Hello me from the past. Being judgemental as shit is a beautiful asset when channelled correctly because here's what you're good at: INSTINCTIVE PATTERN RECOGNITION. In a whole room you singled out that one misaligned tile? You don't like that person's relationship just because UGH? This work project is confusing and stupid but you can't say exactly why? It's all the same talent. How could Ask Polly be such a sensation if not for the whip-smart connection of patterns?
Sometimes I feel like this is less like owning a machete and more like owning a swarm of wasps. Sure they'll attack on sight, but those lil fuckers will also spread out and map the whole area for picnics and dickheads before you even know what's happening. Don't you think that's useful information to have? What a shame that we aren't taught to speak insect by our parents.
What I couldn't recognise when I was younger was that my gut instinct was flying miles ahead of my logic at all times, but emotion bad, logic is the only thing that counts right? So I walked into all sorts of issues simply because I didn't respect my initial knee-jerk reactions enough to sit with them until they could be formulated into sensible words. I'm pushing 40 and still tend to walk around reacting to the world like a toddler "I like this! And I like this! This sucks I hate it! This is nice!" but really that's just my instincts reconning the landscape so my consciousness can figure out the details of what I'm reacting to.
The point is, I have another example of a finely honed judgemental machete in action:
I get paid a lot to review incredibly complex scientific documents with the exact dumb level of inner monologue I have previously described. If something pisses me off there's *always* a perfectly good reason I can eventually turn into sensible feedback, like missing info or bad logic. I still can't believe how fast and accurate my stupid knee-jerk judgement is sometimes, but there it is.
Thanks, I have these traits and this is very encouraging. Noticing I was right more than I thought after some revelations has me really trying to appreciate my brain instead of just wishing it would shut up.
Also me from the past. The damage our parents did to us by convincing us we are unlovable boils down to this: we think we are responsible for how people treat us. And we believe that if we could somehow BE BETTER, they would be nicer to us than they are.
It's like auto-inflicted voodoo. "This guy was a rude jackass to me. What's the Perfect Response which will make him feel simultaneously understood and remorseful, and want to apologize sweetly with a dozen ombre roses and tickets to a jazz festival?"
Then when our perfectly calculated response produces no jazz tickets, we are all Incandescent Rage. Way out of proportion to the amount of energy we invested in that doofus.
As Heather says, the way out is to love and revel in every characteristic that our misguided progenitors deplored. But first, we have to grieve.
Deciding to grieve can be hard and scary, because it requires admitting that we've been unjustly hurt. That we didn't have control over how we were treated. That those who were supposed to love us, didn't. That we didn't get what we needed.
But grieving is the first step toward healing. Letting it out drains the pustulating wound that's stabbing us from within.
And when we let grief move through us, it opens up the space for love and joy as well.
Thanks for calling out that grieving is hard and scary. I’m just opening up to it after 30 years of suppressing and self-flagellation. And it is so hard and scary, it exposes me to all of my self-hate and it feels dangerous. But I also feel relief in it.
This was really helpful to me as a machete but even more, right now, as a parent whose little great kiddo is underweight because of his aversions both to specific food and to eating in general, is unable to do anything while playing soccer other than twirl around on the field and avoid the ball, who refuses and cries if he has to take his shoes off in public, who isn't moving up to the next level in Tae Kwon Do, or even practicing piano, whose mother (me), terrified of sports as a kid, now an amateur long-distance runner and weightlifter, is also, as you can see, very critical and anxious like her own mother, who also hurt her by comparing her to other kids, and also perhaps it seems wrong that my kid does three different afterschool activities when he's like five and three months. (He also is begging us to add TWO MORE.) I don't think I have ever compared my kid to another, that I can remember, aloud, but look how I'm doing it in my head. I learned to read at 3, probably because I thought if I learned I would get my mother's love, but my kindergartener is blissfully uninterested in reading, which I find terrifying, what if he doesn't get into the gifted class, though obviously I feel strongly that the gifted track is a ruse to give white kids better education than kids of color, but of course I was in it, I'm worried my kid will have bipolar and ADHD, like I do, and I'm worried that he's traumatized forever by his first year when I was in constant crisis and in the psych ward twice, though he actually seems like a wild, happy kiddo right now, and maybe those things aren't mutually exclusive. Also, I give him what I never had, or don't remember having: an enthusiastic, interested response every time he brings up an idea, and kisses all over the blanket he wraps himself in at night if he wants them and no kisses if he doesn't. He's hyperarticulate and charismatic and funny, like I am as an adult, but as a kid I was deathly afraid to talk in case someone judged me, and he isn't. My husband is always undermining my attempts to limit TV shows about fighting, and as a result all the games are about fighting, but at least it helps him like Tae Kwon Do, which I think will teach him trust in his body and perseverance and maybe even the ability to enjoy doing something he's not great at, an ability I had to wrench like blood from a stone out of my adult self in order to enjoy it the rest of my life with glee. Thanks for reminding me that he doesn't have to be like anyone, just needs to be the cool, extremely individual person that he is, and that no matter what his life is like or what his mental health diagnoses will be, he's lucky to be mothered by this weirdo machete, me. <3
I've accepted and celebrated my kid unconditionally, even though I'm silently terrified that her score on the PSAT (that she takes tomorrow) will be several hundred points lower than mine, because she's not a bookworm straight A student like I was, and thus she will be doomed to a life of mediocre schooling and underpaid labor.
But she's notably lacking in the insecurity and awkwardness and friendlessness that I battled at her age (and for the next few decades.) She's comfortable in her own skin, has a posse of smart, creative friends, and radiates easy charisma. She gives me a glimpse at the sort of person I might have been, had I not been trained to doubt everything about myself.
Ah, I love this. Thank you for the solidarity. I know— I really relate to this. I know that you were just sharing a parallel anxiety here, but know so many smart adults who did just okay in school because it wasn’t a priority to them then and now have great jobs and creative careers and are confident in their intelligence. And for them, other people’s achievements are something to celebrate and admire without any thought of “does this mean *I* am not good enough?”
Yay for our children, may they prosper! And yay for us!
I blew the socks off of all standardized tests and exams... and as a middle aged woman, I've come to realize that a lot of school is a big con. The things that make people actually successful are the things I had to learn the hard way, and your daughter already gets - how to build community and excite people about a goal, create relationships, and follow through.
Learning to read that early would these days trigger an autism assessment. As an ADHDer with an awesome snuggly loving autistic kid... His behaviors sound super familiar. Not sure if anyone has mentioned that possibility.
Lately I've been thinking of starting a tshirt shop, and making shirts that say fun phrases. I would love to see someone wearing "Be a machete, not a butter knife" on a shirt. :D LOL
I love this column so much! Life is so irritating sometimes! People are annoying! I think if you accept what you really feel, you'll feel better and also live authentically. Don't let the butter knives turn you into another butter knife. I mean you can stab someone with a butter knife, but it would take forever and who has the time. The friend who turned into a facsimile of her boyfriend is being annoying; you are allowed to ask what's up with that and yes people change in their 20s, but they shouldn't turn all their opinions and tastes over to their boyfriend. Butter knife.
Has anyone else noted the lack of an AskPolly subreddit/care to start one? :)
Another Polly gem to post above my desk: "Forgiving and forgiving and forgiving the motherfucking idiots, but never ever ever ever changing for them, never ever changing one bit."
“The world feels fucked because it is fucked”, liberating when you really lean in. When I started trail running (historically non athletic person with a sudden deep need to be out of my head and in my body!) I would gaslight myself often (“why does this feel so hard!”) until one day my partner said, listen if it feels hard, that’s because it is. A BLOODY GAMECHANGER.
I just stabbed someone with my machete feelings and got an arseful of social rejection for it, so I dunno -- in my experience, people love a sword demonstration in the hands of a master; but hand a katana to an anxious, angry, stubborn, loveless nobody of a human (i.e. me) and they all run for the hills.
And understandably! When the world is full of sharp, pointy people trying to tear down society, the last thing most folks want is another in their safe place, harmless or not. Why would someone spend time and effort on a sometimes-ok-sometimes-problematic friend when they could find a butter knife? Nobody’s got the spoons nowadays!
I’d like to believe that there’s room in the house for a machete. I’m getting better at being a sharp knife in the privacy of my own time but for other people... If I don’t dull myself down, I -will- draw blood. I don’t know many people who are cool with that. Heck, I’M not even cool with that, and I love the exchange of thoughtful debate, the pitting of one opinion against another, the focus of emotion into piercing connection -- but not the look on someone’s face when they look at my blade and go ‘Why the hell are you pointing that at me? Crazy bastard, stay the fuck far, far away.’
Their loss, I know. But still. Still. Really sucks sometimes.
I’ve had this experience a lot, too, so I definitely validate this— realizing that I’ve got overwhelmed and scared people and have driven them away with criticism. I’ll definitely draw blood even when I think I’m just playing! At this point in my life (38), I’ve been with my husband for 14 years, and our relationship is pretty good, but this still always presents itself and just did, the feeling that I don’t deserve love because I’m too hard to be with, and because I didn’t get it (in some ways, or thought I didn’t) as a child. For the first 5 years I longed and longed for him to want to marry me, and he didn’t, because our fights were so bad and there was so much stress in the relationship. And there have been times it’s been really hard.
One thing that I’ve done in this long mental health self-care process is to learn to be easier on people… while at the same time being easier on myself for the trouble I have being easy on them. It’s not like I’m great at this or anything! But I do think it’s really different from having it not be okay to be a machete. Butter knives &c also have problems in relationships, like lots of them just ignore problems or don’t communicate or aren’t honest! Machetes in my experience, know how to communicate, apologize, suggest solutions, work for the solutions, and make their love apparent.
LW, I feel like I have been in your place with the milquetoast response from people in regards to natural reactions to dating or friendships and the desire to unpack them with someone. Hang in there, Machete. Your letter reminds me to value the sharp knives in my own life more too. We're out there.
Thank you for this intense column. I come from the exact background. It took me a long time to learn that comparisons are odious. After years of recovery and therapy and living I now embrace myself and the life I have built. Flaws and all. Love from Cowgirl.
I think everyone gets pissed at a lame-reason date cancellation. Your friend isn't pissed because it didn't happen to her, most of us can be sanguine when it doesn't happen to us. It would have been better for her to have sympathized, but... perhaps it's worth looking at social conventions and friendship balance and what's your job to handle for yourself as an adult.
Is there any chance you have a habit of processing big emotions verbally, at length, but neglecting her stuff? Could you observe, next time, how long you talk about your topics and how long she talks about hers? How many questions are you asking about her life, and do you pay attention *with all of your body and mind* and ask followup questions that show you care?
Are you vomiting your feelings on random people who didn't actually sign up to be your unpaid therapist? I'm trying to imagine WHY you were complaining about your friend's boyfriend to people you barely knew, at a gathering. Complaining about 3rd parties to randos is unusual, and their responses sound awkward enough to make me think they were WTFing their way through their side of this conversation. You're not going to get the level of engagement, or the responses you want, if you don't get consent first.
I have a friend who does this. She vomits her giant feelings - she always has giant feelings - on anyone who is around, and it can be exciting, but eventually it feels unbalanced. I'm not a therapist, I'm not her therapist, and I'm not being paid for this. I exist too! I have thoughts and feelings and life events too! I don't feel like she's someone I could go to when I'm struggling, because my job is always to prop her up and support her and help her navigate life as an adult.... but I too am having to Adult.
Hello me from the past. Being judgemental as shit is a beautiful asset when channelled correctly because here's what you're good at: INSTINCTIVE PATTERN RECOGNITION. In a whole room you singled out that one misaligned tile? You don't like that person's relationship just because UGH? This work project is confusing and stupid but you can't say exactly why? It's all the same talent. How could Ask Polly be such a sensation if not for the whip-smart connection of patterns?
Sometimes I feel like this is less like owning a machete and more like owning a swarm of wasps. Sure they'll attack on sight, but those lil fuckers will also spread out and map the whole area for picnics and dickheads before you even know what's happening. Don't you think that's useful information to have? What a shame that we aren't taught to speak insect by our parents.
What I couldn't recognise when I was younger was that my gut instinct was flying miles ahead of my logic at all times, but emotion bad, logic is the only thing that counts right? So I walked into all sorts of issues simply because I didn't respect my initial knee-jerk reactions enough to sit with them until they could be formulated into sensible words. I'm pushing 40 and still tend to walk around reacting to the world like a toddler "I like this! And I like this! This sucks I hate it! This is nice!" but really that's just my instincts reconning the landscape so my consciousness can figure out the details of what I'm reacting to.
The point is, I have another example of a finely honed judgemental machete in action:
I get paid a lot to review incredibly complex scientific documents with the exact dumb level of inner monologue I have previously described. If something pisses me off there's *always* a perfectly good reason I can eventually turn into sensible feedback, like missing info or bad logic. I still can't believe how fast and accurate my stupid knee-jerk judgement is sometimes, but there it is.
Your worst qualities are also your best.
Thanks, I have these traits and this is very encouraging. Noticing I was right more than I thought after some revelations has me really trying to appreciate my brain instead of just wishing it would shut up.
Also me from the past. The damage our parents did to us by convincing us we are unlovable boils down to this: we think we are responsible for how people treat us. And we believe that if we could somehow BE BETTER, they would be nicer to us than they are.
It's like auto-inflicted voodoo. "This guy was a rude jackass to me. What's the Perfect Response which will make him feel simultaneously understood and remorseful, and want to apologize sweetly with a dozen ombre roses and tickets to a jazz festival?"
Then when our perfectly calculated response produces no jazz tickets, we are all Incandescent Rage. Way out of proportion to the amount of energy we invested in that doofus.
As Heather says, the way out is to love and revel in every characteristic that our misguided progenitors deplored. But first, we have to grieve.
Deciding to grieve can be hard and scary, because it requires admitting that we've been unjustly hurt. That we didn't have control over how we were treated. That those who were supposed to love us, didn't. That we didn't get what we needed.
But grieving is the first step toward healing. Letting it out drains the pustulating wound that's stabbing us from within.
And when we let grief move through us, it opens up the space for love and joy as well.
Thanks for calling out that grieving is hard and scary. I’m just opening up to it after 30 years of suppressing and self-flagellation. And it is so hard and scary, it exposes me to all of my self-hate and it feels dangerous. But I also feel relief in it.
May you find peace on the other side of all that flagellation!
This is really wise.
I love this, thank you.
Heather, I love you. No, really. You’ve changed my life. Thank you. Us sharp knives/machetes are so lucky to have found a community through you.
This was really helpful to me as a machete but even more, right now, as a parent whose little great kiddo is underweight because of his aversions both to specific food and to eating in general, is unable to do anything while playing soccer other than twirl around on the field and avoid the ball, who refuses and cries if he has to take his shoes off in public, who isn't moving up to the next level in Tae Kwon Do, or even practicing piano, whose mother (me), terrified of sports as a kid, now an amateur long-distance runner and weightlifter, is also, as you can see, very critical and anxious like her own mother, who also hurt her by comparing her to other kids, and also perhaps it seems wrong that my kid does three different afterschool activities when he's like five and three months. (He also is begging us to add TWO MORE.) I don't think I have ever compared my kid to another, that I can remember, aloud, but look how I'm doing it in my head. I learned to read at 3, probably because I thought if I learned I would get my mother's love, but my kindergartener is blissfully uninterested in reading, which I find terrifying, what if he doesn't get into the gifted class, though obviously I feel strongly that the gifted track is a ruse to give white kids better education than kids of color, but of course I was in it, I'm worried my kid will have bipolar and ADHD, like I do, and I'm worried that he's traumatized forever by his first year when I was in constant crisis and in the psych ward twice, though he actually seems like a wild, happy kiddo right now, and maybe those things aren't mutually exclusive. Also, I give him what I never had, or don't remember having: an enthusiastic, interested response every time he brings up an idea, and kisses all over the blanket he wraps himself in at night if he wants them and no kisses if he doesn't. He's hyperarticulate and charismatic and funny, like I am as an adult, but as a kid I was deathly afraid to talk in case someone judged me, and he isn't. My husband is always undermining my attempts to limit TV shows about fighting, and as a result all the games are about fighting, but at least it helps him like Tae Kwon Do, which I think will teach him trust in his body and perseverance and maybe even the ability to enjoy doing something he's not great at, an ability I had to wrench like blood from a stone out of my adult self in order to enjoy it the rest of my life with glee. Thanks for reminding me that he doesn't have to be like anyone, just needs to be the cool, extremely individual person that he is, and that no matter what his life is like or what his mental health diagnoses will be, he's lucky to be mothered by this weirdo machete, me. <3
I've accepted and celebrated my kid unconditionally, even though I'm silently terrified that her score on the PSAT (that she takes tomorrow) will be several hundred points lower than mine, because she's not a bookworm straight A student like I was, and thus she will be doomed to a life of mediocre schooling and underpaid labor.
But she's notably lacking in the insecurity and awkwardness and friendlessness that I battled at her age (and for the next few decades.) She's comfortable in her own skin, has a posse of smart, creative friends, and radiates easy charisma. She gives me a glimpse at the sort of person I might have been, had I not been trained to doubt everything about myself.
You're doing great.
Ah, I love this. Thank you for the solidarity. I know— I really relate to this. I know that you were just sharing a parallel anxiety here, but know so many smart adults who did just okay in school because it wasn’t a priority to them then and now have great jobs and creative careers and are confident in their intelligence. And for them, other people’s achievements are something to celebrate and admire without any thought of “does this mean *I* am not good enough?”
Yay for our children, may they prosper! And yay for us!
That's awesome!
I blew the socks off of all standardized tests and exams... and as a middle aged woman, I've come to realize that a lot of school is a big con. The things that make people actually successful are the things I had to learn the hard way, and your daughter already gets - how to build community and excite people about a goal, create relationships, and follow through.
Learning to read that early would these days trigger an autism assessment. As an ADHDer with an awesome snuggly loving autistic kid... His behaviors sound super familiar. Not sure if anyone has mentioned that possibility.
Lately I've been thinking of starting a tshirt shop, and making shirts that say fun phrases. I would love to see someone wearing "Be a machete, not a butter knife" on a shirt. :D LOL
I love this column so much! Life is so irritating sometimes! People are annoying! I think if you accept what you really feel, you'll feel better and also live authentically. Don't let the butter knives turn you into another butter knife. I mean you can stab someone with a butter knife, but it would take forever and who has the time. The friend who turned into a facsimile of her boyfriend is being annoying; you are allowed to ask what's up with that and yes people change in their 20s, but they shouldn't turn all their opinions and tastes over to their boyfriend. Butter knife.
Has anyone else noted the lack of an AskPolly subreddit/care to start one? :)
Do it
Seconding!
I would love to join this subreddit, but I can’t be the one to start it, sadly! I hope one of us can 🙂
Another Polly gem to post above my desk: "Forgiving and forgiving and forgiving the motherfucking idiots, but never ever ever ever changing for them, never ever changing one bit."
Heather, your essays have a way of finding me exactly when I need them. This one was no different. Thank you for being a light.
“The world feels fucked because it is fucked”, liberating when you really lean in. When I started trail running (historically non athletic person with a sudden deep need to be out of my head and in my body!) I would gaslight myself often (“why does this feel so hard!”) until one day my partner said, listen if it feels hard, that’s because it is. A BLOODY GAMECHANGER.
I just stabbed someone with my machete feelings and got an arseful of social rejection for it, so I dunno -- in my experience, people love a sword demonstration in the hands of a master; but hand a katana to an anxious, angry, stubborn, loveless nobody of a human (i.e. me) and they all run for the hills.
And understandably! When the world is full of sharp, pointy people trying to tear down society, the last thing most folks want is another in their safe place, harmless or not. Why would someone spend time and effort on a sometimes-ok-sometimes-problematic friend when they could find a butter knife? Nobody’s got the spoons nowadays!
I’d like to believe that there’s room in the house for a machete. I’m getting better at being a sharp knife in the privacy of my own time but for other people... If I don’t dull myself down, I -will- draw blood. I don’t know many people who are cool with that. Heck, I’M not even cool with that, and I love the exchange of thoughtful debate, the pitting of one opinion against another, the focus of emotion into piercing connection -- but not the look on someone’s face when they look at my blade and go ‘Why the hell are you pointing that at me? Crazy bastard, stay the fuck far, far away.’
Their loss, I know. But still. Still. Really sucks sometimes.
I’ve had this experience a lot, too, so I definitely validate this— realizing that I’ve got overwhelmed and scared people and have driven them away with criticism. I’ll definitely draw blood even when I think I’m just playing! At this point in my life (38), I’ve been with my husband for 14 years, and our relationship is pretty good, but this still always presents itself and just did, the feeling that I don’t deserve love because I’m too hard to be with, and because I didn’t get it (in some ways, or thought I didn’t) as a child. For the first 5 years I longed and longed for him to want to marry me, and he didn’t, because our fights were so bad and there was so much stress in the relationship. And there have been times it’s been really hard.
One thing that I’ve done in this long mental health self-care process is to learn to be easier on people… while at the same time being easier on myself for the trouble I have being easy on them. It’s not like I’m great at this or anything! But I do think it’s really different from having it not be okay to be a machete. Butter knives &c also have problems in relationships, like lots of them just ignore problems or don’t communicate or aren’t honest! Machetes in my experience, know how to communicate, apologize, suggest solutions, work for the solutions, and make their love apparent.
Shamala - you are hard to be with because do not believe that you deserve love. You absolutely do. Self -love comes first. I am sending you love.
Cowgirl
Thank you, Cowgirl♥️ I’ll practice knowing that!
Yeah, there's a balance. A machete can be beautiful and useful... But if you're hurting people, that's a sign of things that are off balance inside.
Therapy and mindfulness and choices about what media we ingest (etc) are things we may choose to help us cut through things rather than people.
LW, I feel like I have been in your place with the milquetoast response from people in regards to natural reactions to dating or friendships and the desire to unpack them with someone. Hang in there, Machete. Your letter reminds me to value the sharp knives in my own life more too. We're out there.
Thank you for this intense column. I come from the exact background. It took me a long time to learn that comparisons are odious. After years of recovery and therapy and living I now embrace myself and the life I have built. Flaws and all. Love from Cowgirl.
I think everyone gets pissed at a lame-reason date cancellation. Your friend isn't pissed because it didn't happen to her, most of us can be sanguine when it doesn't happen to us. It would have been better for her to have sympathized, but... perhaps it's worth looking at social conventions and friendship balance and what's your job to handle for yourself as an adult.
Is there any chance you have a habit of processing big emotions verbally, at length, but neglecting her stuff? Could you observe, next time, how long you talk about your topics and how long she talks about hers? How many questions are you asking about her life, and do you pay attention *with all of your body and mind* and ask followup questions that show you care?
Are you vomiting your feelings on random people who didn't actually sign up to be your unpaid therapist? I'm trying to imagine WHY you were complaining about your friend's boyfriend to people you barely knew, at a gathering. Complaining about 3rd parties to randos is unusual, and their responses sound awkward enough to make me think they were WTFing their way through their side of this conversation. You're not going to get the level of engagement, or the responses you want, if you don't get consent first.
I have a friend who does this. She vomits her giant feelings - she always has giant feelings - on anyone who is around, and it can be exciting, but eventually it feels unbalanced. I'm not a therapist, I'm not her therapist, and I'm not being paid for this. I exist too! I have thoughts and feelings and life events too! I don't feel like she's someone I could go to when I'm struggling, because my job is always to prop her up and support her and help her navigate life as an adult.... but I too am having to Adult.
GODDAMN!