So, I think this is complicated because again, there are so many societal components to what we perceive as manipulation.
Like I think a lot of people are very easy – it's easier for them to recognize that like a woman saying to her husband, “If you love me, you wouldn't go to boys' night,” is manipulative, but may struggle to recognize “If you love me, you wouldn't keep talking to this guy at work,” as being the same level of manipulation.
I think that how can I recognize when I am being manipulative?
I think the key here is when you are asking for something, is it an ask or is it a demand?
Manipulation in my thinking of it is about ways that we use implicit or explicit threats in order to change the behavior of someone else.
Oftentimes that involves phrasing a demand as an ask or not stating an ask out loud, but expecting them to understand it.
There is this element of a threat and that threat is not necessarily to the other person.
It can be a threat to yourself as well, right?
Like if you don't do this, I'm just going to be so sad.
I don't know if I'm even going to be able to go out this weekend. So that could be a threat, right?
I think that manipulation is about attempting to control someone else's behavior through some means of exertion of power, whether that is exertion of power in a more traditionally understood way of like, I'm going to make your life miserable if you don't do this, or a backdoor traditionally viewed as feminine kind of way of like, I would just suffer.
It would be so hurtful.
I don't know if I could survive, right?
Like this kind of, I don't know if I'll even sleep with you.
Like that kind of thing, this like withdrawing kind of version of punishment.
Maybe that's what it is, is that manipulation is about if you don't do what I want, I will punish you in some way, either by applying something to you that you don't like, positive punishment, withdrawing something from you that you do like, negative punishment, right?
I think manipulation also is about, often we have very high feelings about a thing.
And so, we're trying to make those feelings go away by changing what somebody else does. So, there's this focus on someone else's behavior to adjust our emotional state.
Now, sometimes it is genuinely true that a thing a person did is not cool and making you feel bad, right?
Like if someone is your partner and they're telling you that you're garbage and awful and you feel really bad about that, it is reasonable to say, “I am not okay with you saying those things to me.”
I think manipulation is about like, I have a fear, I have an anxiety, I have something I really want and I would feel very let down if you didn't give it to me.
And so rather than phrasing it as an ask and being open to taking no, it's kind of phrased as this underhanded demand or an explicit demand with a threat of punishment that comes if it isn't followed.
And I think that that's the big thing about manipulation is that there's no space for a no that is like actually accepted in a way that is reasonable.
It's okay to feel sad or upset if someone tells you no to something you're asking for, but if your reaction to their no is going to be so aversive, like so unpleasant that it disincentivizes them giving you an honest no, that can become manipulation, right?
Classic example, dude wants to sleep with you, you're like, “I'm not feeling it tonight,” and he just keeps asking and asking and asking and asking and asking, right?
That's a manipulation technique.
It is making your no so uncomfortable and so unpleasant that you switch it to a yes, even if that's not genuine.
So, I think that the big thing about avoiding being manipulative and this is also like avoiding being toxic is making it okay for people to say no to you, making it okay for people to give you feedback that you don't like.
And sometimes that means that even if it's bringing up something in you that needs to get discussed at some point, that discussion waits until you've kind of like handled your emotions somewhat yourself.
For instance, one of my sweeties is going to a party I'm going to be at this weekend.
I was planning that we were going to play together, but I was just informed yesterday or the day before that that wasn't going to be able to happen because one of their partners has requested that they not play with anybody else at this party and they want to go with that.
And I was very sad to hear that.
I was disappointed.
I was upset, but I gave myself at least 24 hours to look at whether I want to actually talk with them about that because those feelings in the moment were not necessarily even about them and the thing that they told me or definitely not about their partner.
But it was my own rejection-sensitive dysphoria, my own fears and insecurities, my own worries about being at this party and nobody wanting to play with me and not having a guaranteed thing, my not having played with this person in several weeks and really wanting that and missing that, right?
The things that I was feeling were in part about them, but mostly not.
And so, I wanted to give myself space before looking at like, do I need to talk with them about this emotional reaction that I had or is this an emotional reaction that is temporary in the moment that I can let pass and work with on my own?
And then maybe if there's stuff I still need to talk about, we talk about it, but not assuming that I need to process my entire emotional reaction about it with them.
I think sometimes when we require our partners to be our primary emotional processing point for things about them, it can end up becoming manipulative in effect, even if it's not intended as manipulative, because it makes those challenging interactions so much more difficult for them to have, right?
If any given no is going to require a couple of hours of processing conversations, then it feels really hard to give a no.
So, I think the biggest thing with manipulative is like, are you making it easy for your partners to give you a no even to something you really want? Are you making them feel safe to tell you how they genuinely feel about things rather than feeling like they have to give you the answer that you want? Are you empowering them to be truthful and honest or are you making that harder?
And so, I think what's important here if you're worried about whether you're being manipulative is just getting better at your own distress tolerance, getting better at sitting in your own hard feelings without talking to the person they're about first, right?
Like doing the pre-processing on your own or with a friend or a therapist rather than all of that initial processing happening with someone else, right?
I think also what helps with this is asking for more.
And this sounds totally fucking weird, right?
Because I'm talking about like, you need to get better at receiving no. I think that a lot of times people who go into this manipulative pattern are doing so because they don't ask for something until it's something like they really, really, really, really, really, really want or really need.
And so, a no feels far more threatening and difficult to cope with than it would for something that was a smaller, easier ask.
And so, a lot of times practicing asking for more things, like making a lot more asks that are lower impact, that are easier to receive a no to can be very, very helpful in being able to move out of a manipulative place because you get better at receiving that no and seeing that it's not about you.
You get more and more yeses.
And you're often then making requests before things get to that DEFCON 5 place, right?
A lot of times, manipulative behavior comes from we haven't asked for something for so long that a no is now really deeply threatening and hard to take.
So, we try to keep it from being a no.
We try to find some way to force them into the yes that we want.
Whereas if we're spending more time asking for a lot, giving a lot of opportunities for yeses and nos, it's less likely we get to that place of like need and deprivation that's so severe that we can't have a good conversation.
So, yeah, manipulative.
Are you giving people space to say no?
Are you punishing them when they do say no?
Are you reinforcing their agency and autonomy?
Are you making sure that you're like processing your feelings on your own and not making your partner like your primary processing point for every single feeling right away?
Yeah, just giving yourself space to get better at taking no and better at like giving them opportunities to say yes to more things.
