Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
There was a motte post that was memorable to me, and I keep trying to find it so I can quote it exactly and reference it. I can’t remember if it was on this site or the subreddit. But it was a discussion of dating or bullying of some kind, and ended with the commenter saying, “most of the women I’ve been friends with or dated were outcasts from the ruthless social competition of high school girls, and they bore the scars of that experience.” I thought it was an interesting point.
Does anyone have any clue who posted this or what the original comment was?
I don't have a link to the original comment, but its triggered another question I've long thought about. Do children who win playing these ruthless social games (bullying/mean girls) actively have parents coaching them to do so? The incentives would seem to be there, lined up with ancillary evidence like the existence of 'Tiger Moms' and the like (beauty pagents & cheerleading etc).
Looking back on my own life, some of the bullies likely came from bad home backgrounds, but others seem remarkably well provided for (clothes, status symbols, preparedness for extra-curricular activities etc).
Curious what other people think about this.
In my experience, the most ruthless social climbers indeed come from families that encourage such strategies for personal gain.
Even if the parents weren't training them, they were enabling/tacitly approving the behavior. I can't say if they would literally sit at the dinner table in the evening and discuss/scheme how to get back at rivals and enhance their standing, but they surely gave them hints and ideas.
I used to look at the kids who were driving extremely fancy cars and had all the expensive accessories and wonder if they thought they were fooling anyone, we all knew their parents were buying that stuff for them and didn't the parents know they were spoiling their kid for no reason?
And now I think yeah, those parents probably knew exactly what they were doing and that was the point. Either the parents had low status in school and are now using their money to give their kids a boost they never had, or the parents were high status in school and saw exactly how beneficial it was to win the status games and want to make their kids learn the same lessons.
(and of course such parents are using their kids success to play status games of their own with their own peers).
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