Ah Rage isn't on my block list either...I just don't quite know what to say to him except that if I were in his shoes I'd want to do a BIT more research on what things are before committing myself to being able to recover from them, in case the fates thought it would be fun to put me to the test...and they DO that stuff...
Like I say, not my community, and not for me to even presume to request change...but I DO think the "hardening up" argument is fatally flawed...most of us get enough punishment quite spontaneously to "harden" us up and drive us to retreat to the edge of pseudo psychopathy (and, in some cases, clean over it) anyway...this sort of stuff only reinforces that, and I cannot see how that is a good thing, overall, and in the long term.
Pseudo psychopathy is painless, but it is also, isolating, very, VERY boring...and, as an afterthought, not totally "humanity friendly".
I can do "hard" in a good cause, but I would honestly rather die than harden up the whole way, even with my life at stake...because half of me could not live with the hybrid thing I would become...
Now that is just me for sure...and I am something of a special case because half my family are clinically psychopathic and the whole family dynamic was always built around their mindset...that was the first "normal" I knew...and just like anyone else, I had to do a proper rebellion as soon as I hit puberty...
Is that the same, or at least similar, under more normal circumstances?
Search me, I think that is for each individual to decide for themselves, but I cannot, in my guts, think it will ever bring out the best in ANYBODY to take on a role that is exclusively devoted to, essentially, attacking and hurting others...it gets to be a habit, like a drug, and leaves no room for the good stuff like compassion, or even joy...that is surely like volunteering to have the better half of yourself amputated...
I see this place as a bit of a release valve at worse and a place to hang with my mates at best.
In real life my mates are the type of mates who will say Horribly mean and nasty stuff to each other as fun and expect it back. I don't know if it is part of my country WA culture of whatever. Anyhow there was my Fat little Hobbit mate and my Wookie with a receding hairline mate, My dumb Pollack mate, So it goes. I was the old man amoung them and so various aspersions on my age were thrown up at any opportunity.
When I came out as on the spectrum. There was no teasing about it. It was completely absent. They avoided the topic.
I felt uncomfortable without the teasing. Really bad. Little by little they bought up different questions about autistic and how it affected or didn't affect me and again usually "sideways" kind of drop in touched on conversation after a couple of drink and always serious and respectful.
I can't tell you how uncomfortable it was and worse i felt i could not give them a hard tie about anything as they were not reciprocating.
Finally one of them around all my other mates, at a party opened the door and called out "Rossco you Autistic midget @$%!!"
Everyone went dead silent. Including him and I burst out laughing and hugged him and slapped him on the back, grabbed his grog off him and welcomed him in calling him something equally horrid and everyone laughed and I was no longer off limits.
Not to say they always targeted my condition any more than my age or whatever but it was no longer a taboo.
These same mates leading up to this point had also noticed that I was not self-conscious about it nor demanding anything different from our friendship than before so they learned. They accommodated me when they could, and if they noticed an opportunity to,and without asking. If I had of asked they probably would have said no
In many ways I feel like the people here at I2 are similar to my mates in WA. They "keep it real" they don't pander to emo-ness and are good with copping flack and giving it. My mates in WA were tough, honest, loyal and good people. Again I see the similarities here and have made this board my home.
