An open letter on friendship and fact-checking

[andrewducker]

Dear Everyone,

If you hear that a friend of yours has done something terrible, please go and talk to them and find out if the rumours are true _before_ judging them or joining in the general condemnation.

Similarly, if they do something which you find hurtful, please talk to them and say something along the lines of "When you did X, I felt Y. Did you mean to hurt me in that way?", rather than assuming that they were trying to stab you repeatedly with a sharp knife.

Once you have ascertained that your erstwhile friend really _does_ strangle puppies in their spare time, then feel free to cast them forever more from your social circle, keep the DVDs you borrowed from them, and post embarassing photos of them on Facebook. But if you don't do your fact-checking before your ostracising then you're not being anything like a good friend. You are, in fact, being a jerk.

All the best,

Andy

(No, this is not aimed at any one specific person - there are three separate people I know who are having issues around this _right now_, and I've seen it happen innumerable times.)

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I always thought this about the Da Vinci Code. Granddaughter walks in on Grandfather having sex. Apparently as part of some ritual. She immediately ostracises him, refuses to speak to him ever again for the rest of his life, and doesn't open any of the letters he sends her weekly.

Then, N years later, she meets a symbologist [sic] from Harvard, who tells her "it's ok, he was having sex as part of some ritual, which has all sorts of laudable reasons" and she immediately recants all her hate and feels awful for condemning him so quickly.

It all just seemed so inconsistent.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

I've read better written porn.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Most importantly, don't call the police after you tazer them.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

William Blake - 'The Poison Tree' - the first four lines I have memorised. The rest takes the message and twists it somewhat.


I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

Bill Blake is the man. Changed my life, and the way I see mankind, completely.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Well personally I never thought the rumours about you tying knots in kitten's tales were true but thought it far easier to not ever speak to you again!!

This is well said. We have been kind of going through similar stuff this weekend and thankfully someone who had read something approached us and a few emails soon cleared up the issues and allowed us to defend stuff said by others, which sadly could have resulted in a lost friendship which would have caused major distress for my husband(to be) and I as it is someone we hold dear. It is true that human nature chooses condemnation over interogation most times as we are loathe for confrontation but I applaud your post.

I shall now go and steal young boys footballs and paint KKK symbols on front doors!

[star-tourmaline.livejournal.com]

Splendid post. Also worth acknowledging that sometimes the verification is difficult. But still requires to be done.

[andrewducker]

Thank you :->

And yes, I try to avoid judgement until I can verify things, even if that means withholding judgement entirely.

I remember being berated by one of my friends for not taking sides in an argument between two other friends. I said I was waiting to hear both sides and understand it better. And lo and behold, two days later the two friends were getting on ok again, leaving my friend feeling both a bit silly, and also aggrieved at the pair of them for getting her all worked up.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

This is the sort of thing that should never need to be said to sensible people ... and yet ... yep.

And it's one of the most annoying things in TV (particularly comedies), as either the FARCE set up (where one person misinterprets what someone else has said or done, sometimes because they only hear part of a conversation or because they've seen something out of context) or where one person makes some (erroneous) assumption and refuses to let the other person explain but instead storms off or plots revenge. I am growing to loathe that as a major plot driver.

You know the sort of scene ...

Tom speaking to Bob: "that's ridiculous, that's as bad as if I said ..."
(Jenny is approaching and starts to hear the conversation)
Tom: "... Kate has been having an affair and is going to have another man's child ..."
(Jenny runs away to spread the gossip)
Tom:"..., wouldn't that a ridiculous thing to say?"
Bob: "Yep, should never have accused you of supporting City. Friends?"
Tom: "Always" ... they hug, manfully. Meanwhile Kate's parents are hearing the story from Jenny ...

[andrewducker]

That's 2/3 of the plots in Frasier done away with. (The other 1/3 revolving around "I shall tell a white lie in order to get what I want, and then have to deal with the fallout when things spiral out of control").

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I think there's a few percent that are
"I know I'm right and they are wrong" or "I'm too important, they will bend to what I want" or some other variant on Hubris/Nemesis.

I guess that's one of the reasons that while I appreciate Frasier, I don't really like it, and would usually turn over/turn off when it came on.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

I have had two relationships end [you are aware of both] that did very bad things to my life. One, somewhat confusingly, because I discovered I was an utter bastard via third hand reports.

The other because I discovered I was an utter bastard all by myself.

Both times, had people Who Knew Stuff just bloody well spoken to me it would all have been vastly easier. Which is exactly what happens now - and I'm infinitely happier for it, as are those I love.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

A Noble Recognition, which I've made at least a dozen times during 50+ years in fandom. *sigh* The best most of us seem to be able to do is to become a bit less quick to react, and to react a bit less extremely.

The example you cite is typical of old-time Fan Feuds -- X & Y have a Strong Disagreement, their friends pile on ... and in a few months X & Y are getting along quite well together, while some of thier friends are still Not Speaking to one-another (which, granted, might be for the best, considering what they'd say/write if they _were_ in closer communication). I suspect there's something of the Drama Queen in most of us -- a tendency to take ourselves & our feelings too seriously -- and repeated burnings and the passage of years may be needed to cause it to fade.

[andrewducker]

Reacting slower and less extremely is definitely one of my goals. I've managed several tense internet discussions better since I started taking a deep breath before responding, or going for a short walk.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Yup.

Assume, in order:

- blind, literal thoughtlessness: simple innocent forgetting to think or having too much going on to think
- personal issues, again causing a blind spot
- stupidity
- malice

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Icon.

[zz]

I've always quoted it as s/stupidity/incompetence/, but exactly what I was thinking. :)

[akicif.livejournal.com]

s/incompetence/ignorance/g - stupidity and incompetence are less fixable. But yes, indeed.

[andrewducker]

*applause*

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

If you hear that a friend of yours has done something terrible, please go and talk to them and find out if the rumours are true _before_ judging them or joining in the general condemnation

Yep, and also: if the person who told you that a friend was behaving terribly is themselves a known liar, it might be worth revising your initial opinion. Not everyone is completely innocent and free from malice, even those you think may be 'doing you a favour'.

[zz]

One thing I've started trying to do is actually tell people when/why something's annoyed me, even if it's just my reaction to something not unreasonable by them, rather than letting it fester and burrow and ruin my mood for ages afterwards. Much like having conversations/rants with real people makes the urge to repeatedly revisit them in my head go away, it usually makes me feel better just to have vented, whereas normally i'd concentrate on fixing the problem and routing around the (human) source of the problem in future like a good little geek. :>

[andrewducker]

That sounds like a much healthier way of doing things, and likely to lead to a happier Sven in the long run!

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Withhold judgement till we know the facts?

What if that were applied to political news?

[andrewducker]

I refer you to the top link from today's linkspam:
http://www.slate.com/id/2256068/

:->

[aitkendrum.livejournal.com]

Great post. Could well have done with such advice for other people many moons ago.

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

-guilty-

though not recently, mainly due to not being upset myself and therefore getting rid of my emotional energy by over angsting and whining about stuff.

though i dread to think about some of what gets said about me

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

One lovely friend doing this: A and B were arguing on my LJ (I think) and A massively overinterpreted something I said and took it on themselves to tell B something on my behalf, which was very hurtful to B, as I was at least as much their friend, and it seemed completely unfair of me to convey that message through the person I was arguing with.

So B sent me a very hurt email, but the amazing thing they did is STARTING by saying "B said you said this, and this hurt me for this reason, what were you playing at?!?!?" and I was able to respond immediately saying I'd certainly not intended to say anything of the kind. It'd have been entirely understandable for them to just rip into me, but they didn't, and it was lovely.

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

if they do something which you find hurtful, please talk to them and say something along the lines of "When you did X, I felt Y. Did you mean to hurt me in that way?", rather than assuming that they were trying to stab you repeatedly with a sharp knife.

This.


But if you don't do your fact-checking before your ostracising then you're not being anything like a good friend. You are, in fact, being a jerk.

This, only more so.

[oldbaldchris.livejournal.com]

Just curious mate, are you restarting the "Blatantly obvious party", or do you really know people that dumb that they can`t figure this out for themselves?

[andrewducker]

In this case I know two people that had "drama" because other people hadn't actually bothered to get their side of the story, but were thankfully able to sort it out.

I've had a similar thing myself a couple of years back, where people were trying to protect me from a situation without asking me if I actually wanted to be protected, or even checking if the situation was what they thought it was.

[oldbaldchris.livejournal.com]

Then I would suggest that you stayed away from these people as anyone who believes 3rd party gossip without checking is either terminally stupid or under the age of eight - either one of which excludes them from being a friend.
I find your threads/thoughts to be normally quite inciteful; this one however should be binned along with such helpful advice as "Don`t forget to breathe while walking" or how about "Running in front of a speeding train is dangerous"
All of this is obvious and should not need to be stated.

In another post you talked about why more people are reading LJ but no longer posting (includes me). Threads like this are (for me anyway) one of the reasons why.

[andrewducker]

Lots of things shouldn't need to be stated. And there are people that I occasionally interact with who don't seem to have a grasp on the bloody obvious. But one doesn't get to choose the friends of friends, sadly.