blind and clueless

A former acquaintance abusively told me several times that I am blind and clueless.  When I indicated I did not like being negatively characterized as blind and clueless, he would express disbelief that I was offended by his negative characterization. Only this guy has his charm act down pat so he charmingly chided me for taking offense at what he characterized as his harmless characterization.

I am an INFJ, deeply intuitive, severely gifted intellectually. I usually get the feedback that I seem more tuned in than most people, that I pick up on all kinds of details that few others notice.

I am so not blind and clueless.

When someone negatively characterizes me, or anyone other than themselves, they are engaged in self-disclosure. Listen attentively when someone you have mistakenly believed was your friend tells you what is wrong with you. They are telling you about themselves.

So the man who told me I am blind and clueless was really telling me he is blind and clueless.

This man also frequently told me he did not trust me. Translation:   he was telling me he is not trustworthy. And, as it turned out, he was not. I genuinely believed he was my friend. We've all heard the old saying 'with friends like that, who needs enemies'.  Some people, apparently, feed like vampires off the strength of others, deriving a sense of their own value by putting others down and then, seeing they have deflated the other, they feel a false inflation of their own value.  I guess. I am speculating. I don't really know why anyone could, so wrongly, see blindness and cluelessness in me.

I am notorious among my friends for noticing everything.  I have friends who are internationally recognized communication consultants who are amazed at all the things I notice, and these are people that notice most things, too.

Once, when a friend and I were convening a four-day weekend, residential event, someone went through most of the rooms where people were staying, during the dinner hour, and stole money from most purses and wallets. The group was very upset and even fearful, wondering if a stranger had come to the retreat center. The loss of the money was less upsetting than the idea of a stranger staking out our group, watching us and carefully choosing dinner time to steal from most of us.

So my co-convenor and I gathered to talk about it. She had absolutely no idea who could possibly have violated the privacy of most of the group. For me, it was instantly obvious.

A new participant in this community, for this was an ongoing experiment in community that met four times a year for four-day residential retreats, had dragged her unwilling fourteen year old daughter to the gathering. This new participant had just finished her college degree and had been promising her daughter for quite some time that after graduation, the mother and daughter would have a weekend getaway together. When this woman heard about our gathering, she wanted to attend it and she, disingenuously, imho, told her daughter "this will be out special time together".

But it wasn't a special time together. The new participant aggressively made a big presence in our group, took over lots of circle time blowing her own horn. And she did not spend any time with her teenager.

I, convening that weekend, paid closer attention than I might have if I were not convening. I saw the teenager was angry, upset and unhappy to be at this adult and, to her, boring gathering.

When I heard someone had stolen money from most of the participants, I knew instantly that it was the teenager.

When my co-convenor and I gathered to assess how to manage the anxiety that was alive in the whole group, I said "It's so-and-so, the teenager, she's mad at her mama."  My co-convenor, a beloved friend,  and also a hugely successful communications consultant who has worked all over the world, published popular books on group dynamics models and dialogic models, almost gasped and she exclaimed "I never would have gotten that!"  She didn't have to say that she knew I was right. We both felt the certainty that I was right. That teen was angry with her mother for dragging her to a boring adult gathering. The kid might have been okay with spending a weekend in the woods. I think what rankled the kid was her mom had said "This is out getaway together" when the mom was totally absorbed by the event and ignored her daughter. Probably a pattern in their ongoing lives.  This mother had a tendency to suck up all the attention she could.

The next time the group met in full circle, it came out that it was the girl.  The group did not talk about her motives.  Everyone was empathetic and many participants shared stories of having stolen, esp. as a young person. No one suggested that the girl had stolen from most of the participants to act out anger towards her mother. But that's what it was.  Mad at her mama.

A blind and clueless person would not have seen, instantly, that the thief was that kid, mad at her mama.

The kid fessed up on her own. No one had to confront her.

I couldn't understand why the whole community had not instantly realized it had been that teenager. Her anger at her mother was boiling over. The girl had disrupted our large circles, sucking up a lot of attention from all of us because, I surmised even before the theft was discovered, she wasn't getting the attention she wanted from her mother.  It was obvious to me.

Then again, I had endured an angry teenage daughter.   I had relevant experience?