Wow! Didn't think I'd spur this big a discussion.
The neighbor is a NON issue. In My best teenspeak - WHATEVERRRRRRRRRRRR
Trinity, they guy-speak, girl-speak I think ads a whole other dimension.
On this forum, everyone gets to express their real emotions. Those emotions that we can't share with the rest of the world for various legitimate reasons. Yes, some have always shared them, some have learned to, and some are still only sharing them on this forum. Unless I missed a post, no one here claimed to speak their mind, firmly and assertively and still won the Ms Congeniality award.
The dilemma is that women are culturally driven to hide their true emotions, and therefore, their true selves, from the world, and after doing this for so many years, their true identity gets hidden from themselves. As I suspected, the book is what I consider "fluff". It is very insightful into the why's and how's young girls begin doing this. It also is helpful in going through thought processes to undo the "damaged" thinking, and move onto thoughtful self expression, but so far, that's where it stops. So far, there is no "dealing with the fallout"
Paraphrased from the book
Young (13-14) girl is riding in the car with Mom and StepDad. Mom and Dad want her to have a good relationship with stepD, so they told her to be nice to him. In the car stepD makes a racial comment that the girl is far from thrilled about, but she bites her tongue and convinces herself that it's not a big deal she needs to "play nice". but it really bugs her. She works harder at convincing herself it's no big deal. Essentially she convinces herself that her opinions don't matter etc. So at this "girls camp" She learns that it's OK for her to express her opinions, she's allowed to have them and she's allowed to have her own feelings about 'issues' - GREAT BUUUUUUUUUUT when she goes home and uses her new found girl power, how does she deal with the fallout????????
OK, I only just started Chapter 2, so maybe dealing with the fallout is still coming in the book - I HOPE. in my opinion it's a delicate balancing act between deciding what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to. Young girls learn to internalize emotions out of fear of social (that includes family) ramifications. Half the trick is to learn what was internalized, and the other half is to learn when, where, how and with whom it is acceptable to express those emotions.
I think the reason I posted is that I am just so sick and tired of having to deal with the "fallout" as well as playing that balancing game. If it were anyone else, I could easily have said NO, and been done with it. BUT it's my neighbor. We both own our homes. We help each other out within our means and our abilities. We're not quite friends, but more than acquaintances. So I had to play that balancing act of firm assertiveness and niceness. Is the relationship broken? No Damaged? yeah. He's saying that I'm mean jokingly, because now he has to hide his true feelings, that he's embarrassed, PO'ed, whatever, but knows he also wants to preserve the "good neighbor" relationship.
I would very much like to be stranded on a deserted island. Why must ppl be so complicated and complicate things? Times like this I feel like an Aspie.