Please Stop!!!

[rareboy]

I have to agree with the observations of those who note that many of the comments appear mean spirited and condescending.

I notice that my earlier response was pruned but after reading where the thread went after it, I'm not sure why.

 

[hanshansen]

Marley, it would be nice if you could get people to see sense with one 'class action' thread, but it doesn't work that way.

So many things that should be screamingly obvious aren't when emotions are involved.

I started posting here right at the end of 2006. I had all kinds of issues which I had no idea how to to disentangle. After 1 1/2 years I'm finally starting to feel like an adult who can make his own choices and live with the consequences. It took 1 1/2 years of baby steps from me, with lots of hand holding and cajoling by various people. I still have off days.

I have a record of that process in the form of some of the stuff I posted on here. Looking back I can see big errors of judgement and unnecessary fears. Decisions which seem trivial now felt like massive achievements and took weeks if not months of mental preparation.

I don't know if you went through a stage like that - if so, it's worth recalling.

Let's face it, this is a forum for people with issues. My personal view is that if the people who post genuinely want to work through those issues, they should be given all the time and patience they need. If they don't, that's another story.

 

[SugarPill]

I liked reading the original post and found the "tough love" message refreshing. It's always nice to see a diversity of opinions on this site, and just as the advice found on the 1,000th unrequited love thread can help people gain a bit of perspective, I think this one can as well.

 

[Providence]

Yes, but you have to understand it's a case by case situation. You can't just lump everybody's situations altogether and tell them that man is no good for you. It's like judging a genre of book without reading all of it.

This part of the boards pretty much IS for drama. If people choose to share their stories, they shouldn't be discouraged from it. We're just readers offering our advice in what direction the story should go and it is upto the writer is he wants the advice or not.

 

[luminum]

Some grown adults here speak as if they're teenagers just discovering that they can become erect and ejaculate.

Consider a sexual awakening of any kind a sexual awakening, 12 or 45 years old.

Yes, older posters here see the same topics, and the encounter the same issues day in and day out, and they see what some would consider "poor advice" dolled out in droves, but instead of creating an entire post to be diffused, I imagine it's much more helpful to bring that candor to the poster themselves.

How helpful is a thread designed to talk about giving tough love as advice? Isn't it easier to eliminate the middleman and just give them tough love directly in their threads?

And there's a difference between "speaking one's mind" and being tasteful. The purpose of this section is to address the sensitive needs/issues of the posters therein. There's a time and place for a bitch slap, but it's not here. Don't get it twisted. There's a line.

I think I've encountered you enough to appreciate your candor (and I do mean that), but no one will appreciate vitriol and condescension, even if it's not your intention. My advice is to roll with the frustration and have the steadfastness to bring your perspective to those threads directly (which I'm sure you do). Creating a thread to talk about how people need to "just stop" that appears as a masquerade for "how exasperated I am" really doesn't spread the word.

I work on a crisis line, and yes, there are clients or parents of clients who frustrate the hell out of me, but you're trained to be empathetic and to reflect in a tone that is much more passive than you may like because it's not about telling someone what they need to do or what you think or what you would do, it's about helping them come to their own conclusions. I may have a mother who beats her daughter and won't let her seek safe shelter, but arguing with her, fighting with her, or rebuffing her issues as she sees them won't fix her problem or that of her daughter's. People only understand things in the context of their own perspectives. Success comes chiefly in having them understand their own benefits and options, not telling them what they "must" do.

Do people sometimes need tough love? Hell yeah, they do. Not everyone needs "empathetic reflection", but tough love is the second level of advice, not the first. I only pull out the tough love when it's become clear that all else has failed and I feel I know enough about the situation to see that the person's stalling. If someone new comes to you with a new problem for them, it's incredibly unhelpful to stop them in their tracks, throw up a hand and tell them you've heard all before and hand them a brick wall of advice.

 

[rareboy]

If someone new comes to you with a new problem for them, it's incredibly unhelpful to stop them in their tracks, throw up a hand and tell them you've heard all before and hand them a brick wall of advice.

^ well put.

 

[FrankMillersTylerSophia]

I really appreciated Marley's posting on this topic. Not only do I agree on the fact that some apparently bad advice crops up here consistently in response to queries regarding "unattainable" relationships, I also feel that demonstrating a radically different point of view is often regarded as anti-gay, anti-community, or negative and unproductive.

In my mind, the need for this discussion isn't just to administer a broad spectrum dose of "tough love" but to establish a defense for the practice in general. If every time Marley tells someone to forget their tough relationship and pursue a happy gay life he is rebuked as condescending and negative, it seems clear to me he will inevitably need to discuss with someone his validity as a member of the gay community and his experience of isolation as an unwavering optimist.

As far as I can tell Marley believes the gay community is broad and diverse enough to provide a happy partnered life for each of us, and he believes we can each experience the community from his perspective if we commit to doing so. I don't read his post as a brick wall of "been there, done that" but instead a plea that the described troubled men might attempt to abandon their described problems and instead view their difficulty as a problem of their individual perspective on life in the gay community. The advice then is to recognize "your problem is not the one you think it is", right? I like that advice, and I hope it will continue to be given unapologetically. If it is difficult to hear something like that, I hope one would try harder to understand and succeed, rather than shout flamer and bury one's head in the sand.

And to the moderator who responded regarding "Try to picture a grown man sitting in the corner of the room crying like a baby. Try to picture a married man guilt ridden to the point where he became physically ill. Try to picture that scared 18 year old lying awake fearing the loss of his family, his friends, his security. Try to imagine the joy and happiness of someone finally meeting their first boyfriend and then trying to figure out the meaning of every little thing." None of these people were described or implied in any previous post as being men who sought advice for irrational problems or were given bad advice, this paragraph is unrelated to the specific topic at hand, and this felt to me like a very unfair and deliberate attack on Marley attempting to cast him as unsympathetic to issues that were not being discussed. Marley specifically discussed men who were attracted to straight friends or guys who did not return feelings of love/attraction, right? Dragging out these more serious issues and scolding Marley as being insensitive to them just felt really inappropriate to me, so while I am glad you had kinder words in subsequent posts, I hope this is not considered constructive moderation.

Marley, thanks a lot for asserting your positive views on the potential for happiness in the gay community, and thanks for demonstrating how hard it is for some people to make room in their lives for happiness with this argument here. I have gained a refreshed view of being a brave gay man, and an invigorated weariness of narrow minds. And if I read you wrong, I still think I am better for it. Rock on bud.

 

[screwnutty]

Were all human....and sometimes all we have left is hope. It's the whole pandora's box myth. No matter the odds, no matter the percentages....we always have hope that it will turn out good. Without hope....we won't have any reason to carry on in life, right?

That's why I post and give advice in this part of the forum. Hell I'm 32 years old. Fairly intelligent and mature but I am human and I still make mistakes. Sure I should know better but sometimes you don't always learn from your past mistakes. If we did....there would have been no world war 2 after world war one!

 

[luminum]

I really appreciated Marley's posting on this topic. Not only do I agree on the fact that some apparently bad advice crops up here consistently in response to queries regarding "unattainable" relationships, I also feel that demonstrating a radically different point of view is often regarded as anti-gay, anti-community, or negative and unproductive.

In my mind, the need for this discussion isn't just to administer a broad spectrum dose of "tough love" but to establish a defense for the practice in general. If every time Marley tells someone to forget their tough relationship and pursue a happy gay life he is rebuked as condescending and negative, it seems clear to me he will inevitably need to discuss with someone his validity as a member of the gay community and his experience of isolation as an unwavering optimist.

As far as I can tell Marley believes the gay community is broad and diverse enough to provide a happy partnered life for each of us, and he believes we can each experience the community from his perspective if we commit to doing so. I don't read his post as a brick wall of "been there, done that" but instead a plea that the described troubled men might attempt to abandon their described problems and instead view their difficulty as a problem of their individual perspective on life in the gay community. The advice then is to recognize "your problem is not the one you think it is", right? I like that advice, and I hope it will continue to be given unapologetically. If it is difficult to hear something like that, I hope one would try harder to understand and succeed, rather than shout flamer and bury one's head in the sand.

Marley isn't the only one dissuading these individuals from what many of us would consider "unhealthy" or "unobtainable" relationships, and it seems that they've largely been able to do so without violating a flaming rule. If they can get the message across without being caustic or condescending then he certainly can too (and he has before, so I don't really see the problem with adhering to a no-flame rule). If you look around, the mods have allowed what I consider completely awful posts to stand because they're not flames. Likewise, they've taken down posts with good intent, but poor communicative tone because they're essentially flames. It's not difficult to step back from a rant and make it into strong and sound advice. I've been guilty of the former and successful at the latter several times. It's not a question of content, it's a matter of conveying the content appropriately.

 

[tallguy297]

Dragging out these more serious issues and scolding Marley as being insensitive to them just felt really inappropriate to me, so while I am glad you had kinder words in subsequent posts, I hope this is not considered constructive moderation.

Thank you for your post mate... and all of your words here. I appreciate your opinion.

Firstly let me say to all that have posted here... this thread has worried me from day one. Its an unusual thread for this forum in the sense that its one that has produced some fairly divisional posts (mine included) as its almost an opinion piece - one you either agree with or one that you dont... and one that pitted posters against one another. As such its a thread that can produce posts that run close to the line for the rules of this forum.

But for the manner that the discussion has been carried out, you have, for what they are worth, my thanks.

FrankMillersTylerSophia, let me say that I have no concern or issues with Marley, his intent or his goodwill towards his fellow gay man. I admire Marleys desire to see all of us safe, happy and in relationships that are both rewarding and secure and I beleive he brings a lot to the site just like the thousands of other guys and gals here.

But mate, my inclusion of those examples were to highlight what I believed and still beleive were the faults of Marleys original posts and thinking in this thread.

His posts were of generalizations... dangerous ones that lumped all posters into one big group... one that needed to deal and move on and be the recipient of tough love as its been called since.

But like all broad sweeping statements and generalizations it fails to take into account each and every posters unique situation. And to that end it was simply to highlight that a winner take all approach in this forum, which IMHO, is not the best way to deal with the posters in this forum... the people who are scared and fearful and alone in some cases.

Every posters state of mind, their physical and mental ability, their financial and societal status needs to be considered when people give advice.

I was certainly not suggesting that tough love was wrong. Nor was I suggesting that an emphatic approach was the only solution. But you cannot make sweeping statements and hope a one size fits all approach works simply because YOU personally had seen it all before. There is a solution or advice for each and every poster... but you have to take the time to try and understand them before you decide which advice suits best... to ignore that process almost certainly renders your advice ineffective. Thats the part of Marleys arguement (again IMO) that was flawed and appeared condescending as it was dismissive of the importance of each situation to the poster.

Now as the thread has progressed, Marley has explained his background, expanded his theory and fleshed out why he thinks the way he does. As a result its easier to understand his logic... but maybe he too now sees a little of the other side of the argument as well.

The beauty of this forum is that there is no right or wrong.
There is no advice that is better than some other.
Ultimately the op is the only person who can decide what suits them or might help or work for them.
If its tough love... fine. If not... thats good too.

And Marley is as free as anyone to issue his tough love on a thread by thread basis - just as he adds other valuable insights right now in this forum like the other guys. Personally with time I hope he will see the reward that comes from getting it right with some posters... the growth, the reassurance they find, the strength they gain and the success that come from that.

But he wont get that one on one interaction and almost personal response unless he takes the time to remember what it was like when he faced those things for the first time.

I guess Marley is the only one who on reading through all these posts can decide whether he was right or wrong, whether he worded his posts badly, whether he is still 100% committed to his stance or whether any of whats been said has influenced any of his thoughts.

Personally mate, I dont beleive I'm perfect... not even close - shit I dont even know what town perfect lives in - or that my way is the only way, or that the approach to giving advice that I use in this forum is the right one. But I will admit when I'm wrong or that someone convinces me that another way is a better way.

And I will also argue as eloquently and as respectfully as I can when I think someone else is mistaken too... if only to help myself understand better where they are coming from.

And if that doesnt equal considered constructive moderation then I guess I've still got a way to go.