Help me understand this mentality

[-Asdfgh-]

I was wondering if people would help me understand this mentality. This was inspired by a thread going that contained a passing comment about a drummer who was recording an album and then just stopped answering texts email and phone calls-- leaving the album unfinished and the band wondering, and finally, folding.

This is the mentality I don't get -- and I've seen it multiple times

...

I see this as a younger generation thing, as both were in their mid to late 20's.

It is unlikely to be anything to do with generational issues but everything to do with mental health. E.g. person takes on a new responsibility, can't do it, has a bit of a breakdown, withdraws.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Unless you're dead or in a coma, seems to me that if you want to quit something, minimum, turn in your resignation, even if by text or email. Have someone else do it if you actually can't.

Ideally, yes, if someone is in reasonably good mental health that is often what happens. But not everyone is in a position that allows them to do that, and if they don't have the support available, no one else is going to make that phone call from them. If there is any generational difference it might be that there is pressure on the social media natives to demonstrate a wonderful life to the public and so there's an even greater issue with failure or pressure in general.

 

[MattZilla]

@PauFerro you have been getting ghosted, but the asking for a reference thing was a great opportunity for you to warn whomever this dink was trying to impress that he was likely to perform well for a short period of time and then remorselessly flake out.

 

[friskinator]

I'm currently in the process of ghosting a guitar player I met toward the end of last year. I don't know what else to do.

The guy is in his early 50's and I think started to learn how to play at one point then gave it up and is now starting again. Either way, he can't play.
He sends me text messages on facebook every time he listens to a song when he gets drunk and wants to know if I like each one. Literally a new text every 4 minutes for a couple to 4 hours.
Each time we have jammed he asks if he did ok after every song or lick he played. He is constantly seeking my approval and acts devastated if I say anything even slightly critical.
If I don't reply to his texts within 5 to 10 minutes he usually sends something like "You don't like me do you. I'm sorry I'll stop bothering you."
He has told me he is in bad health and probably will kill himself if things get worse. I get the impression he is on the verge of it anyway.

He's a sad emotional minefield and I really don't want to be the trigger that sets him off, nor do I want to be anyone's mommy.
What would you do?

Unless he's a dear friend, I'd block his number and block him on Facebook. You can't fix him, and you don't need the intrusion in your life.

 

[PaulCISSA]

Fascinating thread. Even more fascinating is it’s ability to coax-out the self-proclaimed arbiters of “proper” social interaction.

Some humans can’t take responsibility for themselves. My opinion is that it’s a learned skill. Some choose to not learn and suffer the long-term consequences of their choices. I think the most salient comment so far is “Ghosting means never having to admit you made a poor decision” (paraphrased). Kinda wraps it up into a root-cause rather than all the extraneous circumstances that could lead to that behavior.

I’m guilty of that behavior in my younger years. Time has taught me to face the uncomfortable situations and work through them. I value my integrity and that has paid dividends in career, social constructs and all my personal relationships. If there’s a downside, it’s the critical eye and cynical mind I’ve developed when I see it in others.

On balance, I’d rather be comfortable in my skin than ashamed of myself for something I chose poorly on.

My 2 cents.

 

[Turbo Sparky]

Unfortunately, this sort of attitude/people skills is/are NOT restricted to just music.
Narcissus was not a mythological character. IMO, "you"/"we" don't mean anything, it comes from upbringing and or lack of baseline principals; don't be a d*ck.
As to some of those who affirm/say the OP is an "oldie ranting about the younger generation" I ask the following:
What will you say when you are infirmed and old, and the "younger generation" is "ghosting" you while you lay in a facility needing whatever?"
As to the OP:
I don't know. I feel you did the right/good thing. Good luck.

 

[Cowboy in Latvia]

This has only ever happened in the modern world. Before last year, every young adult or teen was a model of respect, honesty and responsibility. It's only in the last year or so that they started to be these terrible kids...or even worse *millennials*

This shift in my perspective may be because I just realized I'm almost 40 but I truly believe everyone and everything was better in the "good old days".

Seriously, trying to use isolated experiences to paint an entire generation is not a good rabbit hole to go down.

Now GET OFF MY LAWN (even though I'm in an apartment building that doesn't have one)!

 

[Bunk McNulty]

Technology-enabled bad behavior. Generational warfare. I'm going back to bed.

 

[lfmn16]

I don't think it's all that complicated. Immaturity and narcissism. They like the feeling of being needed or wanted, but when it becomes inconvenient they bail. They're too immature to handle it like an adult so they just stop communicating.

 

[InhumanResource]

I was wondering if people would help me understand this mentality. This was inspired by a thread going that contained a passing comment about a drummer who was recording an album and then just stopped answering texts email and phone calls-- leaving the album unfinished and the band wondering, and finally, folding.

This is the mentality I don't get -- and I've seen it multiple times

1. A student of mine accepted the position of President of a student organization. He functioned for about 6 months, and then stopped answering all phone calls, texts and emails from myself (his adviser/mentor), and the dedicated, top notch students on his executive team. We eventually removed him as president after several months of silence. We advised him after suitable warnings via email and text to look for the email about his assumed resignation. He did not respond to phone messages. No response to text or email either.

About three months later, he called me out of the blue, mentioned nothing about his radio silence, and then asked me for a reference for his resume.

When I asked him about the lack of communication after accepting such a high profile position, he didn't have an answer I could quote. It was general whitewash. There was no emergency, nothing, just a request for a reference. When I indicated I couldn't give a reference due to the way he abandoned a high profile, professional position, he argued the point, indicating I knew about his other quality work and leadership in classes and could recommend on that. I held my ground and indicated that his abandonment of his position, without communication or reasonable explanation made it impossible for me to be a positive reference. I also indicated I was surprised he was asking me for a reference after that. It was a polite conversation, but one that floored me.

2. I spent about 2 hours helping a social media consultant with questions about how to break into my profession, and gave her an opportunity to speak to my class and get some classroom experience. She took the help and opportunities.

As apparent reciprocation, she agreed to help me promote a project involving social media (Today's Jazz Book). We had two phone meetings, and made mutual assignments. She didn't show up for the third meeting, and has simply stopped answering phone and texts. I know she's getting them, as they aren't coming back undeliverable, but she has simply chosen not to respond.

A. If anyone has done this -- simply stopped communicating with otherwise reasonable people who have made a joint commitment to a project, musical or otherwise, I am willing to listen, without criticism. I want to understand the thought processes involved in simply stopping all communication when a commitment has been made.

B. Also, is there anything others can do to pre-empt this kind of response to a project when you sign on to a commitment of some kind, musical, or otherwise, to prevent this kind of hard landing to a project?

I see this as a younger generation thing, as both were in their mid to late 20's. I don't see it from older people unless there is a technology hiccup, lost phone, deleted email account, viruses, lost phone contact lists or other valid reasons.

Help to understand the thought process is welcome. I have trouble fathoming it.

It isn't generational as this kind of thing has happened for a long time. I don't think it is age related so much as maturity related and it is more correlation than cause that immature people often happen to be young.

Sometimes it is difficult for people to face difficult situations head on. I imagine there was something that made these people uncomfortable with their situation (right, wrong or indifferent) and just hang up on communicating. Add in a lack of self awareness (is scary how many people have this problem too) and you get the phenomenon we're observing here.

You can see this in business a lot. The world is full of managers who are so avoidant they cannot have a tough conversation with an employee. Then they want my help to put them on a PIP and or dismiss, when they haven't so much as documented a performance issue or given them anything less than a stellar annual review. Lots of people just want to be everyone's friend, ignore talking about the issues and get home to watch American idol it whatever stupid escape they're into.

It's avoidant behavior and I take it as a lack of maturity.

 

[sean_on_bass]

I hate throwing millennials under the bus, however. They are quite simply products of the environment they were raised in. My kids did not get phones until they could pay for them, & the plan that comes with it, on their own (as a small example). Most of their friends had phones, & you could easily tell whose parents took an active role, & whose didn't.

This. I myself am technically a millennial but am on the verge(born in '85). I remember a time before the internet existed but didn't come into adulthood until after the new millennium. I can kind of see both sides of the coin with how folks act today and have my own theories on why that is.

Part of it is that the average person's life has become so goddamn busy and dense. It's at the point that following through on every commitment the "right" way is not even a realistic expectation. The amount of pressure/busy work that is put on kids now is downright scary and it's no wonder anxiety/depression/suicide are at an all time high. The generation that raised millennials was essentially all about success through wealth/productivity/image which started to turn the populace into rats in a race for no reason. The behavior we are now seeing is a direct rebellion to that. The standard of "professional courtesy" from yesteryear is now being treated as a disease that needs a cure so we can all relax and lead a less complicated life. It's not uncommon for an employee to simply "ghost" their employer these days. They just disappear. Honestly i don't blame them because these large corporations that most work for have never offered the same respect to the employee that they seem to want in return for company loyalty.

 

[sean_on_bass]

I've been around enough blocks to recognise at least two separate issues here, and neither of them are younger-generation things.

The first two, the drummer and the student, both sound like they got overwhelmed beyond their ability to cope with the situation at all. The pattern I recognise here is somebody suddenly realising they're already in so far over their heads, or the psychological weight (as felt from the inside, before any kids-these-days types start yelling again) that they have no idea how to cope with it. Some freeze, as in the fight, flight or freeze thing, others don't know how to climb back down and feel that the shame of disappearing is preferable to the stress of facing up to the people that they're letting down. In the latter case, yes, they often know what doors they're closing, but as far as they're concerned it's now a question of how those doors are slammed on them, not whether.
I've seen this in normal, healthy people who simply didn't have the experience to know how big the thing would seem when they got there, but particularly in people with an anxiety disorder. If your baseline is somewhere between anxious and freaking out simply because your brain chemistry is out of whack for genetic reasons, getting overwhelmed is a regular fact of life.

The part about coming back and asking for a reference could be a few things, but mostly sounds like a critical lack of self-awareness - particularly common in easily-outraged old white men, but seen in all demographics.

The social media consultant could be a bunch of things: flake, got fired, lost interest and wandered off, personal crisis, or health emergency. Hell, she's a young woman - the chances are uncomfortably high that she's recovering from being raped.

I get (and believe me, have gotten) the frustration when somebody just stops responding, but the upshot is that there's a range of possible reasons, only one of which is the one you're implying: a deliberate, considered decision to walk away and cut ties.
So the best I can offer there is the suggestion to change tone when trying to re-establish contact, assume that there's a very real crisis on their end, and ask what you can do to help. Even if they're just being a flake, it's probably your best chance of getting clues about what's actually going on there. If you have acquaintances in common, try asking them what's wrong, instead of going direct to the person in question - if the person has a history of being a flake, common acquaintances are more likely to tell you that outright. Or, if it was something you said or did, they're also more likely to tell you than the person themself.


Ways of pre-empting this kind of thing? There isn't a silver bullet. You can learn to spot signs that somebody's likely to be less reliable than you need - mostly through painful experience, unfortunately. You can learn to ask questions that tell you how they've delivered (or not) in similar situations, which can also be a useful gauge.
You could find a way to "subtly" mention that somebody already let you down on a similar project, and lament that if they'd only reached out and told you what they were dealing with, you could have found a way to work around it, or at least know that you needed to go ahead and find somebody else - then, if some crisis blows up, there's a better-than-even chance that they'll take the chance of facing your wrath. Then it's on you to take a deep breath and not visit your wrath on them, to cultivate trust in them and in people they tell about how that situation worked out. Or they might not, but it does improve the odds.

The general issue here is that you've run into a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and you want to know what state of mind produced that.
It's a regular enough problem among the software developers in the company I work for, that we added "seek first to understand" to the existing set of company values. With large, long-lived codebases, it's common for people to see a section of code for the first time and think, "what kind of lunatic thought that was a good approach to this problem?! Holy cow, what a mess!" and the answer is often that it was actually a reasonable choice under the circumstances - it's just that you get further by asking the perpetrator what the circumstances were, than by venting at them.
Vent away if you need to, just not in a direction that's going to make it harder to resolve the problem at hand.


That was a mite longer than I thought it was going to be; apparently I had more on the subject than I realised at first.

Fantastic analysis IMO. There is a reason for everything we do and we may want to side on "assuming positive intent" than the opposite.

 

[bfields]

Agreed with everyone that this kind of inconsistent communication is often based in shame and avoiding difficult conversations.

And around college seems exactly the time when it's likely to peak for many of us. I bet if you talk to anyone who's dealt with college students they'd have lots of these stories, going back many years--it's not a new thing.

When I was a student I was trying to do new things, I didn't have a lot of confidence, and I'd get praise from people that made me think "wait, how do they know I'm any good at this? Will they drop me if they realize I don't live up to this idea they have me?" And so I probably went silent in cases where I could have gotten useful help if I'd asked for it.

As the years have gone on, it's gotten a little easier to set my ego aside and admit when I'm failing. Problems are more likely to get solved that way, and that tends to work out better for everyone in the long run. But in the short run it's still hard to start those difficult conversations and accept that people may be disappointed in me.

 

[sean_on_bass]

I'll also say that along with the increase of ghosting, it is also becoming more tolerated and folks are more understanding to it...because we are all so busy now and information is being thrown at us a mile a minute. I work for a fortune 500 company and it's pretty common for people to simply not show up for scheduled meetings or respond to communications. No one gets angry about it and no one gets fired for it. We simply assume something important came up and reschedule for another time because we understand how busy everyone is.

 

[bfields]

Agreed with everyone that this kind of inconsistent communication is often based in shame and avoiding difficult conversations.

And as for how you deal with it, from a total non-expert: I think you've got to have the difficult conversations early and often, find ways to monitor progress that don't just depend on people self-reporting, encourage people to admit to difficulties and ask questions, have reasonable expectations, and keep a calm problem-solving focused attitude to any problems that come up.

Things go south when there's a mismatch between your expectations and what they can get done. They see themselves falling short, that makes it more unpleasant to deal with the problem so they start to avoid it, that makes the problem worse, and it spirals out of control. So you've got to figure out how to catch these things early and deal with them effectively in a non-judgemental way.

 

[Vooter]

I was wondering if people would help me understand this mentality. This was inspired by a thread going that contained a passing comment about a drummer who was recording an album and then just stopped answering texts email and phone calls-- leaving the album unfinished and the band wondering, and finally, folding.

This is the mentality I don't get -- and I've seen it multiple times

1. A student of mine accepted the position of President of a student organization. He functioned for about 6 months, and then stopped answering all phone calls, texts and emails from myself (his adviser/mentor), and the dedicated, top notch students on his executive team. We eventually removed him as president after several months of silence. We advised him after suitable warnings via email and text to look for the email about his assumed resignation. He did not respond to phone messages. No response to text or email either.

About three months later, he called me out of the blue, mentioned nothing about his radio silence, and then asked me for a reference for his resume.

When I asked him about the lack of communication after accepting such a high profile position, he didn't have an answer I could quote. It was general whitewash. There was no emergency, nothing, just a request for a reference. When I indicated I couldn't give a reference due to the way he abandoned a high profile, professional position, he argued the point, indicating I knew about his other quality work and leadership in classes and could recommend on that. I held my ground and indicated that his abandonment of his position, without communication or reasonable explanation made it impossible for me to be a positive reference. I also indicated I was surprised he was asking me for a reference after that. It was a polite conversation, but one that floored me.

2. I spent about 2 hours helping a social media consultant with questions about how to break into my profession, and gave her an opportunity to speak to my class and get some classroom experience. She took the help and opportunities.

As apparent reciprocation, she agreed to help me promote a project involving social media (Today's Jazz Book). We had two phone meetings, and made mutual assignments. She didn't show up for the third meeting, and has simply stopped answering phone and texts. I know she's getting them, as they aren't coming back undeliverable, but she has simply chosen not to respond.

A. If anyone has done this -- simply stopped communicating with otherwise reasonable people who have made a joint commitment to a project, musical or otherwise, I am willing to listen, without criticism. I want to understand the thought processes involved in simply stopping all communication when a commitment has been made.

B. Also, is there anything others can do to pre-empt this kind of response to a project when you sign on to a commitment of some kind, musical, or otherwise, to prevent this kind of hard landing to a project?

I see this as a younger generation thing, as both were in their mid to late 20's. I don't see it from older people unless there is a technology hiccup, lost phone, deleted email account, viruses, lost phone contact lists or other valid reasons.

Help to understand the thought process is welcome. I have trouble fathoming it.

He's a sociopath (and no, that DOESN'T mean he's a psychopath) who was probably raised by sociopaths. And now he's going to have to learn about life the hard way. People like that have to be cut off at the knees--it's the only way they'll even come close to understanding how their behavior affects others...

 

[easyj]

My friends with children say that their kids are less social than we were years ago. Many of them don’t actually have real friends, but “online friends”. They have this whole other online world that they focus on. They take this online world more seriously than their real interactions with real people in their lives.

My friends daughter, in her 20’s, was upset and depressed that nobody acknowledged her birthday. As it turned out she got calls and visits from her actual friends and family, but not enough Facebook and Twitter posts. Her mom had to explain to her what really mattered. A lot of people seek validation online and place value on that, but have less respect for what is going on right in front of them.

 

[40Hz]

Does it make any sense?

It might make it marginally more illuminating from a psychological perspective. But it in no way makes the behavior any more acceptable than it was before an explanation (or excuse) was made for it.

I’ve never been able to get myself to agree with the expression: “Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner.”*

Sometimes, the more you understand why somebody behaves in a certain way, the more unacceptable their behavior becomes.

———————————
* trans: “To understand all is to forgive all.”

 

[LBS-bass]

Does it make any sense?

It's not going to make any sense to a person who has never had a major depressive episode, or an anxiety disorder of some sort, unless they have a close relative or friend who does.

 

[bearfoot]

I suspect there is some actual brain re-wiring going on with the iPhone generations - obviously disproportionately affecting the young, and especially when they had a smart phone while their brain was still developing. Hopefully, the damage is reversible over time. I think it must be, because human social wiring is many thousands of years old, and baked into culture. This "ghosting" culture is too new to be established, but it must be fought against.

How to prevent this? I don't know if we can. But I think part of the answer is positive discrimination. "Discrimination" is a dirty word, but it is important to survival. If you see someone who is currently showing up, and doing a good job, but you see they frequently and compulsively use their smart phone - consider that a red flag always - and weigh it heavily.

We see the behavior so constantly now, it flies under the radar. Don't let it. We are fighting this at work now, again. We have to tell the young people to put their phones away, and even write policies and make everyone sign them. They are derelict of their jobs, staring at phones when they are supposed to be engaged with work.

And if there is a candidacy for an important position, weigh heavily any history of obsessive phone use. Regard it as if that person had lit up a cigarette in class, or has a drug addiction. Particularly if that person has been spoken to about their phone problem, and is belligerent about it.