I had an interaction once where I thought I used double quotes around a word to imply something obvious related to the posted article. A random person got mad at me and claimed I knew nothing about solidarity.

I felt insulted, they didn’t know my life experiences up to that point. I chose to ignore my feelings and pressed them to teach my why I was so wrong. They eventually disappeared from replies because they had nothing behind that image of righteousness. Rare win but I’ll take it.

If someone put themselves in harms way to punch an authoritarian follower in the face in my defence and also uses slurs I could find offensive to myself, that’s not my enemy. That’s someone awesome who could use a little more education. Later. When the current situation isn’t so wild.

Words are just words. That’s not as effective as punching a fascist in face.

I quite my electrical apprenticeship. I didn’t hate women enough. I didn’t hate queer people enough. I didn’t hate the younger people enough. I didn’t hate myself enough. I hated authority too much. I hated social norms too much. I cared about my health too much. But worst of all… Like on the level of genocide bad… I rode a bike to work.

Where I live, it’s quite multicultural so I’ve felt the need to address racism less but I know I’ve spoken up in cases of sexism. I even lost my job over that (among a list of other issues I brought up).

The greatest challenge for me in redirecting hate towards the people who deserve it, such as people who hoard wealth as a way to control other people, is speaking in a way that as many people can understand. To me this means trying to be as simple and descriptive as possible. This not only helps me to be understood by a larger portion of people, but also makes it harder for angry people to defend their awful views.

Avoiding trending words has been very important in my attempts. All these new words and labels seemed to be used to hide the fact that these angry people don’t actually know what they believe in. Often they will also change topics rapidly. Combining a list of the latest words or labels and too many topics, that can be used to overwhelm their opponent. I say opponent because they don’t have conversations, just uninformed debates.

Staying on point and continuing to be clear and simple in my message is exhausting though. I once made a guy shit talking women and trans people disappear for a month in shame after calling him out. That came at a cost of my own mental stability for a while afterwards. I did make it very clear that I didn’t want him gone, just for him to stop with the hate filled attitude.

I still doubt how effective this is but at least I can find some joy in making these angry souls squirm as I plainly describe their actions and awful views.

It’s still so exhausting. It really feels like some people depend on the thought of a god in a machine to come save them. Even if that god says he will take everyones freedom and wealth to only save himself. They simply believe they are right because they tell themselves they are right. That seems to be all the justification they need.

I don’t know how a person can counter that way of thinking with out dedicating large amounts of time to deprogramming and teaching all these angry individuals. I also don’t have the resources manipulators marketing has to spread a more positive message. And neither do any of my friends, family or like minded people.

I’m not a fan of labels because I can never keep up with the constant changing of meaning or the new labels that keep appearing.

Instead I focus on peoples actions to figure out how I am to handle them. The most common behaviour I see in people who act more in their own self interest is manipulation. They want to control as much as possible. That includes the situation and the people around them.

The simplest thing to do is observe. Watch what they do. Watch how they interact with people around them. I often ask myself a bunch of questions about that behaviour. Do the words they say match what they do? Where is the attention coming from and where is it going? What tools do they use to bring attention to themselves? Is there a power imbalance between them and someone else? What tools do they use to control that power imbalance? Who is gaining something and who is losing something in those interactions? Why do they care so much about something that seems insignificant?

That’s not a complete list or anything. People are creative in good and bad ways so it’s more of a developed skill which takes time to grow. You may find other observations or questions to help you filter out manipulative people.

As a quiet person who has spent more time observing than talking, I’ve always been a target for manipulators. They seem to think my quietness is submission. I’ve dealt with far too many manipulators so much of what I said comes from those experiences.

I often deal with manipulative people by either acting dumb or figuring out the tools they are using or willing to use on me and deny them the chance to use those tools on me any further.

From my limited experiences, I found that explaining peoples actions in simple and easy to understand words is far more damaging to people who are generally awful or manipulative.

Using insults or the latest trending buzz words against these people are not effective because those are the tools they themselves constantly use.

Once you start explaining their actions to them in words that everyone can understand, they become extremely uncomfortable as they try to change topics or defend their actions. But never let them change the topic. Keep reminding them of their actions in words that everyone understands.

Keep it short. Keep it simple. Keep it about their actions and not their words. Make sure as many people can understand why their actions are awful. This means yourself, the awful people and everyone around us.

It’s entertainment on it’s own watching awful people getting awkward by reality being swung back into their face.

D:

I got fixed a couple months ago. Best decision ever.

For nearly 40 years, I’ve been told the horrors of climate change. For nearly 40 years, I’ve watched climate change unravel. And now at nearly 40 years on this planet, I’ve reached a point where I am more concerned about immediate human activity affecting my life rather than the breakdown and collapse of our planet’s environment.

At no point in my life has there ever been a desire to bring a new life into this horrifying existence.

Now if only those weird and miserable old men would stop calling me selfish for not having children. Their obsession with my genitals makes me uncomfortable.

I used to think he was a big dumb dumb. Then January 6th happened and I quickly realized he was a dangerous idiot and I haven’t been the same ever since.

I’ve been watching history repeat itself while I’ve been surrounded people who still act like Trump and his cult-like followers are still a bunch of silly dumb dumbs.

I’m too exhausted to have any words to say anymore.

I hate flirting. I just don’t understand it. It’s this weird social dance that no one explains but expects people to understand. It all feels hypocritical that comes with unreasonable expectations.

The biggest source of frustration for me comes from the fact that I have to act in a way that says I am interested while not saying I am interested. That just does not work for me.

I don’t flirt. I don’t even try. I don’t want to be with someone flirty because from my past experiences, flirty people are also not straight forward about other parts of their true selves.

Flirty people also misinterpret a lot of my actions as a result of me not understanding flirting as well. Many flirty people from my experiences have assumed I am flirting. I was just being nice. I was treating them like a person. Just like I treat family like people. And friends like people. And strangers like people.

As a not flirty person, the number of times people have pushed me up against a wall and kissed me, or just jump to kissing me has been way more than I ever expected out of life. Each time has been equally confusing. I wasn’t flirting. I was just treating them how I wanted to be treated.

I have no advice to give but I have some thoughts to share from my life experiences. People like being treated like people. People who make mistakes. People who have their own thoughts and feelings. People who are themselves. I’ve made more genuinely close connections with people, intimate or not, by just treating people as people. And it’s really something as simple as that. Also having a genuine smile helps quite a bit too. When I smile because I’m enjoying the moment, I notice that it draws people towards me. It’s a type of energy that draws people in and it makes me feel even better about myself too.