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

[cz_unit]

Drowning person syndrome?

I'm familiar with this. Sometimes you go through someone's life at a very dark time. You walk with them, get through it, then find that there's.... distance. It's only later that you realize that you are a part of the darkness now, and thus tainted. Best left behind, as one moves on.

I wonder sometimes if this is why people dump friends or put serious distance between those who are going through serious problems. Not sure about that, dark thought.

C

[miss_chance]

I've been the person who happened to be there and who rose to the occasion to save the life of a person I didn't know well, or was sort of distant from in our work-situation. Actually it's happened more than once, including in one case what felt temporarily like some very intimate moments, riding with the person in the ambulance and helping her breath through terrified abuse flash-backs when they put the immobilization collar on her.

It's a highly strange experience to be that person for a near-stranger. But I don't think I quite understand your description of the phenomenon though. In the cases I've had, the experience couldn't really create more distance between us... we were already distant in a general way, or as you describe, barely knew each other. It didn't make us closer at all, but it couldn't really drive a wedge where there was no connection to begin with. But the intense hours together didn't make us closer, either.

Maybe I've had a different experience than the one you're describing I guess?

[lillibet]

I guess I'm thinking of times when it goes from wherever it started to active avoidance and discomfort in my presence. I'd say that's happened 3 or 4 times to me, though fortunately not since the immediate post-college years.

[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.