DailyJim: What do I do when people don’t seem honest with themselves?

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. This is the episode for Wednesday, June 26, 2024.

And I hope my voice is not too soft, I hope you can hear it okay while I'm whispering in the kitchen.

Today I want to talk about a question. What do I do when people don't seem to be very honest with themselves?

So, talking with a friend and reflecting on some of my experiences over the years, I sometimes interact with women and they seem, I get the impression that they have some sort of attraction towards me. Or that they feel some sort of excitement or some sort of kind of romantic feelings, whatever you may call it. But some sort of tenderness or softness or curiosity to be around me, whatnot. And then sometimes I'll talk to them about that. They say, no, no, no, I don't feel that. You're crazy. They may not say you're crazy, but there's that implied, no, no, that's not happening. So I see it in romantic relationships or romantic interactions.

I see it sometimes when a friend gets angry. I go, hey, you look angry. They say, no, I'm fine. You sounded angry and you're saying that you're refute, you're refute, oh, that's not a word, damn it. I think Trump faked that word yesterday. See, this is how reading things on the internet and how other people speak really can impact us.

So yeah, if I say, you look angry, the person's like, I'm fine. Okay, sure, sure, you're fine. And this happens in the workplace, in the context where I remember there was one interview, and we were asking this woman if she thought it was a good idea. And she kind of leaned back, and she took a little breath, and she said, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a good idea. And then later I talked with my colleague, and he said, yeah, she thought it was a good idea. And I'm like, dude, she did not think it was a good idea. No, no, but she said it was a good idea. I said, were you paying attention? how her body moved, or many, many other things. And I'm just wondering, what do we do in those scenarios? Do we just let people...

Say words that don't match what their body seems to be saying. Do we confront them on it? Do I confront them on it? Screw this, I'll just talk about my experience, my question. Do I confront them on these seeming disconnects?

If I don't, do I just play along? Do I ask other questions that try to get at it without directly confronting people? Do I tell people how I'm feeling and, again, kind of confront people on this? Do I avoid them? Do I just stop talking to them?

I don't know what to do these days, to be honest. I think normally I would give the advice of like, just tell them, you know, how you're feeling and just tell them how you think they're feeling. Step one step two step three go go go um say one thing to connect with love um but i'm really wondering it's like does that mean i'm going to fight with most people because most people seem to be very disconnected um from what's actually happening with their bodies or if they're aware of it they sure don't want to say it so maybe there's an internal connection but like an external internal uh hesitation really and i just i don't know i've been thinking about that a lot and, people come to me and ask me for advice on how to deal with relationships or resolve conflict and i can give advice but i don't know how much it helps in the long run because it seems to uh, i don't know people who want to deny and people want to maybe if they don't want to deny let's say it this way. People who seem afraid of being honest with what's going on with themselves.

May not want someone to tell them what's going on with themselves.

I even had a friend, girl, whatnot, I emailed once. I said, this is going, I think this is going on. I think this is going on. I think this is going on. All these different things I thought was going on in her life. I think she later told me it sent her to the therapist. She like fell on the floor and had to go see the therapist. And I was like, whoa. It's like, how much can we deny some truths to ourselves?

Because we're afraid, embarrassed, humiliated. I don't even know.

I just get...

Yeah, it's something I've struggled with, I'd say, gosh, since at least 2009, at least 15 years or something, where I noticed that I seem to be quite observant about what's happening with others, but also with myself, much more so with myself over these last 12 years.

And then they seem to think it's not happening.

And it's almost like hearing a sound and everyone else says no no there's no sound i'm like but i'm sure i hear the sound no there's no sound maybe i talked about this before there was a sound coming from the house where i was living with my parents and um i was certain there was a sound it was very loud like high-pitched sound and they said no there's no sound i said i'm pretty sure there's a sound they said no no and so i went into the one room and i went to the wi-fi router and i I unplugged it. I said, ooh, the sound's gone. I plugged it back in, sound's back. Unplugged it, sound's gone. I said, see, it's the Wi-Fi router. It's a bit broken. They said, no, no, no, it's not. And then I did a test online to see if they could actually hear. I think it was like 17 kilohertz. They couldn't because apparently as we get older, we lose our ability to learn or listen to high-pitched noises. So much so that they cause it like the mosquito sound or something, where they would use it in malls to scare off teenagers.

And so I was like, am I crazy? No, maybe I'm not crazy. Maybe it's actually happening, but nobody else hears it.

I think sometimes it comes down to like, am I crazy or is everyone else crazy? Or is this other person crazy? I mean, am I hearing what's happening? Am I seeing it? Is this real?

I don't know. And if it is, how to convince people that it's real when they may really not want to admit that it's real.

I don't know. Just lots of questions, no answers. Hope you enjoyed the reflection questions for today. All right. Take care, y'all. Bye.