I was talking to my brother about dating (because he currently is), and he was joking that I should meet the women he liked before he got serious because I’m good at reading people. I laughed and said that it would be futile because NRE (New Relationship Energy) is strong and nobody listens to someone who warns them about a partner.
He demurred, saying he would listen to me because he trusted me. Which, flattering, but I knew better. I said to him that no one listened to their friends when they were in the throes of passion. I wasn’t throwing shade because I had done the same thing myself. It was just human nature to be flooded with pheromones and not thinking straight.
My brother laughed. We moved on to talking about me doing a service for people where I read their dates like a fortuneteller, which, again, there’s no money in that. I mean, not only because it takes time for people’s personalities to fully out (and maybe years before what I predicted would happened actually came true). I said that there was like 5% of people I could not accurately read. My brother asked if I’d even know that I couldn’t read the person accurately. I said yes, so he said I could turned them down from the outset, but thinking about it more, I’m not sure I could. The one kind of person that slips by me at times are charming narcissists. I can peg them most of the time, but those few times I can’t, it’s disastrous.
I am Cassandra. I am extremely adept at reading people, but I am not believed. I gave my brother two instances of me reading someone accurately, but the people around me not believing me. In the first instance, when the person was found out to be rat bastard (for a completely different reason), people were shocked. “Who could have predicted?” they said. “No one!”
Me sitting over there like:: “Uh, me?”
It’s weird to have a revulsion for someone who is held in high esteem by those around you. I thought I was crazy for not liking or trusting this guy. When it was validated, but for the wrong reason, it was even worse. Others thought he was terrible, but the specific reason in that case was not him being terrible. In other words, people suddenly saw him for who he really was, but at the wrong time.
I have mentioned before that I don’t like telling people about themselves. I don’t mind doing it with my brother because he accepts it without getting defensive. Most of the time. THere are a few sore points for him, too, as there are with anyone, but in general ,he’s eager to hear what I know about him.
Most people aren’t. It’s not comfortable to know that someone else sees something about you that you don’t. I try not to tell people tings about themselves that they haven’t told me. The few times I’ve slipped, people have gotten rattled. Wanting to know how I knew that, almost in an accusatory voice. Or a shocked one. Since I’ve received that response quite often, I’ve learned to keep my reactions to myself.
When I was talking to my brother about it, he really wanted me to do something with my talent. He’s suggested me becoming a therapist before, but it’s not something I want to do because it’s so exhausting. Yes, I can read people well. Yes, I’m good at performing empathy. I’m even good at feeling it to a certain extent. But it drains me because I can’t turn it off. I can turn it down to a certain extent, but it’s always there.
My brother mentioned that I should have an advice column, which is something I’ve thought about. I read a bunch of them and get frustrated with what I see as the limitations. I know that every human being has their blind spots and biases, but I find them frustrating when I read advice columns. The best one I’ve read is Ask A Manager. Alison Green is really good at seeing things from various points of views. She’s one of the most thorough advice columnists that I’ve read. I rarely find myself getting impatient with her for not seeing a certain aspect of the question. I will say she’s overly fond of pranks, but that’s one of the very few things I categorically disagree with her about (she thinks there are times when it’s fine in the office and I don’t. At all).
Other advice columnists fall way short, sadly. I used to really like Danny Lavery as Dear Prudie until he went completely off the rails right before he quit. I’ve enjoyed his new podcast on and off, but man did were his last few Prudie columns painful to read. I know there was a lot goin on in his personal life at the time so I try to be understanding of that. It was odd when he suddenly quit, but maybe he had been burned out for quite some time. Also, it was during a pandemic and as I said, there was a LOT going on in his personal life at the time. It might have been a mutual separation, but it felt very sudden. Either a “I hate this and quit” or a “You’re going to have to go now”.
Then, there was Michelle Herman at Care and Feeding. I liked her a lot. She was very pragmatic, but also empathetic. A few months ago, however, she went off the rails as well. The big thing I didn’t like about her was her ‘but faaaaaaaaaamily’ mentality that made her extremely hesitant to proffer a ‘cut off the family’ solution. But I get it that most people think it’s an extremely last solution, which it really shouldn’t be. In the last six months or so, though, she’s going to the ‘OH MY GOD NEVER CUT FAMILY OFF YOUR MONSTER’ extreme that I cannot support.
There was a letter from a man from a different culture who had a mother who was physically abusive. Oh, she called it correcting the child, but it was physical abuse. To his son–her grandson. Michelle said that he should keep her in the child’s life, but just watch over her and only have her around when he could be around, too. There’s a child physician an the commentariat (which sucks in general, but that’s another post) who said that they were for including family as much as possible, but there had to be a line drawn at physical abuse. I mean, that’s the easiest of all lines to draw, and Michelle failed to do so. I have my theories on why she has gone precipitously downhill, but that’s neither here nor there.
The point is that I’m seriously considering an advice column. I know I have my own biases as well, including the fact that I am quick to say, “Dump them/cut them off”, and I’ll always root for the underdog. Always. I want to do different levels to my answers. Tiers, if you will. A one-word answer, a one paragraph answer, and an unlimited answer. And do video responses as well. The possibilities are endless, but I have to give it more careful thought.