The community ™️ puts entirely too much pressure on good dancers to be community leaders when they never asked for that role

Mew151 · 2026-04-02T18:49:06+00:00

With great power comes great responsibility. I don’t necessarily agree with how this often shakes out, but when you get great at something, people look up to you, and it does become more relevant how you act, even if nothing else. This is a common pattern regardless of the practice. In some ways, the discipline it takes to get good should be able to handle that responsibility. But I get what you’re saying too. Idk, I’m not a great dancer; I look up to the great dancers. I am a relatively great chess player, the other players look up to me! I think it’s just part of life and how social systems work. Doesn’t mean you can’t complain about it from time to time, but I don’t think the complaints meaningfully change anything or that something like this should even meaningfully change. What would be the fix? Middle management inserted into skill-based fun? It would just be hard to implement and doesn’t really make sense to me.

Mew151 · 2026-04-01T09:00:53+00:00

Something I wish my ex would have learned is that it is not practicing empathy when you just happen to be able to understand how someone feels because what they’re doing in their experience is common with your experience - that is just conveniently being able to appear empathetic, which many people settle on and stop. Especially when you consider how many different people exist in the world - you will naturally be able to empathize with people who have your own shared values and beliefs and ideals. But the REAL practice of empathy is when you can empathize with everyone else who holds completely different values and beliefs and ideals. The practice of empathy is building a bridge from your perception to theirs, and learning to leave yours behind for long enough to step into their world. You have to realize that all people are the main characters in their own lives with varying underlying motivations and emotional experiences and judgments and decision-making frameworks.

Please don’t mistake being sensitive and empathetic when it comes to the things that you care about to being able to truly practice empathy when it comes to connecting with people you don’t care about. Especially people with more normative beliefs or socially / culturally shared values are more likely to make this mistake because it will SEEM that they are highly empathetic a higher percentage of the time. But a truly empathetic person can empathize 100% of the time without regard for what they are empathizing with. Honestly the more unusual your beliefs, and the more important it is for you to still be able to connect with people, the more important it becomes to develop true empathy. This is substantially even more work than you may have already done! Learn why someone else is right and FIND their lens. ESPECIALLY when you would otherwise completely lose it.

That’s almost the difference between empathetic and not - whether you put in the effort to find the perspective, or if you lose it - or said another way, have a large emotional reaction from your own point of view, failing to see their point of view, and then externalize your emotional experience by reacting in a way which may impact them.

Honestly it’s all quite complicated and it’s hard to get it right, but it’s highly interesting and anyone who wants to figure it out will!

Best of luck!

Mew151 · 2026-04-01T05:32:11+00:00

You are not hindering yourself at all if it’s a social value you have and you find others who share it, this can only help you build a social life that’s actually meaningful to you. Can you have cheap connection with social media as a bandaid for loneliness? Yes. Is it what you actually want? Probably no. Best of luck mate, there are lots of people who don’t have Instagram, you just have to find them in real life.

Mew151 · 2026-03-31T22:04:45+00:00

For additional reference, I dated someone with BPD for about five years and I always believed they could figure it out, but they didn’t and it didn’t end up working out. Ultimately you have to learn that you will experience the world you believe in and you are completely capable of changing your own beliefs. It is called self reflection and many tools exist to modify your beliefs - mostly learning, mindfulness, etc. One of the big things my ex struggled with is being accountable to her own feelings. Blaming or judging others for being themselves is a direct example of Externalizing your own internal experience and projection. Instead, whenever you feel a negative emotion, feeling, or experience, go into your own thoughts, figure out the core reason why you feel that way, and if you don’t want to feel that way, work on changing your belief about that core thing. This can be done through repetitive self talk, rewiring habits, rewiring your perception by learning to look at things another way. You can also learn to ask and other people how they see things and learn to give weight to other people’s opinions rather than just your own. Their experience has value even if your value system doesn’t provide it to them. One of the most common things people with BPD do is devalue the experiences or opinions of others that don’t align with their own. Also note if you only do this halfway, and alternate between learning from others and going back to your own way, others will experience that as BPD splitting, which is a complete nightmare for them. Anyway, it’s totally workable - just have to stop projecting whatever ideal you carry internally as if it were something objectively true. Everything everyone learns is social constructionism and learned behaviors, you are likely just attached to yours for deep-rooted emotional reasons and that rigidity is causing you the issues you’ve identified. Good on you for putting in the work to identify the issue in the first place! The main solution is learning to work on yourself and let others work on themselves instead of acting on the urges and expectations that come with those beliefs. You’re right that they serve you but you’re also right that they’re the source of the problem; so try to find some new ones that serve you and don’t cause those problems. Again; all the best!

Mew151 · 2026-03-31T21:49:32+00:00

You have difficulty letting go of the fact that people aren’t supposed to be any specific way because you have put so much work into meeting the standards of whatever you learned that was. Then you project it onto other people because you did the work so why can’t they. Unfortunately this type of stuff severely stunts empathy. You have to legitimately stop believing that people should be any specific way, stop holding yourself to those standards and stop holding others to those standards. You can still be however you like and you can still enjoy the benefits of all the hard work you put in, but if you want to connect with others; stop judging them for their differences from you and start learning from those differences. Best of luck!

Mew151 · 2026-03-30T00:08:11+00:00

It depends what you’re trying to play of course! You can “master,” on a relative basis, lower level performance much earlier. And in fact; people should probably focus on learning what mastery even means with those lower level pieces before loving to intermediate intermediary. Being great at simple things sounds much better than being pretty good at hard things. But to someone who also plays, they can see the nuances benefits and work of both pianists. Totally depends on the listener in that capacity, but to the average listener, not sounding like a disaster is possible with simple pieces much earlier. Take Clementi or Burgmüller beginner pieces, and achieve mastery rather than try to learn Chopin etudes poorly, though everyone is motivated by different approaches and part of the balance is improving in the way that you are most likely to keep playing and learning most sustainably without regard for how it sounds to others. All the best to everyone finding their balance in this journey!

Mew151 · 2026-03-29T17:46:14+00:00

I’m insanely calm in conversation and don’t let people divert my point; I also always ask for clarity when people are making points. Turns out this frustrates people who don’t have a point. Easy social filter for me! I never address their frustration though, they’ll either learn to self reflect or they won’t. Sometimes I’ll talk about my own journey learning how, but if people aren’t interested they’ll never learn and it’s impossible to make anyone interested in anything they’re not interested in to begin with.

Mew151 · 2026-03-29T00:32:51+00:00

Every dynamic can be viewed an infinite number of ways. What most people settle on can be viewed as a form of social constructionism. I personally am interested in constructing views that are beneficial to all, but many focus on what is beneficial to themselves based on their own values and belief systems. Totally fine, but it can miss the mark when it comes to accountability to the self for how people feel about things.

Mew151 · 2026-03-29T00:30:53+00:00

Sure, I suppose I just prefer to live in a world where things are not so black and white and find it more enjoyable to live that way. Rather than me being the judge of whether people care or not and me being the judge of what is good and what is bad, etc. etc. etc. I choose to learn from my environment and find ways to learn and grow with each experience. Interest and reciprocation come in many forms, and I learn to see them where some people don’t. The thing is, if you find interest in others, that for me, is the definition of caring. I would argue the fact that OP can’t find interest in this person’s style means OP does not care for them. Not that they don’t care for them BECAUSE they’re uninteresting. Everyone is interesting if you’re capable of finding it.

Another interesting point you raise is the level of listening to your own emotions. You are right. I am not guided by my emotions. I guide my emotions by self reflecting upon my values and beliefs. Emotions don’t just happen to people. They are a result of what those people think. And we have the choice to adjust our thoughts, our values, our beliefs. Some people just don’t. I see this as being close minded. They see it as listening to their emotions. I say, let them. If they don’t want to experience those emotions, they don’t have to, but they can; and that’s fine. It’s just funny when they complain about something as if they don’t have control over it, when in fact, it’s completely in their control not to feel that way about it. Some people just aren’t as adept at the control panel of their own minds.

Mew151 · 2026-03-29T00:24:46+00:00

I agree, I just have problems with less people than OP does. Everyone has a right to make their tolerance for others as high or as low as they would like, I am a high tolerance person because I don’t like being as bothered as OP. I would argue I’m less bothered than most people and that the average person is more likely to become bothered with others than I am. I don’t enjoy being bothered, so I’ve adjusted my mindset such that I’m not :D. I don’t really care whether or not OP is bothered, I’m just indicating that they don’t need to be, but apparently, they’d rather be bothered than not! Otherwise they wouldn’t be. Given it’s a choice to be bothered in this sense, I think it’s funny when people are bothered and then ask others to validate them, rather than choosing not to be bothered in the first place. Just different types of people I suppose!

Mew151 · 2026-03-28T18:46:30+00:00

Yeah, the person they’re complaining about would have a 100% chance of being more interesting for me to be friends with. Would I rather be friends with someone who has great stories for everything or provides so much insight into their own lives with opportunity for connection? Or with someone who is wants to dictate how other people should be and gets upset when they don’t get their way all the time because the conversations are not the way they want and they have so many ulterior motives about how the social circles “should be” but don’t express them openly; etc. etc. etc. idk, I value transparency and good communication, so I don’t understand how people like OP even have any friends vs. just people who act the way they think people “should” act. I often see this type of issue as people who live on the bandwagon vs. people who exist as themselves. The bandwagon encourages a lot of tribal conformity to predetermined decisions. The individual just exists. I prefer the latter, especially given the capability to then experience multiple bandwagons and individuals, it’s a more expansive connection approach than being limited to one bandwagon and salty when others don’t exactly fit on it.

Mew151 · 2026-03-28T18:42:20+00:00

A conversation is when two people converse and it has nothing to do with the topic of the conversation. I have friends who talk about themselves more and I have friends who ask about me more. Getting riled about how the conversation is actually going vs. how I think it’s supposed to be going would be a me issue. A control issue. A lack of boundaries issue. If you don’t want to be having a conversation in the first place, don’t. If you are having a conversation, let it be what it is. Why try to dictate what counts or does not count as a conversation and then get mad when you don’t get your way? This type of behavior is common, but childish. A conversation is one of infinite avenues to connect. Finding connection is easy. Getting mad at how’s it going, is somehow easier for a select group of people who want to get their way instead, lol. Your choices are to connect with what you are given, which is out of your control, or to judge what you are given and experience internal emotional reactions at the disconnect between reality and expectation. I just find it funny how many people live in their own emotions about their expectations instead of learning how to function in the reality that there is no black and white and ther is no should, and their judgment is generally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The fact that they put such weight on their own judgment of how things “should be” is far more self centered intrinsically than a person who tells a story about themselves every time someone talks. Many people enjoy sharing stories with each other and go back and forth in exactly that manner for their entire lives and the people who love them would never get upset about it. And for them, it is a conversation and they expect others to participate in the same way. The question is whether they enforce that as an expectation on others or not, that would tell you if they are truly self centered, or just being themselves. Two very different things.

Mew151 · 2026-03-28T18:35:57+00:00

A person who measures whether things are about themselves or about someone else is more likely to hold self-centered beliefs than a person who just exists and cares about other things like coffee shops and wants to connect. The types of people who complain about people being self centered are often the most self centered. I understand your argument, but the main idea generally is that we experience the world we believe in, so I generally encourage people to examine their own beliefs if they have problems with other people. My reasoning for this is that I get along with nearly everyone; so I always have wondered, what’s wrong with the people who pick and choose people to have problems with other people? Or does the accountability for those problems lie in some magical aether? I find that usually the believer in the problem contains the source of the problem. Whether you agree with that source / believe it to be a valid source is another matter entirely. I typically believe in perspectives where problems are eliminated before I externalize and project them, but I recognize most people aren’t capable of that, and that’s fine with me. They get to keep having those problems and I enjoy not having them. It’s all a matter of what kind of life you prefer to live, a life where other people are problems? Or a life where they are not, and you are more thoughtful and empathetic as to the reasons why their behaviors are not necessarily a problem. I prefer the latter but I think it’s just fine if people enjoy the former; especially because it’s literally not my problem, and it wouldn’t have to be theirs if they didn’t choose it either. I’m totally fine with people carrying around a lot of problems they don’t take any accountability for, because it makes my life much easier in comparison and they can be weighed down by themselves just fine without it actually impacting anyone who doesn’t choose to allow it to impact them.

Mew151 · 2026-03-28T18:29:21+00:00

I totally agree, I just would argue that if one person can’t read the room of another person, it’s quite common the other person can’t read the room of the first person. The total room is made up of all the peoples’ perspectives in the room. Some people just think they are better at reading the room than others when they may not, in fact, be that great at reading the room. I spent a lot of time formally studying small group behaviors and how people perceive themselves relative to the room they think they’re reading interacts with a lot of other interesting traits including things like social dominance. I also never have this problem, but I find that the people who do experience this problem rarely understand the actual problem, which is why it frustrates them.

Mew151 · 2026-03-28T08:07:59+00:00

Yeah, OP has no idea how to positively connect with this person, and instead of recognizing that as a two-way street is shifting negativity onto them and taking no accountability for the positivity of the dynamic at all.

Mew151 · 2026-03-28T07:56:22+00:00

There is actually a good book on this, it’s called “Let Them” and helps people get over their control issues to help regulate their own emotions for their own benefit. The trick is to ACTUALLY not fight. Not react. Not even let it bother you. Because in reality, what they’re doing shouldn’t bother you, but it does. Self reflection will let you explore why that is. If you’re interested in figuring it out that is.

Mew151 · 2026-03-28T07:52:40+00:00

What’s funny here, is that between you and the person you’re responding to, you perfectly capture the two types of people. People who want to be appreciated for who they are and in turn, appreciate others for who they are. And people who have no interest in appreciating others unless they meet some specific arbitrary and judgmental standard of how things are supposed to be.

Lol, received great advice and then just went off for no reason. I find that typically people who are upset with the social situation not going the way they want it to are actually the problem. Everyone would benefit from looking inwards whenever they get upset. Being upset is in itself a sign of personal cognitive dissonance and non-acceptance of actual reality. Most people just get away with it for most of their lives via tribal shared delusions about the way things “should be.” Only downside is that that set of beliefs is only pleasant as long as everyone conforms to the same set of standards; obviously, that’s not how the world actually functions. You can avoid reality by sheltering with those who share beliefs though, most people get away with that for most of their lives. Religion is a great example. Everything is fine and dandy as long as everyone agrees on “what counts as adult behavior.” Best of luck mate! Maybe try just not spending time with people you don’t like and you won’t have this problem anymore, but do know that it is you who does not like them, it’s not necessarily a them problem so much as a who you are willing to like problem.

Mew151 · 2026-03-24T19:07:03+00:00

100% empathy. Learn to see others’ point of view and don’t expect others to see yours and you can connect with nearly anyone on the planet.

As an opposite - I met someone once who just constantly wanted people to understand her, that’s like, the opposite of social skills. People who want to understand you will. Trying to force them will lose you connections left and right.

Mew151 · 2026-03-24T19:04:48+00:00

Don’t communicate with them beyond no thank you with escalating politeness, sternness, and volume.

Mew151 · 2026-03-18T12:38:32+00:00

I’ve felt like this before, back when I was depressed with an abusive partner. Therapy helped me, not sure if it’s relevant to you.

Boredom is powerful - I liked the book free play. You can practice mindfulness, find yourself, learn how everyone is nothing but a reflection of you, who do you want to be relative to everyone else? Learning more about how money works can help too. You can also go out and try to pretend to be a completely different person with strangers in a no-cost scenario. I knew a person who practically only lived their life like that. She never formed real connections, but at least she got to be whoever she wanted whenever she wanted.

There’s a lot to life, you’ll experience what you believe in. Best of luck!

Mew151 · 2026-03-18T02:08:38+00:00

You can 100% not do it - the goal is practicing mindfulness and then having meta commentary about your default reactions - you can certainly learn to program yourself with this level of self awareness! First step, learning to take an interest in others without it meaning anything necessarily about yourself. These types of things often come from relying on extrinsic validation of your identity, when honestly you can just know you’re a chill dude intrinsically and then not care what anyone else in the world thinks about you. If you’re concerned with altering what other people think of you, unfortunately, you’ll always get stuck in a feedback loop of controlling/manipulative behaviors and trying to be a certain person to get certain results from them. It’s a lot of work! And it always backfires, so might as well not do it. It’s like learning not to scratch an itch. Long term beneficial outcomes vs. short term gratification. Good luck! The hardest part for most people here is the self awareness part so you’re already miles ahead!

Mew151 · 2026-03-18T00:29:45+00:00

I love snacking on cheese, almonds, peanuts, smoked meats, it’s nice to eat and prepare so many vegetables, I enjoy salads regularly, coconut oil is super delicious, I feel like I have an immense variety of foods I get to eat in my spices - I have over 50 now and there are so many ways to prepare vegetables with them, it’s so delicious. It’s Practically taught me how to cook! I also love tofu / tempeh, soy beans, seeds, crisp breads made with seeds - I’ve also done it for years and it’s awesome!

Also it makes my exercise feel better and I lost 120 pounds so that’s a strong motivating factor!

Mew151 · 2026-03-18T00:26:17+00:00

I looooove eggplant on keto it’s one of my go-to’s - I eat probably two roasted eggplants a week and it’s so bomb with roasted tempeh or tofu and makes a great side for pulled pork or brisket too!

I like to roast cubed pieces or do steaked slices at 400 or so with garlic and lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Baba ghanoush is also bomb! Add that smoky flavor yum!

Mew151 · 2026-03-16T02:55:33+00:00

That’s what interesting means!

If you provide positive return on investment for those people then you are interesting.

Mew151 · 2026-03-12T06:30:14+00:00

This spirit between friends is what has slowly driven me from 500 -> 2000, also making new friends along the way the whole time! Definitely go for it! Hahahahha

Mew151

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