The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Well, I'd hoped it would never come for me...
Last night my girlfriend, I and a mutual friend got into a discussion about nonbinary people. I put forward my position, basically that it's a fashion statement for people who want to feel different and special. My girlfriend has a couple of friends (I've only met one of them once) who prefer 'they' pronouns. Both are men, dress and act like men, although one has changed his name to a rather ironic noun (equivalent to someone renaming himself 'Drama', although not exactly that.
Anyway, now she's not happy. I attempted to compromise by agreeing to use they/them in their presence, but not when speaking to my girlfriend. Apparently this isn't sufficient. She feels it's akin to using racial slurs to refer to someone when they're out of earshot, even if you don't use slurs to their face.
I can't really see any third way beyond conceding or sticking to my guns. It's frustrating, because she is very much not the intolerant idpol type. Indeed her political beliefs are broadly conservative. Apparently not for this topic.
Once again, you cannot reason someone out of something they did not reason themselves into.
She's a woman, and what you are saying affects her social circle, her status, and her feelings of belonging. She didn't reason herself into her position, she's trying to influence you socially and emotionally about it "My other political beliefs are just politics, but this is being a good person.", and you're not going to reason her about it.
Unfortunately, you're in a tough spot. She's not in the rational frame of mind, she's seeing this in terms of relationships. It's not about the nail. You're screwed either way. Unfortunately, you're now into monkey-brain social games.
If you stand your ground, your principles against her feelings, she is going to feel ostracized from the group, and feel like you are low status for taking a low-status (in her group) viewpoint. She will lose respect for you, as you're an outcast with a low-status opinion. If you compromise, she will see you as a weak male who doesn't stand his ground. From the monkey point of view, neither is good.
The least worst path is probably for you to stand your ground in private, but tell her that out of generosity, you are willing to indulge her in public. Even if you succeed, expect this to happen again. You're in conflict with her group, and in her monkey brain, she wants the leader of the group, not an outcast from the group or a supplicant to the group.
I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.
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