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--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > Do any of you remember the rap in "When Harry Met Sally" about "high > maintenance" vs. "low maintenance" when it comes to romantic > relationships? I'm a fan of low maintenance -- certainly in a girlfriend > or partner, but also in other things. High maintenance is just Too Much > Fucking Work To Be Worth The Effort. > > All of my extended family members are low maintenance. (With one > exception, of course, but we cut her some slack because she's four.) No > one needs a lot of constant stroking and complimenting to get through > the day, which frees us to express such things when they're really > appropriate, not when they aren't. > > Even my car is low maintenance. It's an old Peugeot 306 diesel that gets > better mileage than many modern hybrids and simply refuses to stop > running, and literally the only maintenance it has required in all the > years I've owned it is a couple of new tires. My kinda car. > > Anyway, I kinda associate this high maintenance/low maintenance thang > with personality types, too, which is what this rap is about. Some folks > on FFL -- among whom I would include Curtis, Rick, Susan, Salyavin, > myself, and a few others -- are pretty WSIWYG when it comes to their > "image," whatever that might be. They're pretty content with What You > See Is What You Get, and don't seem to waste a lot of time trying either > to "project" a certain image, or "defend" it. My kinda people. They're > more interested in "being" that in "being <insert carefully managed > image here>," and that makes them more interesting. Low maintenance. > > Then there are those who *definitely* seem to have a strong self image, > bordering IMO on narcissism. These folks seem to have a VERY strong > image of who they are, what they do, what they believe, and WHY they do > all of these things, and they seem to spend an inordinate amount of time > both *projecting* and *selling* that self image to others, and > *defending* it when someone on this forum doesn't buy it. > > They -- and in this group I think it is safe to include Judy, Robin, > Jim, Ravi, and Ann -- seem to never tire of telling people exactly who > they are and what their "real" motivations are. They also seem to get > their buttons pushed BIG TIME when someone else's view of who and what > they are and why they do the things they do doesn't agree with theirs. > Some fly into rages and declare that the other person is LYING by not > agreeing with their carefully managed image. Most of them DEMAND that > the person who *doesn't* buy their carefully managed image "must" argue > with them about it, so that (presumably) the affronted narcissist can > either 1) convince the offending person that they are WRONG, or 2) they > can convince an imaginary lurking audience that the person who disagrees > with their carefully managed image is WRONG, and that only *they* are > RIGHT. High maintenance. > > Just look at this weekend's posts. Judy felt the need to make 40 posts > in two days, almost all of them falling into the category (IMO) of > "image repair." I think most of them can be summed up as, "NO, that is > NOT who I am. NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT. <insert angry stamping of feet here> I > am who *I* say I am, NOT who these lying bastids say I am!" Ann made 20 > posts of her own, many along the same lines. Dumbbutt made 18. And Ravi, > lagging behind for once, made another 17. > > I would suggest (without wasting my time trying to check, naturally), > that the majority of these posts fell *easily* into the category of > "image repair," trying to deny my suggestion that these five people > (only four currently posting) seem to spend MOST of their time here > obsessing on a few obvious "enemies." In doing so, MOST of them managed > to obsess on these same enemies even more than usual. :-) > > For some reason, it is *important* to these people that *they* believe > that other people on this forum believe *them*, and THEIR version of who > they are, what they do on a regular basis here, and why they do it. > Clinically, this is called narcissism. Pragmatically, this is called > boring. Their lives seem to have devolved into a constant struggle to > perform "image repair," spending inordinate amounts of time claiming > that they're NOT DOING what they are so obviously DOING. High > maintenance. > > It all seems like an enormous waste of time to me. > > Especially because I don't think that anyone *except* the four of them > actually believe their spin and their equivocations any more. >
