The Concerned Stranger

[lillibet]

This has happened to me several times and it came up at dinner tonight: someone that you don't know well--or perhaps at all--is having a crisis moment and grabs onto you as the person who can get them through it, and then associates you with that terrible moment such that the experience creates more distance between you rather than less

Comments

[dpolicar]

I don't know a name for it, though I would like to. I generally just refer to it as embarrassment, though I agree that it's a much more specific thing than that.

I think it's related to the mechanism whereby we come to dislike people whom we've injured.

[firstfrost]

I think it's related to the mechanism whereby we come to dislike people whom we've injured.

And also "Never lend money to a friend - you will lose both."

[dpolicar]

Yes. Though I consider that a special case... if I don't repay your loan, I'll experience forces towards disliking you, just as with any other injury.

[lillibet]

Yes--the same kind of mental gymnastics of repulsion.

[dpolicar]

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