Tension

I've always been really glad that I was never part of a group of friends who played pranks on each other regularly.

I've also never really been in a group that was really competitive about drinking, drug-taking or, tbh, anything.

I also find increasingly that I really hate drinking games like "never have I ever" or "truth or dare". This is partly because they don't involve much drinking, partly because they're an excuse for single people to flirt with each other (and I'm not single) but mainly because the fun of the game seems to be in being made to feel uncomfortable and making other people feel uncomfortable as well, putting them on the spot.

I had a friend/acquaintance who was really into this sort of thing, never happier than when someone was being put on the spot, or embarrassed. I thought he was a twat (but his boyfriend's a good mate, so, you know) but lots of other people thought he was a great laugh, including most of the people he did it to.

I guess there are some people who find that their fun/friendship with other people is enhanced by introducing tension into social situations.

It really turns me off. I like to feel comfortable in social situations, this sort of stuff just puts me on edge.

thoughts?

 

if it weren't for the forced socialization of school and military, both many decades past now, i would never have know such things even existed. what little i've been social since, or cared to, has always been with interest groups that shared one or more of my many interests. and even within these, i've never really been with those who headed for the bar. people who i'm interested in having anything to do, just have more interest in other and more interesting things.

every group i've been part of, sure there are some people who drink or recreationally consume other things, but its never been about that. the interests i have, people don't meet in bars. i lived on a piece of land with a lot of other people back in the late 80s, and there was a lot of the herb. people would grow it and pass it around, but even there there was never any of that.

i think the op is hanging out with the wrong crowd. or maybe i'm just lucky, that i'm not that desperate to be around anybody to have to deal with that kind of crap.

i've been in science fiction groups, model railroaders, rail fans, furrys. furrys like to hug. it makes me feel wonderful. train nuts like a little toot once in a while, science fiction geeks have their yukka flats and pan galactic gargle blesters, but even those, that's just not a major focus.

i guess on this site, i don't know. but everybody on here lives further apart from each other then i can travel easily, often, or in many cases, never have at all.

with fiends like that, who needs enemas. i personally just avoid people like what the op describes. i mean, i have not that much need to be with anyone. if anything, i much more need and enjoy to be by myself, making art on the computer or going for a walk or riding a bus or reading or sleeping. i can't even imagine why anyone would want to be around situations like that.

 

I've always felt/believed that group mentality is something dangerous. If you feel pressured to do something (in order to belong) then something is wrong right from the start. We should only do something if we honestly believe in it - never just to fit in

 

P.S. Hey, TM: "with fiends like that, who needs enemas...." Brilliant play with words! May I quote you the next time I suffer an enemy gladly? The world is in desperate need of another Oscar Wilde or Quentin Crisp.

 

I've never been part of this to the extent I felt I need to just join in in order to be accepted/part of the group either My thought is that we both are lucky in this regard.

There was a slight peer pressure to drink the same amount of beer and stuff as a teen, but when you would point out no, I can't and won't keep up just for the hell of it, it was not hold against you in a serious way. It is normal that there is a mild peer pressure in that age (it happens sort of by itself, not out of mailicious intent), but where it goes wrong is when you don't (dare to) draw your own boundaries or when you do it is hold against you or you're excluded for not doing the same things.

 

Not particularly, no-one I'm close to is in to this sort of stuff.

I know a lot of heavy drinkers and drug takers, but don't tend to hang around with people who are competitive about it. Lots of people like to push themselves, but I've no time for people who look down on others for wanting to take things at a relaxed pace.

Stoners are kinda different, i find it hard since i quit smoking to hang out with stoners, because they tend to be quite exclusionary, even if they don't intend to be. It's just the nature of the drug.

The stuff I'm whining about usually takes place at larger social events, parties and stuff, with lots of strangers. I suppose it kinda makes sense that making things deliberately uncomfortable is a way of circumventing the uncomfortableness of an already uncomfortable situation (being at a party with a load of strangers) and maybe getting people to admit uncomfortable truths is a way of making everyone let their guard down and be more open with each other.

either way, i just prefer to stick to the more chill elements at a party.

 

To me it seem more like a teenage thing than an absolute stoner thing. Older stoners/weed smokers may still offer you the joint every time it goes around but they don't nearly always push it on you as often as a younger stoner would. Maybe it is less fun to hang out with stoners when you quit because they chill in a particular way?? and you recall how chill it is to just join in? Which would not be the exact same as pressure from the group Just thinking out loud/going by my own experience, not certain if its the case in your situation of course.

 

The thing I tend to find with stoners these days in a party situation is at some (usually quite early) point in the night they'll sort of dissapear and find somewhere quiet away from everyone else to go and smoke. it always feels kinda awkward going to chill with them cos you'll be the only one not partaking if you do, and they'll never come back to the party after that point. Time was it always seemed like everyone was mixed together and if you didnt smoke then you just passed it on to the next dude when it came to you, these days there seems to be a kind of segregation going on. there's no animosity between the groups, but there's a very clear divide.

maybe i just hang with a different group in general thses days, smokers are in the minority now, used to be the other way around. Ive got nothing against stoners, i miss being able to partake myself, but they can be awkward to socialise with in that situation.

 

Hmm yeah, it is sometimes like that here too. Except the awkwardness about being around them while not partaking yourself might be between your own ears? Lots of stoners at that point in the evening at a party just feel like chilling (which ideally you do with a likeminded person with the same intention: smoke some weed) but they would be fine having another person hang with them that does not want the weed. That's my experience at least.
I can relate that they're sometimes being the minority at parties and go occupy the couch section, kitchen or balcony by themselves but there isn't really a tension issue or sense of awkwardness if you happen to 'segregate' with them (in my experience)

Of course it can all depend on the details with what kind of crowd you hang or what kind of parties you go to as well.

 

the experience of tension results from how you are composed in relation to others. It does not come from the outside.

 

The details you provide.

 

Peer pressure comes from outside yourself.

 

Tension or internal pressure is the experience of relative membrane/member brain, resistance. The desire is to be together and therefor the experience of pressure. We want to be together but deny levels of that together experience perceiving ourselves as separate. However to be yourself is to be like them all being themselves. You need not emulate the behavior of others to belong regardless any popular uprising.

 

But the way one reacts comes from inside I think.

As a grumpy old man, I'm very fussy about who I will socialize with in general, and imbibe any substance with in particular. What I particularly dislike is some younger person who wants to show you some youtube video which is usually some conspiracy BS or something similar. Music too.....

Once at a festie when I was very high I overheard 2 kids talking. One said to the other 'I've told you before, don't do my fucking head in when I'm pilled up!'

That cracked me up laughing for some reason, and since then it's become a kind of mantra for me.

 

Sure enough. But this all doesn't change the fact that peer or group pressure comes from outside. When you are worrying about what a group might think of you then yes, that is between our own ears. If there wasn't peer or group pressure in a lot of cases there wouldn't be any tension to begin with.

 

ugh I remember that feeling of being uncomfortable during games of truth or dare. Back in 7th grade. I can't say its happened since.

 

aye, truth or dare's not something that happens a whole lot these days, I was reminded of it recently cos there was a kind of ironic game of it being played by some students at halls party i went to, it was the beginning of their academic year and they were all new so i guess it was a kind of "getting to know each other" thing. In general that kind of "teehee lets make make people mildly uncomfortable" thing still exists, just tends to be conversational rather than game-based.

Its been kinda weird actually. Since my partner is a student and living in halls so I attend some of their gatherings and stuff, its odd watching the social structure kind of develop amongst people living together. Like, i remember them really bitching about this one girl who had said she was coming out for a drink and then forgotten or something. Like, totally laying the fuck into her behind her back. these people are probably 19-21? I liked to think that those kind of playground politics were put to bed for most people a while ago, but I think in unfamiliar surroundings, surrounded by new people and desperate to make alliances, we fall back on old social tactics, buried deep. It was pretty clear that this girl was a scapegoat that they'd mutually decided to exclude merely to make the bond of their small group stronger.

 

From outside of reality? the tension is at the edges, a congruence. Relative tension is a matter of identification. Peer group is no different than any other environmental condition. We wouldn't have relative tension if we didn't relate unevenly or from the appearance of being separate. Succumbing to peer pressure is not about being cajoled or harangued but being attracted by the promise of belonging.

 

Wow, I actually understood almost a third of one your posts! I must have got a lot more clever in my time away

 

No, not from outside of reality. Peer pressure comes from other people, not at first instance from one self. It is indeed a kind of environmental condition one just happens to be confronted with sometimes. We don't have to be subject to it necessarily and if we are that is where our own mind would come in. Like BlackBill says the reaction comes from inside, but the action of peer pressure not. It comes (obviously ) from other people in the group. That's why it is specified as peer or group pressure.