abrightboy | Voicemail (IC Contact Post) NEW

...what, that's it?

Bright, she set someone on fire! That's not a slap on the freaking wrist!!

No, of course it's not. I'll take care of it.

.......Did you think I wasn't going to? When did I let her slide on stuff she does?

[He has the weirdest sense of deja vu from the fucking breach, which is why he just sighs, heavily, instead of going off the rails at him again.

His tone is only thinly veiled irritation, but he's trying to be patient.]

Goddamn... Bright, when you only say the hard facts and don't even pretend to acknowledge that I'm pissed off about how your kid hurt my kid, it doesn't sound like you care.

[Malcolm frowns.]

Of course I care. That's why I have to go deal with it before she hurts anyone else. ...What am I supposed to say?

Anything! Just make it obvious that you recognise I am upset! Like-- "wow, that's horrible", or- "I'll get on that right away" or- even just "I'm sorry that happened"! Something that makes it look like you're not just running your FBI hardware about it!

...It's not obvious that it's horrible?

......Can I ask a question? [He doesn't wait for an answer on that one.] If you need emotional feedback to feel validated, how are you friends with Shaw?

[...he has no idea how to feel about that question. The overarching emotion is 'vaguely offended', but he promised her he wouldn't arbitrate so.]

Just 'cos she doesn't use her words doesn't mean she doesn't give me anything. I learned how to speak Shawnese, so I know when she's trying to help me out. It's the trying that matters, not the words, but you don't feel like you're trying to make me feel better. You just get the job done, and that's only half the job when the job is 'making friends'.

Maybe you just don't speak... Brightese.

Well we already know you don't speak Eiffelese or we wouldn't be having these conversations.

[He rubs his face in both hands.]

...look. I'm not asking you to stop beating your own drum. God knows you're doing something right if you're graduating people. But you gotta start learning to meet other people halfway, or this is gonna keep happening.

....Halfway to where? I don't understand what I said that wasn't... understandable. I said thank you for letting me know.

[When did he sign up for this and can he get a refund.]

Hokay, let me break it down for you. Baby steps.

[Another brief sigh, but his tone is (almost) patient again, deliberately slow.] When someone comes at you, and they are feeling big emotions, they don't necessarily want the problem to be solved. Or- that's not the only thing they want. They want someone to say that their emotions matter - especially when they're mad on somebody else's behalf. They wanna feel like you're hearing that they're upset and want to do something about it to make them feel better.

Just saying "Thank you for telling me" doesn't tell people that. That makes it sound like you don't care about their feelings. And when someone's already upset, when they feel like they're being brushed off, that makes it worse.

And what you're saying is everybody wants that.

[Neal didn't want that. Not in public and not from people he didn't know well.]

I don't think that can be universally true, so how do you know if it's the right move with someone you don't know well?

No, it is universally true. Everyone just - wants to be understood. But doing it in public just means different tools. I'm friends with Hakkai, I'm not gonna reassure him in public the same way I'm gonna do it if we're hanging out in private.

...you know what mirroring is, right? [The bigger surprise is probably that Eiffel knows what mirroring is.] Just - give them what they give you. If someone's icing up, you can just use Brightese and they won't care. But if someone's making that big emotional show, maybe consider putting some stock sympathy phrases in your database to put them a bit more at ease.

I show big emotions all the time. People don't like it. That's why I try not to. It actually takes a lot of effort. I'm not Shaw.

Oh my god, stop comparing yourself to Shaw. You're literally just making yourself miserable because you both keep coming at it cross-ways and don't listen to each other! That's why you were in freaking counselling!

I work in Counselling. We were in Mediation. And you said you understand her and not me. How am I supposed to help you understand me without comparing me to something you understand?

[A beat and something clicks.]

Because you don’t want to understand me. You want to tell me how to be less off-putting by faking it. Well, I’m a bit rusty, but I do remember how to do that.

Anyway, I better go. Because this situation is horrible and needs to be dealt with so you and Allan feel safe.

Thanks. I’ll let you know what I end up doing once I’ve spoken to her.

Hey. I hope you’re both doing better over there. If Allan hasn’t received Kikimora’s apology and replacement flipflops yet, he will soon. In the meantime, I’ve taken care of the underlying issue that made her lash out at him. It won’t happen again. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you. Let me know if there are any further issues. I have a large number of appropriate stock sympathy phrases ready to go.

[Eiffel has a personal scale which he tries to pretend doesn't exist, about how badly someone makes him want to drink.

He's amazed at how quickly Malcolm made himself shoot up the ranks.]

Okay, if you wanna compare yourself to Shaw, here's the rub: she doesn't put words in my mouth. If I didn't wanna goddamn understand you why would I have apologised? Why would I keep trying with you?! I could just as easily never talk to you again and I would achieve the goal of not understanding you with way less of a headache! I don't care if you're off-putting, what do you think people call me?! I care that you clearly wanna understand and you immediately yelled at me when I said acknowledging people matters! What is your deal?!

I didn’t yell at you. Go back and listen. You yelled at me. When I was trying to explain how I process emotions. Because the last time you yelled at me, in front of everybody with the Neal thing, and this time now? In both cases you accused me of being a robot with no feelings that hurts people by not emoting empathetically. That is so the opposite of what my problem is. Maybe I overcompensate, but you are literally the only person that approach has ever gotten me in more trouble with than overemoting does. People do not like to see messy big emotions that aren’t in tight control. And your solution for my perceived disorder of robotic unfeelingness? To copy other people’s appropriate emotional reactions and pretend they’re my reaction? There’s a word for that, Doug. That’s masking. And the subject is a bit triggering for me, I guess.

Speaking of which… Shaw brought up the breach and she thought it was weird when I told her not to worry; that I wouldn’t try muscling into your group just because the breach put me in it. …Why is she weird about you guys being a group? She wanted to know why I was so ‘defeatist’ about it, but you’re not in the group if you’re not part of the group stuff. I told her I was just making a logical deduction. I didn’t get my walkie talkie or cool nickname or invitation to movie night. I pointed out that if everyone gets a bowling shirt except you, nobody has to tell you that you’re not on the bowling team, right?

[All presented very matter of factly.]

Well maybe you should yell! Maybe then people will believe that you're upset and stop making robot comparisons!

[Hold on he has to actually process that monologue and he picks up on a pertinent detail.]

I knew it, you're the reason Shaw got so self-conscious about her and Neal and me being friends!! Goddamn it Bright, what the hell?!

She wasn’t self conscious. She said you’re not a group and that means I can’t be included or excluded from it.

Can I clarify something? You were mad at me when you claimed I yelled at you and now you’re mad that I didn’t yell at you?

...seriously? She called us to ask if we were a group and if we were being exclusionary! That's not someone who's not self conscious about having friends!! Your Brightese translated to Shawnese that badly!

[There's a loud groan as he scrubs his face with both hands, and pulls his hair out to retie his ponytail. Now he just sounds tired.]

Just 'cos people don't want you to see it, because you keep being clinical at them, that doesn't mean other people aren't just as screwed up as you are. You've got your game face, Bright, what the hell makes you think you're so special that no one else is using one too?

I don’t think that. But Shaw and I have had a lot of mediation and she was being straight-forward. She really didn’t think you’re a group. I’m glad she cleared that up with you. Because you definitely are one that I’m definitely not in. We can agree on that, right?

You don't act like you don't think that. Shaw's poker face is insane but that doesn't mean she's not sweating where you can't see it. I know seeing is believing but maybe stop trying to look behind the curtain so people want to show it to you.

...why are you so goddamn caught up on that? [And despite himself there's some actual curiosity there.] We're not the only people who have their own thing going on.

I’m not caught up on it except that I thought I understood where I stood - outside of it - and she told me I was wrong because there was nothing to stand outside of, but I could see that there is. Like. I’m standing in front of the wall; don’t tell me there’s no wall. And I never said being in a group was bad, so if she’s having an existential crisis about it, I’m really not sure why. She should be happy to be in a group.

Anyway. What you’re saying is that I can’t tell what she’s thinking by what she says or does, but you can tell what I’m thinking - or not thinking - by what I say and do, even though I emote less than a robot?

Re: A short time later

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Re: A short time later

abrightboy - 2024-04-04 03:37 (UTC) - Expand

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A short time later

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