Writer's Block: Significant Choices

[crysthewolf]

[Error: unknown template qotd] my knee-jerk reaction is to echo virginia-fell and say "whoever didn't ask me to choose." I don't do ultimatums very well, but then I generally don't have much USE for them either. Still, it makes me think... if I had a friend who was REALLY my friend, and they told me that they wanted me to choose between them and my significant other, who would I choose to trust? I trust Chris implicitly. I trust my close friends only slightly less. If someone close enough to me to consider a "close friend" felt so strongly that they would ASK me to choose (because few of my friends WOULD ever ask me to choose)... what would I do with that?

I can think of only one friend who's opinion I would consider even remotely so valuable as to consider the matter at all, and I cannot imagine that he would ever, EVER give me that sort of ultimatum.

As far as Chris is concerned, that's a no-brainer... he wouldn't give me that kind of ultimatum either. But if I were with someone who did... I think that would definitely make me rethink the whole relationship. My S/O doesn't have to love all of my friends and all of my friends don't have to love my S/O... but if one dislikes the other so much that they'd consider giving me an ultimatum, I would have to consider both sides very carefully. SO I suppose my answer is not so succinct as "whoever didn't ask me to choose", as much as I'd like it to be. I guess my answer would have to be, like so many of my answers to questions like this; I don't know, it would depend upon the situation, and regardless, it would make me seriously consider both the friend and the S/O.

I have only had one instance where someone gave me that kind of ultimatum... it's either your boyfriend or us. I'm not with that boyfriend anymore... but I don't speak to those people anymore either. Their actions were indicative of the sort of people they are and the manner in which they conduct their relationships (which is to say that they feel the need to control and manipulate), and it was a manner in which I decided I preferred to never, ever have a relationship again.

So perhaps that answers that question better than anything else.

--Crystal

Comments

[studentbane.livejournal.com]

Woo. That's a nasty one. As you say, I'm sure it would be context-dependent. My knee-jerk response is to react very badly to ultimatums, so I would tend toward the "well fuck off to you too" answer. But in truth, I would have trouble saying that to Echo. (Or, more precisely, if I was in the position to say that to her, things would already be v. bad.)

So I'm not sure I can give an answer to this beyond "I really hate ultimatums" and "It depends".

What brings this particularly morbid line of thinking up?

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

Just one of those writer's block prompt thingies. this one has been making it's way around my friends list so I thought I'd jump on. =)

[mycybertuffet.livejournal.com]

For me, it would all depend on the reason they were asking. Once, one of my good friends from high school had another good friend who did something which hurt me badly. I hung in there for a few months, but then the two of them started dating ... and I had to excuse myself from the friendship for awhile. I didn't issue any ultimatums whatsoever, I just said "I just can't be around you right now." I couldn't quite stomach being friends with someone who was okay with dating somebody who had treated me, one of his good friends, so terribly.

Personally, if one person in my life simply said, "I don't like that person, so it's him/her or me," that would obviously make the decision pretty easy. But, if one of them had done something truly terrible to the other (and the above case doesn't quite fit into that category), I think they would be perfectly justified in making that kind of ultimatum. Ideally, they wouldn't have to ask - the mother of a teenager getting beaten by his stepfather should just leave her husband, the man who's girlfriend makes disgusting and degrading remarks about his best friend in front of a group (assuming it was a one-way situation) should generally be inclined to DTMFA. But we're human, and sometimes we need more of a push. And sometimes it takes a jolt like that to really see what's gong on in front of our faces.

So, anyway, for me, it's not a matter of who (though the "who" would have an impact on whose story I believed), but why.

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

Lady, you make a damned good point (as usual. ;) )

[mycybertuffet.livejournal.com]

aw, thanks!

[mycybertuffet.livejournal.com]

Another fair reason for an ultimatum might be if the person's involvement with the other person was truly destructive to the person involved, like if they had a substance abuse problem and the other person involved kept pulling them further in, or was making it impossible to get out (even more so if there were kids involve.

Or, if it was destructive to the relationship. Say, if your SO has an online "friend" whom he/she spends vast amounts of time talking - and very likely "talking" - to. I think a "him/her or me" ultimatum would be perfectly appropriate there, if for no other reason than at some point, you have to know where you stand.

Basically, I think don't think there's anything inherently bad or destructive in issuing ultimatums. When they're used to terrorize or manipulate, that's bad, obviously. But sometimes your back is against the wall, and it's time to make your last stand.

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

Very true.

But when it comes to that, I tend to think of Aaron... I've had at least one relationship that I know of definitely that he really, really, REALLY didn't like or trust the guy that I was with. But I never got an ultimatum from him. I can't even imagine how I would respond if he'd given me one because I can't imagine him ever actually doing that.. but then I don't know. I suppose if he really deeply thought that I wouldn't get myself out and really deeply thought that the person was hurting me or WOULD hurt me, or my friends, or whatnot... then maybe.

The problem is, the person getting the ultimatum in that circumstance isn't always mentally free to make that decision... if that makes sense. Sometimes when someone hands you an ultimatum, all you can see at that point is the ulitmatum... it's so terribly upsetting a thing that you don't MAKE a good decision. When I was with Scott and the Meyers told me that they couldn't be around me because they thought the relationship SHOULDN'T BE (and not just because "it's a sin", but because they truly believed he was horrible for me, and they weren't wrong), all I could see was that they were trying to force me to do something and weren't leaving the decision up to me.

I think in the end that's why ultimatums rarely work in that kind of situation... because it tends to take the "bad guy" label off of the person who actually IS being a bad guy and puts it on the person trying to help.

With your other example, I think that's totally valid. If you can't deal with someone's S/O you can't deal with them, there's not much that can be done about that. Hell, I've got friends who talk to and hang out with the Meyers that I have trouble talking to... but that's because they have a tendency to talk about hanging out with the Meyers as if I should have no problem with it. I don't want to be reminded that there is this group of people who so many other people seem to get along with so well, but those people decided that out of all those people, I was going to be the one they would hurt so deeply. Does that make sense?