Some People Just Want to Complain Like Victims

And they will always "misunderstand" anyone who wants to just help out

I have a source of “income” that’s not really income, but for this purposes let’s say it is. There are guidelines to stay in this gig and one of those guidelines includes having “basic grammar and sentence structure.”

People want to be able to understand you when you write something they are going to read. Because otherwise, what’s the point? If you write something with bad grammar, you will be misunderstood. If you consistently misspell words, you will be misunderstood. Then you have not conveyed your beliefs or thoughts to the other party. That is a lack of communication which makes me wonder why people even bother trying to communicate in the first place.

I don’t know why… it’s likely because I had more time on my hands with my vacation, but I went to Facebook and saw people complaining that they were not being rated as “insightful” enough. One even asked for advice, and there was misspelling and bad grammar in the request-for-help post.

Now if someone is looking for a savior/rescuer person, I will not bother. But if someone is asking for help, and I think I can add some help, then I will. I took a sentence from the post, quoted it, and explained that this one particular word was misspelled and the sentence was bad grammar and unclear. I gave the instructions that clearly lay out that basic grammar and sentence structure and good spelling matter.

Oh, the drama. I got sarcastic responses, and one going, “Really?” The reason being of course is that these people do not believe that using English grammar and having misspelling matters at all to their “job” performance. Really?

These sorts of people can ask for help, but they do not want to take personal responsibility to do a better “job.” Not, if it involves double-checking their spelling, or re-reading it to make sure adults at all reading levels can understand them. Do people not realize that English As a Second Language (ESL) folks cannot always understand a sentence if you throw grammar and spelling out the window? Do they care about being understood?

But of course they use voice to text, and it’s so hard to go back and edit it if they’re using their phones to do the work instead of a computer. If it’s too hard to do properly, well, it’s the job that should change, not them, right?

How narcissistic do you have to be to think that everyone else should strain to figure out what you meant, instead of bothering to communicate clearly? And for them to think the guidelines are bad and someone pointing out a way to be better is just being petty? I ask myself, “Are these people for real?”

Sometimes I just do the facepalm and wonder how our society got to this point.

But then I remember the Drama Triangle. What’s going on here is someone wants to play victim, acting like they want help, but not really willing to do what it takes to be helped. If you ever try to help someone who doesn’t actually want help, you will likely be turned into a persecutor.

People joined together to triangulate me…painting me as a persecutor… like I’m some grammar Nazi just randomly trolling Facebook looking for people to berate for their lack of grammar. They do not even acknowledge the guidelines that I gave as proof that double-checking spelling and grammar might help. There really was no one who said “thanks,” “that makes sense,” or, “I’ll try that and see.” Instead I see those sorts of people asking, is it this other thing (that’s already been proven not to matter) or is it random?

I am not even going to say I know for sure it’s the grammar and spelling, but my point is these sorts do not want to look at that because they do not want to put in any extra work on that. They’re willing to do extra work, just not that. It’s like fixing grammar and spelling is some sort of kryptonite. If you have any clue as to why, please feel free to add your thoughts.

I wonder if it’s a situation where they have identified as a “bad speller,” or maybe they have made fun of “grammar nazis” in the past and decided they could never be one. You see if you turn a group of people into a “persecutor” role, that makes it impossible to humanize them and to do anything yourself that looks like you are allied with them. If you think people who notice grammar errors are “bad” then you will not notice or care for the errors yourself. I actually think they still care if they see them, but they won’t admit it to others.

It reminds me of an article I read this morning, “No, I'm Not Saying That... on resisting the urge to write like you're stupid” by Holly Mathnerd.

No, I'm Not Saying That...

I believe that if you say something that reminds a person of a personal failure of theirs, then they will have these tendencies. I noticed it before in a religious context and we called it the Holy Spirit convicting someone then.

In my case, if I say that people should have better grammar and good spelling to be clear so others can understand them well, and the person reading that thinks to herself or himself, “I have bad grammar and misspell a lot,” then the person will get a feeling of conviction. It’s a moment of truth. Now the person has a couple of options.

1. Look at why they feel convicted, and ask themselves if they want to work on their grammar and spelling because this matters. This would be the taking personal responsibility option. Or…

2. Project their problems onto someone else. When people don’t feel like taking personal responsibility, they subconsciously choose to stay in the Drama Triangle, and just label whoever they blame for bringing this funky conviction feeling up as a “persecutor.” They might label the other a “victim” of some sort of weird worldview as well, but usually there’s a level of anger that they want to get out and labeling the other as a persecutor works best.

The anger that they have is misdirected anger. It’s anger at themselves for not living up to their own understanding of what they could do. They know subconsciously that they could work on this issue, and get better at it, but when they’ve decided not to do that then the anger has to be directed at something else, and in this case it’s whoever said something that made them remember their own failings.

In Holly’s case it was about an older article about “talent.” When she says that people can do something about getting better at a skill through work, people get convicted. They might feel angry at themselves for not having taken the time to get better at something. When I see how well she draws, I get angry that I didn’t work more on it when I was younger and felt like I had more time. But at least I’m honest about that (#1 response above).

The people who do not want to take personal responsibility (or they do not want others to take personal responsibility for their lives) are going to look at anyone who mentions the advice of taking time and effort to get better at something as an evil persecutor. They would much rather think of themselves (or others) as victims of not being gifted from birth with a talent. That would put God or the universe or nature in the spot of “persecutor”, by the way. But oftentimes people don’t think that through.

I told her that no matter how clearly you write, those people will still react the same way. They have a desire to misunderstand her because they have no desire to take personal responsibility. With so many people wanting to play victim these days, what’s shocking is that anyone is honest with themselves and doesn’t project onto writers like her. That anyone sees what she is saying and agrees with it is seemingly miraculous these days.

It seems like the majority of people hate hearing that they can get better at something because they just don’t want to do the work involved. It’s so much easier to complain, isn’t it? Personal responsibility is like kryptonite it seems.

But if you ever want to feel powerful and free, then choose #1 personal responsibility.

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