as you, whether she’s independently responding to the same impulse in the same way, or is imitating you? It’s tricky because the former—liking the same things, having similar interests and inclinations—can be the basis for friendship, but the latter—achieving similarity by imitating—can feel like a violation, taking advantage of, or overdoing, closeness. It’s copying."
"In this small struggle is a microcosm of the drive to sameness as a token of friendship, as well as the drive to resist sameness when it gets to be too much."
The widely touted concept of networking replicates the way friends can be of use. Befriending people, or making sure to keep friends, because they can advance your career is not cynical if it’s mutual and aboveboard. And it’s not gender specific. A real estate agent, for example, commented that even when she’s on vacation, she keeps an eye on Facebook and makes sure to “ ‘like’ people’s things because I want to stay in their mind. I want to be seen as someone who is supportive, friendly, open, because I want them to use me when they want to sell their house. And I have definitely gotten business from people who know from Facebook that I’m a realtor.”
Less tangibly but maybe even more importantly, women told me that an investment that should be shared more or less equally is care and listening. That assumption accounts for the concept of a friend who is “needy.” One woman put it this way: “I have a thing about needy people. I’m a compassionate person, but I also don’t want to be friends with somebody who doesn’t fully show up as well. Where I have to take care of them all the time.” It’s the imbalance that she regarded as unacceptable: with a needy friend you have to take care of her, but she doesn’t take care of you, doesn’t “fully show up.” In other words, the investment of giving is not repaid in receiving.
The asymmetry may be not in how much a friend listens, but in how much she seems to care about what she hears—how much attention she pays.
Bonnie called to arrange her yearly visit. Roberta informed her there weren’t going to be any more. Weeklong visits were for friends; Bonnie’s failure to show concern for Roberta’s husband proved that she wasn’t one.
A psychologist I spoke to observed, “Every relationship is an ambivalent one.” Since friendship is a relationship, being hurt at some point, in some way, is probably inevitable with all friends. It’s only when you seem to be hurt more than you’re helped, when you consistently don’t like how you feel—who you are—when you are with a friend that you start to realize you’d be better off without that friend: you distance yourself—or cut her off.
Part of true friendship is telling a friend something she needs to hear when no one else will.
Women who told me of cutting friends off always told me why they did it, but I don’t know whether they explained their reasons to the friends they rejected. I am chagrined to admit that when I cut friends off (I recall two such times), I did it precipitously, without explanation. I think that’s because explaining my reasons would have kept the conversation—and the friendship—going, the opposite of what I had made up my mind to do. But switching to the perspective of the one who is cut off—as I was in high school by my friend Susan—I can see that it is especially upsetting if the one cut off doesn’t know what she did to cause it. In some cases, an answer may not exist, because it wasn’t anything she did.
A woman who’d been hurt by a cutoff was relieved when—decades later—the friend who had cut her off reconnected and explained that she had been having a tough time back then and had cut everyone off. Another woman recalled her own habit, when she was younger, of cutting friends off: she’d pursue a friendship with enthusiastic determination, then would feel overwhelmed by the closeness she’d created—and would flee. This can explain the bewildering experience where someone at first seems to yearn for your friendship then suddenly backs off. It could be not despite but because of her eagerness: she had set up expectations of so much mutual confession and constant companionship that they became more than she felt she could handle.
In talking to women about their friendships, I was struck by how often I heard that one or another friend is “like family,” and by how often I heard women friends compared to sisters—or sisters praised for also being friends. These comments, and how the women explained them, shed light on the nature of women’s friendships, the nature of family, and something that lies at the heart of both: what it means to be close."
The word they used most often to explain those special friendships was “close,” and it could be emphasized by repetition: “close close friend” or “very very very very close friend.”
For friends, as for family, “close” is the holy grail of relationships, especially for women. In both contexts I often heard “I wish we were closer” but never “I wish we weren’t so close.” But what people meant by “close” could be very different. It could mean they talk about anything; or that they see each other often; or that, though they don’t see each other often, when they do, it’s as though no time has passed: they just pick up where they left off. And sometimes “close” meant none of the above, but that they have a special connection, a connection of the heart.
There were also differences in what people had in mind when they said, “We can talk about anything.” Paradoxically, it could be either very important, very personal topics or insignificant details. A woman said of one friend, “We’re not that close; we wouldn’t talk about problems in our kids’ lives,” but, of another, “We’re not that close; we wouldn’t talk about what we’re having for dinner.”
Knowing there is someone you can tell about your day—something that so many women treasure—is only half the story of connection. The other half is knowing that the person will listen. And listening has two parts, too. One part is seeming to be interested in what you’re saying, and seeming to care about it. The other is understanding your words in the way that you meant them, and responding in the way you expect.
The act of listening itself can be precious, whether or not it comes with understanding.
Though simply listening can be a priceless show of caring and therefore of connection, it is even more precious to feel that you are being understood. Every time you open your mouth to speak, you are putting your personhood on the line—and entrusting it to the people you are speaking to. If they respond to what you say in the way you expect, their response reassures you that your words were reasonable and appropriate, and that you are a right sort of person. It’s especially gratifying when this approval seems based on real understanding, of your words and therefore of you. It’s in that spirit that a woman said of a friend, “She gets me. When I’m with her I can be myself.”
A number of women commented that being close friends means that both can be themselves when they are together—as one woman put it, you can be “exactly who you are, without any façade.”
The "listening ear"
"To be someone’s wailing wall means to listen to her troubles and thoughts, secrets she would otherwise not impart to anyone. Like the sacred wall, Marmorstein explains, a listening friend is solid, strong, supportive, someone you can lean on. To be a wailing wall for a friend does not require that you necessarily understand or empathize—just that you listen."
Though simply listening can be a priceless show of caring and therefore of connection, it is even more precious to feel that you are being understood. Every time you open your mouth to speak, you are putting your personhood on the line—and entrusting it to the people you are speaking to. If they respond to what you say in the way you expect, their response reassures you that your words were reasonable and appropriate, and that you are a right sort of person. It’s especially gratifying when this approval seems based on real understanding, of your words and therefore of you. It’s in that spirit that a woman said of a friend, “She gets me. When I’m with her I can be myself.”
A number of women commented that being close friends means that both can be themselves when they are together—as one woman put it, you can be “exactly who you are, without any façade.”
A woman who said of a friend “She got me” went on to say, “She got me and all my quirks, and I got her and all her quirks and we were fine with it.” There’s a world of acceptance in that comment, “We were fine with it.” It means you won’t be rejected once a friend sees your frailties: you’re accepted despite your weaknesses. Being yourself can also mean letting others see when you’re unhappy. This, too, contrasts with a fear of rejection—the fear that lies behind the adage “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone.”
I found myself unsettled by absorbing the emotions of people I was close to.”
Robison’s experience sheds light on the double-edged sword of closeness—the implications of literally “sharing” emotions: on one hand, his relationships deepened with those he was close to, as he became more keenly aware of their feelings and also “showed feelings I had never expressed.”
There is another sense in which talk at work is public. No matter how private a conversation is, in most work settings your performance will be evaluated at some point, by a boss, a board, a client, a colleague, or a subordinate. Conversations at work can be, in a sense, like a test. What we say as we do our work can become evidence on which we are judged, and the judgments may surface in the form of raises (or denials of raises), promotions (or their lack or their opposite), and favorable (or unfavorable) work assignments."
emotional validation: "Drama"- the need to dump their negative emotions onto other people.. The target of the drama is irrelevant, only the expression of the drama is important.
social validation: do things to get accolades from others- the opposite of conformity (the avoidance of disapproval).
amazing
https://www.amazon.com/Smashing-Hitl...40_&dpSrc=srch
Smashing Hitler's Panzers: The Defeat of the Hitler Youth Panzer Division in the Battle of the Bulge, 1944 by Zaloga
I'm definitely reading this when it comes out.
53- P
7-P
20
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29-Pz IV
78 (28-P)
72- P
Although cultural background is an important influence as well, fewer women than men engage in ritual opposition, and many women do not like it. Missing the ritual nature of verbal opposition, they are likely to take such challenges as personal attacks.
A man interviewed me for a feature article in a newspaper. His questions were challenging to the point of belligerence. He brought up potential criticisms of my work with such eagerness that I was sure his article would make me look terrible. To my amazement, he wrote a very flattering portrait, with no hint of the belligerence he had used to get information from me. Rather than repeating the potential criticisms, he used only my responses. By confronting me, he had been giving me an opportunity to present myself in a positive light.
On another occasion, I was interviewed by a woman who talked to me as if she were talking to a friend. She spent several hours in my home and revealed a lot of personal information about herself, which encouraged me to be similarly self-revealing. Nothing in her manner led me to suspect she would write anything but a favorable article, and I began to blather on, confident that I was on safe turf. The article that resulted from this interview surprised me as much as the other one, but in the opposite way. She used the information I had given her to write a piece that cast me in an unflattering light. Whereas I was pleasantly relieved to see that the first article was more favorable than I expected, I felt betrayed and tricked by the second. I thought the woman who wrote it had misled me, pretending to take the stance of a friend so I would reveal more vulnerable sides of myself.
"He tried to provoke an uncensored response by challenging, she by establishing rapport. Both were ways of getting me to let down my guard"
**Tactics: Men will more often confront, Women will often play the "Good Cop".
"Another conversational ritual is asking others for their opinions before making a decision. It is the antithesis of the style that simply assumes anyone who disagrees will volunteer opposition, so silence can be taken as assent."
"In a company where employees regularly evaluate their supervisors, a manager was taken aback when one of her subordinates complained that she didn’t listen to him. She was especially surprised because she made a point of soliciting the opinions of everyone in her group on every major decision and listening carefully to what they said. She sat down with this man to find out what could account for their so-different views. It turned out that it was her very habit of soliciting his opinion that led to his complaint that she didn’t listen. He had taken her requests for his opinion as requests for advice. He thought she was literally asking him to make decisions for her. Then, when she did what she thought best, which often was not what he had recommended, he felt betrayed: She had asked him to decide and then did not “listen to” him.
"Many people ask those they work with for their opinions (“What do you think we should do about this?”) to get a range of opinions, to make others feel involved, and to create the appearance, or the reality, of making decisions by consensus. But consensus does not mean (obviously, it can’t mean) that all those who express opinions will get their way. It means only that everyone gets heard. In the end, ideally, a decision is made that satisfies as many people as possible while accommodating others’ needs as much as possible. Those whose recommendations are not followed, by this arrangement, go along with the consensus because they know their input was considered and trust that the best decision was made. But someone not accustomed to this arrangement may well interpret the request for an opinion as a literal invitation to make the decision and therefore feel misled when the advice is not taken. Such a person may even feel manipulated or tricked: “You’re trying to make me feel like it’s my decision, but you’re going to do what you want anyway, so why pretend by asking me?”"
"Both women and men know that their small talk is just that— “small” compared to the “big” talk about work—but differences in small-talk habits can become very big when they get in the way of the easy day-to-day working relationships that make us feel comfortable at work and keep the lines of communication open for the big topics when they arise."
"Small talk is not just an aid but a necessity—the grease that keeps the gears running in an office. This discovery was made by a woman who was hired as the chief editor of a magazine. When she got into the top slot, she tried to run the office as her predecessor had: no time for small talk; get right down to business. After a while, she began to hear rumblings that the women in the office were unhappy with her. They felt she was cold and aloof, that power had gone to her head and made her arrogant. She had to modify her style, taking some time to talk, to check in with people about their personal lives and exchange pleasantries. The feeling that their bosses are interested in them personally may be common to many people, but women are more likely to expect it to be displayed as interest in their lives outside of work—especially by other women."