Budgeting and Achieving the Lifestyle You Want

Source: Forbes

 I was recently talking to a friend of mine (yes, I myself have noticed that most of my posts beings referencing a conversation with someone or something of the sort, but this is how my ideas for this blog happen to be born: through conversations or events in my life), and we were talking about budgeting, keeping to budgets and how people relate to that. My friend if a young lady still, and she's not in a very good financial position inspite of all her efforts and having a very good job. From what I see and what she tells me, she's the one working to keep her family afloat, as neither of her parents have a stable income, or a good enough one, and her one sibling is not working.

I insist: she's quite young, she's barely in her middle twenties (I met her some years back through a book club I used to be part of).

I believe her parents don't have higher education, and both struggle with some mild forms of handicap, which might limit their chances to access higher paying jobs. One of them also prefers to be an enterpreneur in an industry that's either seasonal or don't get much of a demand nowadays, and the other is currently unemployed as they were laidoff by the company in a "sizing down" strategy. Inspite of that, the family has a tendency of living day-to-day and are fond of hosting get togethers, parties or to throw special celebrations of holidays, birthdays and anniversaries, that all in all consume a lot of resources. She is, at a certain point, aware that her family's relationship to money may not be the best, and she tries to manage her own expenses and income in a better way, but time and again she ends up going into these big spending events, and then budgets and resources to loans in order to "break even". And this is what got me thinking.

My friend suffers a lot of stress and has health issues stemming from many sources in her life, and I can't help to wonder if part of it also comes from the weight placed on her young shoulders. She does have dreams that would populate a Pinterest-worthy moodboard, with achieving independence by her 30th birthday, living by her own, in another country and so on. But are these only dreams meant to stay in the moodboard of the year, or are these achievable dreams? And if so, how could she achieve them?

The capability to achieve our dreams depend on a lot of factors, and sadly not everybody can achieve them all, and in some cases people are not willing to take the steps needed to get on the road to achieve some of their dreams, for various reasons that make sense in their own realities. Setting aside the fact that nobody shall judge what others do with their lives just from what they see from the outside, these would be some considerations one could make when setting goals that one really wants to achieve:

1. Be aware of your resources and your commitments

It's nice to dream with being a millionaire or a princess or a super successful business owner, but where do we really stand? This doesn't mean that you can't dream with being rich if you are poor, but that you need to be realistic and consider what do you have at your disposal to achieve that goal. Sometimes dreams stay just as dreams because we think that just by dreaming things and manifesting them, they will magically come true. And be aware that I am a witch and I believe in magick.

Some dreams will take more time, more effort, and there is a chance that some dreams will depend on other people, and those we can't control.

Then, the other part of the equation is about what claims are on our resources. If you have debts, dependant family members, commitments that occupy your time, energy and resouces and leave you little space to maneuver or none at all. Sometimes it's not even something you could leave behind (in a sudden, self-centered, unemotional scenario), but it's something that goes along with you, like a condition or a sickness that requires treatment, or that keeps you from getting other sources of income to improve your situation.

This doesn't mean that, if any of these factors are present, you should give up your dreams, but rather that you must factor them to make better decisions.

2. Consider what you can actually achieve and how much time you would need for it

Once you have a clear picture of what your resources are and what are the claims on those resources, you can start moving around the pieces and deciding what would you need to achieve your dreams. The first step is a kind of reality check where we can actually see what do we have to work with to get what we want.

In the case of my friend, she tells me she wants to move out of her parents' home by the time she's 30. In order to do that, she should be considering things like where she wants to live, whether she wants a house of her own or to rent a place, where and how much could she spend on that, how much would she need for appliances, furniture and how much the utilities could dent her resources, but then also, she needs to consider if she would be still supporting her parents and her sibling, or if she's comfortable letting them go and allowing them to live within their means. In a cold fashion, many readers could think that yes, she should let her parents fend for themselves and maybe learn the hard way that they can't spend more than what they make, but if we are honest, that's not how families (or many families) work, and so, in the end, my friend could be struggling with supporting two households on one salary.

This should give her pause and make her consider what can she achieve, and which pieces can she move (say, talk to her parents that she does intend to move out, that she won't be able to help them anymore, so maybe they should start working on their spending priorities), which depend on her, which depend on others, over which she has control to change and which are out of her reach.

These calculations could help her design a timeline for her dreams. For example, let's say that she does talk to ger parents and her sibling and they agree not to burden her income up to an x%. She also realizes that she could do better if she has a degree in something marketable, or a particular certification, or maybe she would have a better chance abroad with companies that pay better her skills. If she decides to take that road, she would have to commit to getting that degree, enrolling into the academy to get that certification or start to apply to a work visa as well as to positions in companies in the country or countries she had found would pay her better.

3. Make a Plan

Finally, when the resources, the commitments and the possible requirements to get to our dreams are identified, and we can see what are our possibilities, we can start making plans. These plans include not only budgets, but also schedules and task lists of what we need to achieve our dreams. This is the point where we map out our road towards our dreams.

Now, plans can be the point where all comes crumbling down, if we make unrealistical plans. For this, not only do we need to have discipline, but we need to know ourselves and know not only how much leeway do we need, but also what do we need to stay motivated. Let's not make plans that assume we can save up the 99% of our income, that we will live from eating the grass of the park and will never get sick or have an emergency. Let's not pretend either that we can live a life that  consists constantly of days of 8 hours of work, 8 hours of study, 4 hours of side hussles and 4 hours of sleep.

To make a realistic plan you need to understand yourself. Watch yourself, check how much energy you have what can you realistically achieve in a week, how much you spend and how that changes for a period of time. Study yourself as you would study a research subject. Once you know yourself, your habits, your needs and your patterns, make pilot tests: try out different habits, the ones you have devised to achieve your goals, and see how you feel about them, how realistic, achievable they are. Don't worry, there's no failure there, this is just a test. Try it out six weeks, evaluate the results and tweek it, when you need to.

Maybe savings is easier to try out, but studying isn't. Well, check out some of the classes you intend to take, and do a mock-try. Go to the campus, stay there reading, maybe you can get into the class just to listen to it (ask the instructor for permission first!), and calculate the commuting time, and how tired you are after. To test out online classes, try watching videos on the subject of your interest, on the same lenght of the class, at the same time, and see how you feel. There are ways to run tests before you commit, all you need is a dab of creativity.

When you find a test-plan that works for you, recalculate your steps, how much resources you would need to invest, how much time it would take you, how you can take advantage of that time, and set it in motion.

To give you an idea, I recently decided that it might be time for me to move to another company to work. I do have a good income, but I feel that I could do more and that I could also be better paid for what I can do. Now, I still have some debts which I would like to pay off before I move to another job (as there is the chance that the entry level job of the next place I go to won't pay me as much as my current job initially). I made the calculations, and I came to the conclusion that, with a budget plan I have devised and I have already tried out, I could be debt free in two years. This means that I'll stay in the company at least two years (more if things change and a better position in here opens up). I won't use up that time just working and paying up my debts, but rather I decided to use those two years I have given myself to improve my CV. I'm checking jobs I would be interested in and looking at the skills they require. I write those down and I have started looking up free tutorials online to acquire those skills. Yes, I could go with paid courses, but why spend money on courses for things I could get for free to get the basics and then spend the money on more advanced classes? At least, that's my logic: now I place my priority on cancelling my debts, staying on top of my budget to be able to affort all my acquired commitments and then getting all the priming, basic knowledge I can on the things I want to add to my CV.

In two years, when I'm debt free and with a fuller, better equipped CV, I'll start the job searching process, hopefully allowing me to get to a position that would be higher and better paid than the one I could get right now. It could take me time, because I would get older and I'm already of an age that's not so desirable for many companies, or at least for certain positions, but I would be still, in a better position in two years, if I stick to my plan.

It could still end up in nothing, my plan could fail and I could remain where I am, with the same position, but this plan won't ruin me, won't require me to take risks I could otherwise avoid, and yet still it has a better chance to get me to where I want to go than if I sat on my butt mopping and dreaming of one day being in a better place.

General Thoughts

Property of Stormberry

 Today I felt like writing here a little. I scrolled around the photos in my phone and I realized I probably don't have that many photos as a lot of people do. I mean, I do have a lot of picture - which I would like to tackle to reduce and "clean up" -  but not nearly enough to be able to retrace through them what had happened in a given day, if I don't write an entry in my journal (and I don't write everyday in my journal), or if I don't have anything noted for that day in my planner (which also does happen). Before I even opened the tab to write, I had some ideas of things I would have liked to develop in a post - as I usually do - but by the time I've got here, I forgot what I had thought to write about - as it so often happens.

However, this matter about the pictures stuck in my mind.

The idea came from a video I was watching, from this guy called Job, who journals beautifully, and who mentioned he, sometimes, "backlogs" entries. This means that he completes notes or entries from days past in his journal. I have seen videos of people doing this with their planners, where they not only write down things ahead of time, but also fill in the planner with things that had happened. The point of this is to give the planner a double use: as a future tool, to plan out our time ahead of time, but also to serve as a memory keeper or a record of how have we spent our time. This is quite useful in order to be able to reference things that had happened, without having to rely solely on our memory's strenght. 

I have done some "backlogging" here and there, both in my planner and in my journal, but it's not a regular practice of mine, and I only do it if it's something I definitively don't want to forget. In previous journals I have had even spent months recounting in detail a meeting or an event, and in some planners I have added annotations of meetings to which I had been called at the very moment, when I feel I need to write them down to have a better recollection later on, if I need it.

Now, this youtuber was mentioning the backlogging as a process he does in his journal sometimes, and here he mentioned that, when time has past and he forgot much of what had happened, he goes to his phone and checks the pictures he took that day to jog his memory. That's what got me thinking.

I remember the days when photos were made with a camera, using a film that usually gave you 12, 24 or 36 pictures. You had to use them wisely, and usually a roll lasted you a while before you carefully removed it from the camera and took it to a photo store where the film was developped. Pictures were like babies before ultrasound: you never knew what you would get. Pictures were precious and few. We kept them in photo albums. Years could go by without your pciture being taken. If you were a child, well, probably you could get your picture taken every year, on your birthday, and maybe on Christmas. Yes, some people could afford to take more pictures, but not everybody. You could certainly not backlog the events of any day based on pictures.

Now pictures are different. They are free and anyone can take as many as they want. They don't need photo albums or old shoe boxes to store them, but they stay in the same device that took the photo in the first place, and from there they can be sent and stored anywhere, and can even be printed, if one wishes so. Now you can chase the perfect picture by taking a thousand pictures of the same thing, then eventually going through every single iteration of the picture to use the one that looks better. The photo albums of a phone can look almost like a movie film, where rows and rows of pictures seem to look exactly the same, with only slight variations between one frame and the next.

It seems to me that pictures start to lose their value for us. The photo album can become a dumpster, or just a monotonous collection of photos taken, giving each moment the same value. How many times in a month do we scroll over all of our pictures, the way back in the day we would take out the family photo album and look at all the pictures, ask and comment the photos, ask about those old pictures of people we don't recognize of didn't get to see alive?

Checking in

 

Property of Stormberry

Sometimes one has ideas for a blogpost, but not the time or the energy, and other times you have the time, the desire... but just don't want to write about the topics you have already penciled up in a notebook or a notes app. One such a topic is "Opinions". How can you define an opinion and how to differentiate it from other forms of believes and communications, is something that has been consuming my thoughs. In a world so full of gaslighting, as we have today, where the truth is no longer true, and the biggest defendants of the "truth" are the ones that distort it and abuse lies the most. However, that's a topic for (maybe) some other time.

One other topic I've been thinking about is how people's communication skills seem to be shrinking. Maybe it's not everywhere, but where I live, the amount of people who can't stitch together the words for a decent sentence is mindboggling. Does it happen everywhere else? People speak Spanish where I live, and in written Spanish some punctuation symbols have an opening and a closing symbol. This way, you don't write "hey!", but you write "¡hey!". And it's similar with questions. You don't write "huh?", you write "¿huh?". I know it looks funny, but it's pretty basic. Or so you would think.

In "message writing", oftentimes people use only the closing sign, under the understanding that it's not to right way to write things. However, in the last couple of years I have found people closing exclamation or question phrases with the oppening symbol (what do you mean¿), which is disturbing, as these people consistently use the opening symbol at the end of the phrase as some sort of twisted trend. Then, there is the people who don't use any punctuation symbols at all. In a work setting this can be particularly problematic, as sometimes there's no way to differentiate between a question and a statement. And this grinds my nerves. And this doesn't come from young people, or people with lower level education, but often this sort of faux pas comes from managers or directors who are supposed to read many more memos and official communications than other people.

I don't really buy the excuse that "these people are too busy to type down a punctuation sign", because if they have the time to type down all the other signs, why would't they just press the question or the exclamation mark? If they are so busy, wouldn't it be better to get understood from the get go? Sloppily formulated questions also add to the issue.

"The invoice is in accounting".

Shall we understand that as a statement, that the invoice IS in accounting, or as a question? In the Spanish vernacular, the structure of the sentence allows for a question and a statement to be built up exactly the same way, being only the intonation the difference between one and the other. In a text, without an elusive punctuation sign, how is one to guess the correct intent?

What's happening is more than laziness, it's a trend toward the eroding of the written communications. People don't read, and much less write. Messages are mainly sent in audio format and received as audios. The reading exercise is reduced under the extent of a "tweet" of old, but probably no more than what you can fit in a traffic sign desiged for a highway. People don't read nor they care to read. People don't write either. And so, those who don't care allow their skills to fade, and even celebrate the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a way to pass onto someone or something else the pesky task of taking the care to properly communicate. AI reads up for them, takes dictate and slowly but surely, writes the entire communication up. No, I don't envision a machine uprising, but I see a generation of humans degrading, giving up their intelligence, becoming little more than ruminating herds who lose even the hability to check if what the machine did is correct.

Human ennui, human disinterest, and the penchant for posturing as well as the penchant to leave every pesky task to anyone/anything else will lead loads of them to self fabricated problems due to miscommunication.

Language is a delicate thing, and there is people abusing it. Knowledge is the most valuable treasure, and yet many allow their fistful of knowledge to get poisoned, rot, fester and eventually fade out of their skulls, the same way a negligent person would leave an open carton of milk out on the kitchen counter (assuming this very person has no idea how to make cottage cheese out of it).

I'm disheartemed at how stupid people is allowing themselves to become. Because nowadays people can't care less about being intelligent, they only want to look like they are.

Thoughts and Such

 

Property of Stormberry
Witch Kit by Casa de las Lunas, Costa Rica

I have a gozillian disconnected ideas in my head right now, and so, I'm going to go with them as I type. And on the subject of typing, I still think from time to time that I would like a typewriter, to use here and there, to have that lovely sound in my home, and maybe to work some of my creative projects there, like a XX. century writer. I already have an ashtray, a coffee mug, so all I need is the typewriter and the space to place it. 

I may have a "thing" with keys, as I also wanted so much a piano, and now, FINALLY I have a piano in my home. Not a small, portable, electric piano, but a real, vertical Sohmer&Co, 88 key piano. It still needs some fixing and tuning, and then I can start in earnest to download piano lessons and rescue my old, incipient knowledge about playing piano. I know that will take a bit of time - dependant mostly on the available recources to pay for the fixing and tuning - but I'm confident I'll get there.

Update on My Life

So, things have been going quite nicely, quite smoothly as of late. After the Holy Week holidays, things seem to flow nicely. Sure, there are still plenty of "real life concerns", or shall we call them "adulting stuff", such as managing money in the short, medium and long terms, planning for upcoming payments and so on, but with all of that included, life is really nice. Adulting doesn't bother me, which is nice, since I'm 47 and it means that by now, I have spent most of my life being an adult.

Property of Stormberry

These days have been very productive for me, and I'm so very happy for that. :) I've gone back into working on my thesis with renewed enthusiasm, as I've got a better footing and a clearer idea on where I want to go, and most importantly how I want to go. I still had not feedback from my tutor, but I'm working hard reviewing material and preparing my next chapter, so I can fully tweek up my research instruments (those would be my questionaires), select my subjects and proceed.

Next week I plan a thesis day, so I took the day out from work, and will go to the University, request the MSc office and work there concentrating ONLY on my thesis. And drinking free coffee. I know, my life is just fabulous, and I know it! I also plan to help out the librarian by participating in a small forum about books that have television series or Netflix series. Not that I have read that many, but that's what they want to talk about for their Book Fair Week. And if there are books available, guess who has two thumbs and is going to totally profit from it? (Me!)

Random thought: Bags

As you may know, I love watching videos about planners, journals and related stuff. Well, one of those related things are bags, and I LOOOOOVE bags. I am the kind of person that gives more attention to bags than to shoes. I mean, sure, I have shoes and some are... pretty? but shoes are not a passion of mine. Bags are a passion of mine, specially leather bags. I know, I know, leather bags are heavier, so they may not be the smartest choice for carrying the unholy amount of things I tend to carry with me, but I love them. I also prefer leather planners and leather bound journals... when I can find them, and the amount and quality of the paper fits my requirements.

Property Stormberry

Anyway, as result of this, by feed in YouTube is full of videos about planners, but also of bag reviews and what's-in-my-bag videos. I have been checking some of them, and I must say I enjoy so much the sound of zippers being pulled on lofty, leather bags, or the way the leather sounds when you are rumaging inside the bag, pulling things out or putting them in. Invariably, as result of me watching these videos, I end up cheching online stores of these bags, and then being quickly disenchanted, because the prices of the products are high.

Today was one of those days, where I watched reviews of Fossil bags, and I was so in love until I saw the prices. Then this got me thinking, as I actually have plenty of bags but don't use them that often as I work from home. But even when I used to commute daily to the office, I tended to pick one bag and use it ad nauseum, until, for some unfathomable reason I changed my bag. Slowly, I'm going out more - and for instance, for the Thesis Day I will pack up a bag and go to the Uni - but then I have realized that I also tend to use totebags as bags. And I mean those bookbag totebags, or shopping bag totebags. These make no sound, are not to supple to the touch, but have hardly any weight and I can pack them chock full with more stuff than any other bag in town.

Evidently, bags have a functional side to them, but boy, don't we love them when they are also pretty? And one thing totebags have, is that they can be so pretty and so expressive. Like t-shirts.

Do we Owe an Explanation to Everybody?

Around February I cut ties with someone who, up to that point, I considered a friend. It was a person that turned out to be a narcissist, and I'm not just saying that because now it's "fashionable to call people narcissist", as some think, BUT because this person fits the bill to a T. I left you a link in the word "narcissist" below if you want to check the signs of a narcissist in more detail. This person in question did check all the points, and funny enough, it took me years to realize that.

By February I already wasn't feeling like going out with this person as their antics were going trully annoying, and no matter how I tried to bring their attention to the fact that they things they said weren't nice, or the things they voiced were completely false, they didn't seem to care in the least, nor even aknowledge them. However, as January was coming to an end, this person did something that created great tension with a lot of people, and put others in an awful situation. This sounds ominous, so I'll explain: this person claimed a friend in common was organizing a grill party at their place for an event in February, and that we were all invited to go. The truth was that no such even was being organized, and this friend in common didn't have the means to throw the grill party. 

When confronted with the lie, this person doubled down and claimed it was the friend in common who had made the party into a much bigger thing than what it really was, because "you know how they are". I do know how this friend is, and is not like that. This fall in to many traits of the narcissist, such as the lying, the demeaning of others, as well as the fantasy life they build for themselves, not to mention the clear sense of entitlement they have by putting others to rush and organize the party they wanted to have.

Clearly, others had to rush in and call of a party that had never really been called in, explain that there had been no ill intention in "not calling them personally, because there have never been a party organized", and so on. The trait present here is that if not taking any responsability, not accepting criticism

Anyway, I told this person how all their lies had caused a conmotion and that I wasn't up to be used to in such a nasty way. They still pretended to be innocent, have no idea what had happened, it was not them, and so on. So, I stopped talking to them. They still sent a message weeks after, asking why was I upset, they have never done anything with any ill intention, and so on. And in a narcissist way, they said that they would "give me time" to get over it. Since when is my time theirs to give or withhold? In case you wonder, this is a trait of entitlement, which is one of the most common with this person.

Anyway, I went on ignoring them, and with time I went and blocked them off all platforms. Or almost all platforms. Yesterday this person went on Twitter and sent me a message there. Honestly, I didn't read it, I just blocked them and erased the message.

One of my friends, who know about this whole situation, asked me if it wouldn't be better to explain to them what's the case, so that they can move on. I think I could, but... have I not already done that? And to what effect? They kept replying and coming back with evident lies. Do I have to give them a chance to explain themselves? Why? I gain nothing from their explaining, specially because through the years I have seen them lie away all the criticism that has been given to them. I have heard them belittle the advise others have given them. Why would my observations have any other effect?

I think it's not a matter of whether others deserve explanations from you, but a matter of whether You think explaining yourself would be worth it. In this case, for me, any other word to this person would be a waste.

I share this will all of you, in case you are in a similar situation, and you are pulled in over and over by a narcissist person who demands that "you explain yourself" so that they can keep destroying you, belittling you, and pretending that your reasons are selfish or invalid. They are not.

Freeze Spell

 

Property of Stormberry

Recently I've been considering to do a freezing spell. I am not one to go around doing spells that affect other people, or spells in general, but I am more the kind of witch that rather do cleansing and protection spells, and manifest and has mantras and all that kind of love&light magical work. I do not like to meddle with other people or other entities, and I prefer my work to remain centered on myself, as a building and improving process.

Through my practice, though, I have collected tidbits of spell, and this was given to me by a friend and fellow witch, aimed mainly to stop people from doing something, oftentimes from doing harm. The downside of this spell is that if it's broken, the person gets released with vengeance. And of course, it has a price on the witch, just by making it. Being that I am a risk-averse human - in all areas of my life (I'm a huge advocate of Comfort Zones) - the idea of making a freezing spell was a no-no. Yes, knowing about them is important to me, but not for something I would ever consider doing.

The freeze spell as come up in the podcasts I listen to, and I think also in one of my recent readings, and so I also got a different view on their use: they can be a "hold up" spell, a way to slow or stop something but not indefinitively, but only until you are ready. This definitively sounds better. This gave the freeze spell a different outlook, a way to "buy time". But I still wasn't going to commit it to my Book of Shadows. (Yeah, that's another project I should be retaking, specially now since I think I know the kind of witch I am: a kitchen witch. But I digress.)

Recently I had a very uncomfortable situation with a friend, who has been behaving in an unpleasant manner. This person can no longer be excused for "being young", or "having lived a sheltered life", and recently has been not only voiced deeply troubling views about others, lifestyles and ideologies, but also has been telling tall tales or downright lying about things that make no sense, and which make you wonder that if they are so willing to lie about such insignificant things, and then contradict themselves without batting an eye, what would they not be willing to say and do about important matters. Usually, when someone in my circle displays troubling behavior, I deal with it by cutting that topic or situation out of our regular meetings, and this normally work. With this person, however, the points of discomfort constantly popped up, couldn’t be cut off, and instead multiplied reaching new areas. This resulted on this person then trying to control the situation and control others as well in things like what we eat when we go out, or what we check out in stores and so on. No, it didn't work with me.

Then, offhandedly, this person asked me if I was going to a grill party their spouse and a friend of mine were organizing. That was the first time I heard of it, so I said I had not heard of it, so I don't know. They started pushing, that I had to go, my friend will soon call me, surely, it was something for the five of us at my friend's place, and I had to be there. I found it odd that my friend wouldn't tell me, and I had to know from other people. Well, it turned out that a) nothing was being organized, as it was an idea for a get together of a group of people I'm not part of (so I wasn't even going to be invited), b) it wasn't going to be at my friend's place, and c) with this person's actions, my friend and their spouse were put into a stressful situation. When I started confronting this person about the facts, they said that the idea of the group was my friends, that it wasn't the original idea, and that they prefered if I went, because otherwise they would be bored and needed someone to talk to.

Oh, so I was to be their... "lady in waiting"?

I talked over with my friend and their spouse and they were annoyed this person had taken the liberty to themselves to invite people to their home without consulting them and without having the facts about there being something organized or not.

For many days I was so mad, and I was avoiding this person, journaling copiously about what had transpired. But then, as I cooled down, I though of the freeze spell, and how this could be a solution. Sure, I can just block them entirely and cut them off, no magic in the middle, but then I thought thatit would be much more beneficial if, softly, I could slip away out of their mind, and open a window for them to meditate on their words, their actions and their attitude. I can hope they get a light to shine on what they are doing, that there's nothing wrong with living the life they have, there's no need to fabricate drama or pretend to be grand when they are regular people like the rest of us. I can only hope they find the time to meditate and work actively to improve themselves and their life.

Yes, this would be magic and this is an act of hope. I can cut them off, being confrontational, which I don't like, but what good would it come from that? Maybe they receive the energy to do this inner work, maybe they don't, but for me, it's worth to send some light so someone I believe needs it, as I am not the only one pulling away because they make others feel uncomfortable.

Little Grievances

 

Property of Stormberry

It has occured recently, that I had to face a very uncomfortable situation brought forward by what I felt like other people's inconsideration, and that made me mad, mostly because it wasn't discomforting me, but someone I care a lot about, and yes, me too.

Last week my friend and former classmate from the Master's studies - let's call her Andy - was here from her country of origin, for a week to work on her Master Degree Thesis. Andy and I are best friends since the first Quarter we shared in this program, which was in May of 2020. We were assigned to work a project together in a Macroeconomics class, and ever since we've been doing every single possible team assignment together, and have been messaging and talking nearly non-stop. Nearly because we have to eat, sleep and work, mind you.

Andy never really clicked with the rest of the class, and though I did speak to the others, neither of us could call any of the others "our friends". They were classmates, not our friends, and though I was out to help everybody I could, we didn't really kept in contact with them. So much so, I have heard others say that of the whole class, there were only two friends, and those were Andy and I. Nobody else had really friends. Maybe two guys - a clown and a more serious guy -  were close to be friends but they were more like joke-friends or party-friends.

Andy and I were so close, that when she came here to participate last year in the Globelix seminar, she stayed at my place. We share a similar ideology, we both wanted an emphasis in Labor (which we didn't get), and we both would like to get into the doctorate program and wish to do so together. We talk a lot, analyze together a lot od things and even share secrets.

By the end of last year, Andy got a really important calling at the Government of her country, and so, when she couldn't get through with some stuff in classes, I did my best to help her. But also, whenever I was lost with something, she was always quick to help me out and explain what I didn't get. I can say, we really have each other's backs.

Property of Stormberry

This year she has continued in the Government, so she has been slipping back with her thesis work, and so our professors' suggested she came here, away from work, so she could advance and talk directly with the professors. And she did so this past week. I took two weeks of vacations (because I had all that time to spend), and in the first one I made sure to plan a lovely stay for her, with a reservation at Astral Speakeasy, a hidden bar with a Speakeasy bar feeling to it, but also a trip to our favorite metaphysical store, a coffee tour, a trip to our Art Museum, Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks (there's no Starbucks in her country), and coffee at my favorite French pastry shop.

This time around we didn't stay late talking our heads off, as Andy came really tired. One can tell her jobs are taking a toll on her. Then, we had our week of thesis work, meeting our guidance professor and fixing meetings with friends.

From the begining, before her plane even took off, I told our former classmates that she was coming, what were our plans and if they wished to meet with her, that we should either organized a meeting of all of us together, or meet one by one. They wanted to meet all together, but the agendas were complicated. First, I offered to include everybody in the reservation for the Astral Speakeasy, but nobody wanted that. Then they suggested to meet on Wednesday, but that wasn't doable because we had a meeting that night with our favorite professor. Andy's and my favorite professor, mind you, because nobody else liked him. (He assigned too much reading material).

When I mentioned that, there were some comments for us to ditch the professor, but that wasn't going to fly. Anyway, we decided on Thursday, which was Andy's last day. So I told them that, because Andy's flight next day is early, we should meet in my city.

Then came Thursday. Suddenly people want to meet in the Capital City, not in my city (even though everybody couldn actually make it fir they wanted to), because two of the classmates work there until 5 pm and "they would have to take the bus". No matter how many times or how strongly I told them that for Andy and I it was not feasable, they insisted. They kept pushing and pushing, ignoring the fact that neither Andy and I had the time to go there, meet with them, come back, pack and sleep enough to get to the airport. They plainly didn't care, and were offended that I was being so mean as to impede others "who also like Andy very much" to finally meet with her in person (all our classes were online due to the pandemic).

The discussion ended when I told them that they could sure come pick up Andy at the Uni where we were working, and then drive her back to my place, because I wasn't going to go to the Capital City, and instead would finish all the errands and stuff Andy had to complete before her flight. So they've got offended. I guess they love her diearly, as long as they don't have to move a finger for her.

We ended up meeting in our city, and it was the most annoying  meeting ever. They didn't care she was there, but instead launched into a conversation among them, here and there bouncing topic off Andy. for instance, once they asked here what has she liked best of Costa Rica from what she has seen, and while she was thinking on the question, they started saying what they liked best, and completely forgot about her. She never got to reply, nor where they interested in hearing her opinion. I guess they were also mad that Andy and I made time to visit our favorite professor, and didn't prioritize them.

As expected, our meeting ended rather fast, and though we all did our best to be polite to each other, a clear riff came between us. They went away feeling offended because particularly I was so mean as to deny two of our former classmates the chance to meet Andy in person (two people who never even spoke to her, according to Andy), and impose on others my locating preferences. I went away feeling disappointed in them, on how they expect others to bend backwards to satisfy their wishes, regardless of the problems of discomfort that may cause to them.

Through the week, we have known a few things about them, how they made a disaster of an internship they were offered abroad, and how the very reason they like to boast about it (basically a scholarship paid spring break trip) was the reason the hosting institution issued complains about them. To Andy and I - committed, hard working students - it was horrifying to watch them laugh about skipping classes and spending their scholarship money on trips and booze. Unbeknown to them, that care about the opportunities they are offered, the way they abuse of what they are offered, was put in painful display also in that meeting and their attitude. Two of the classmates had a chance to enroll in their prefered emphasys because Andy and I decided to give up Labor for them. To help them, and they took that as their right to walk over us.

By holding into this small determination, I felt a bit vindicated. I didn't give in, andy stood by me, and we had an awesome day, with plenty of time to pack and rest.

What is really adding to your life?

Property of Stormberry

It is a common place to value and desire the truth above all, and despise lies, but inspite of that, we are surrounded by lies. The fact is, everybody lies. When someone says that they never lie, they are right then lying. You may not outright lie (all the time), but you may be lying by omission, which is when you leave out a piece of the truth and you let others get to wrong conclusions. That's also a form of lying.

It's also lying when you affirm something you are not 100% sure of, and you don't clarify that you are not 100% sure it is so, or you say it in a way - to save yourself in case it turns out false - that still gives the idea that this thing you say it's true. So, as you can see, we all lie, and we are all told lies, all the time. However, in the face of all these lies swirling around us, we take different attitudes. Some decide to "ration" their lies and tell them only when they feel it's needed - needed to protect, for instance, someone else or themselves -, and other may choose to use lies to joke, entertain or make things more interesting. Yet others may choose to benefit themselves or someone/something, often disregarding the damage they may be causing to the people who believe they are being truthful.

It also happens that we tell lies to others, but also to ourselves. We tell lies to ourselves about ourselves, about our situation, our environment, and also about others. Relationships are a fertile ground where we tell ourselves a lot of lies. We justify the behavior of someone towards us because we don't want to face what's really happening, we don't want to break illusions we've built (positive or negative) and we wish to remain in the safe world we have created, even if it's all built up upon the lies we ourselves have concocted.

I believe I have lied for a lont time to myself about someone. I may have been trying to believe that there was a connection, and though there might be a connection, it may not be of the type, the depth and the nature I have imagined it to be. It doesn't matter how perceptive you otherwise are, these lies to yourself are hard to pinpoint because you purposefully don’t want to see them. I'm still in the fence about this situation, but as I was talking to a friend of mine about it, she told me: "this person is so toxic. Really, what are they adding to your life?", and that got me thinking.

What are they adding to your life?

I would have jumped immediatelly to explain how we have many shared experiences, and how this person is the one person I currently know and understand my background for many of my ways of seeing the world. I would have said that this person shares so many of my building experiences and knowledge, that they are the best qualified in my life to get how and why I see things. But before I could answer my friend's text, I stopped to think, and I questioned myself "Do they?".

And here is the tricky thing, because it doesn't matter that we are contempporaneous, that we grew up in the same neighbourhood, that our parents belonged to the same party and they worked for the same sector/company, or that they and I studied the same career in the same university at the same time. We are not equall, and shared memories do not mean that understanding is automatic. I had to go through old journals, check my records (because my memory is very bad), and a patterns seems to emerge: I am the one trying to make our connection and our conversartions deep, while they trade in gossip and unfounded conspiratorial misinformation. We may have walked down the same path, side by side, but we are not in the same page.

It's a lie I've told myself and I keep telling myself, because I do want this connection to my past, I don't want to lose it, but I must prepare myself to face the music: this person is a stranger to me and has nothing to add to my life. And it doesn't matter the value of what I can give them,  they are not prepared to see it for what it is. What I could give them would be wasted on them.

Thoughts on a Wedding from outside

Source: Google Images

 I don't know what was I thinking, but I agreed to be a bride's maid for a friend. Yes, I know. A bride's maid, when I don't believe in the institution of marriage and I advocate for independence and freedom, and also the freedom in the relationships, open and free, where - if anything keeps you together then it should be waking up each day and each day deciding to stay or leave the person or persons you are with.

Anyway, this friend is getting married with her boyfriend from ten years, and she asked me. I did tell her, I can't be very involved, I have a lots of commitments with my job and my studies. so yes, I can't participate in a lot of things and she accepted it. So, so far so good. Things have been light and all, but then, bills started to build in. On one hand there was the bride's maid dress, which - fortunatelly - can actually be transformed, and not like the silver one I still have hanging in my closet.

The thing is that some things have changed for me, and I decided to start saving in earnest, so I'm looking closely at every penny I spend. This is how I started to pay closer attention to the money I was being expected to spend on someone else's wedding and all the partying and activities around it. The dress, the gift for the wedding, the gift for the bachelorette's party, the fee for the bridal's shower, the gift for the bridal's shower... The bill is quickly raising above $300 or even more, and that's in a country where the average incomes sits at about $400.

Honestly, being called and "invited" to the bridal's shower, after the bride had floated the idea of a bachelorette party in a hotel room where all the bride's maids and the bride would stay over (and pay $255 each... plus the gift), alreeady started to ring some alarm bells in my head.

I know she want's a grand wedding, and she lives in the kind of group where all her friends are getting married and they all compete for who makes the biggest production out of the wedding and the surrounding parties and... "cash/gift grabbing" occasions? As if there was no pandemic going on, and as if we were not in a country were death and infection statistics weren't going through the roof, with hospitals already collapsing, sending back sick people because there are no more beds. I know she was affected at first, at the idea of only having a religious ceremony, because she wanted her reception, but the way this is ballooning into - at least - five different events (all of them demanding gifts and at least two of them demanding a fee), it's beyond crazy for me.

Are they not concerned about the health of people? What makes them think people can't get sick by meeting so many times? Are they so easily swayed by the fake promise made from the renting locations that "they keep the protocols", when protocols must be kept on all sides?

And then, the money. Why the need to squeeze their guests for so much money? Sure, I keep the dress, but it's not a dress I actually need. I'm working from home, I don't need that dress, nor the transformed version I'll pay for it later in order to be closer to being able to use it more than once. And why the fees? People isn't swimming in money right now, so why can't they only do the activities they can pay for by themselves, and also consider which are actually sensible to organize given the current situation.

I have always considered activities that demand a fee from the guests as a distasteful thing. Your guests are not asking you to organize them, so if you decide to do them, do them within your budget. Don't make your guests pay for your ideas. And demanding a gift... how tacky is that?

Weddings always make me pity the couple: all this need for attention, this grand production only to receede later on into a life that's not a reflection of the grand production they put on, an aftermath only to be shadowed by the next big production. Why people who get married can't simply get married and be done with it? Why the production and the implicit lie?

Again with the "Intelligence"

I know I've already written about this topic, but really, I have to get this out of my chest, so here we go.

It's impossible not to notice how often scammers, corrupts and thiefts are described as "intelligent" or even "very intelligent". Maybe I'm too analytical (no, there is not such thing), but each time I hear a scammer or a corrupt person described in those terms, I try to understand what is it that they call "brilliant" or "intelligent" about their actions. And time and time again, I come to realize that there is nothing in their actions that would reveal any sort of intelligence. That doesn't mean that they are stupid people, but their crime - for which they are called "intelligent" has no trace of intelligence in its conceiving or implementing. What I do have found in the cases I have been able to analize - and as far as news clips and other bits of information I have been able to obtain in certain cases - show that the key for their criminal enterprise resides in their willingness to go against moral and ethical standards. In other words, in order to commit a crime, they have to have a loose moral code that allows them to take advantage of the social courtesies that bind us all in a cordial, peaceful society.

Just notice how the "intelligent" criminals are usually people of a higher standing in life, and their crimes usually occur on these higher spheres. Many of them are also considered to be "successful" people. There migt be also a level of "money protects money" kind of thing going on, but the point I want to focus here is how the people who choose to commit crimes of corruption or scamming, usually put themselves in higher positions, commaning the trust of others, and then their deference.

These steps are important: first they earn trust and then proceed with their crime. 

People tend to approach others with trust. Trust is granted, invested and so losing it is not an easy matter. Taking advantage of this, the so called "intelligent" criminals start abusing of the trust deposited in themselves, and then abusing the system, bending and breaking the laws, holding in the shrads of remaining trust, and then the cordiality and the manners imposed on their victims, who expect the criminal to start behaving properly and some point.

There are no laws that demand you to be truthful (unless you are testifying before court), nor to behave in a morally impeccable manner. Laws actually don't condemn you for conducting yourself in an unethical way, or for taking advantage of the trust deposited in you. So much of the law is up to interpretation, that if you make sure to put your people in the right places, you can even ensure that either cases against you will be halted or interpreted to your benefit. However, the main point is that these criminals are willing not to be ethical, and so the considerations that would stop others do not stop them. For that, all you need is to be an unethical person, someone lacking of integrity. No need of intelligence for that.

On this line, I find them actually lacking of intelligence, as their actions are highly risky and short termed. You can scamm a group of people, and though you get to rip them off, it will be difficult to scamm them a second time. Yes, it can happen, but the criminal enterprise will be less succcessful. Eventually, the criminals will run out of people to scamm, and also would have burned out their reputation, so will hardly find ways to make ends meet - unless they latch onto someone or some organization willing to take them in. For a profit.

However, why are people prone to think them "intelligent"? Because people who are victims of their shenanigans don't want to feel stupid.

Being scammed, defrauded, being victimized by corruption bears a stain similar to that of being raped: the victim is re-victimized because they are made feel stupid for having fallen into the scheme. People thus protect themselves, by choosing to believe their abusers, their scammers are very intelligent people, and so they had no way to defend against them. As humans, we want to still believe. We want to trust.

It's hard, because all of us can fall victims of scammers, and we feel angry and ashamed, specially when we are also surrounded by people who praise them and want to follow their steps.

So, what can we do? Well, first of all observe, learn, reseach, get more than one opinion on different matters. Trust, as long as what is asked from you do not compromise you, your resources or your loved ones. Don't fear to ask questions, and mistrust anyone who treats your questions as signs of stupidity. Remember that lack of intelligence isn't revealed in the questions asked, but the answers given.

Then, denounce, and don't be afraid to stand up strong. As Shallon Lester says so often: What we permit, we promote. Make that effort, for you and your neighborhood: Stand up against abuse, corruption and crime. It's in your hands.

Defense: Why Are We So Afraid of It?

Reading Rush Week ended last week and this week many booktubers and bookstagrammers came out of it feeling a bit out of space and not knowing what to do with themselves. This was a very intense week for those participating, as many content creators and readers usually don't read seven books in a week. And if you throw into it also creating reading rush daily dare/tasks and publishing them, well, yes, there was no time for living.

When it was all done and finished, many posted how many books they managed to read and how many pages. One of these content creators is a friend of mine, and she succeeded in the Rush. Proudly, she shared with the world her reading statistics for this rush. Under her post, a hater started calling her a liar and telling her she cheated and probably didn't even understood the books for how fast "she read". She was clearly affected - because she's really such a nice girl - and so she let know her closest friends about it, and we went to see what was going on.

It was a case of a cyberbully, a troll, who likes to attack people in general on invented arguments. She has the blessing of having an entourage that went out like a swarm of wasps and dug up all the date on the bully, so we could understand his behavior better. We knew then that hewas harassing all sorts of influencers and people in the book community with similar comments: people can't possibly read that fast, it's biologically, mathematically and statistically impossible, and so on. Some of us replied to him - I was a meanie and blocked him, so I laughed because then I heard he attacked me, BUT I could not hear him, so I gave him what he hates the most: zero attention - and then we advised her to block him. She was uncertain because she feared he would go mad, but after a whole day under his attack - despite of her sustained silence - she decided to block him.

Source: taken from Black Witch Coven. Please give them <3 td="">

This got me thinking about what we do and how we react to harassment and abuse. Why is it that WE are the ones being harassed, being insulted, abused, AND still we do not want to offend our abusers? Yes, there is a measure of fear, because we think things could be worse if we "provoke" them.

In some cultures more than others, people tend to lean toward polite, non-confrontational or passive behavior, and they expect people to notice they are being mean and then stop doing it. We often think others are just like we are, and just because we would feel bad about attacking someone else, we think others would feel bad about it too. The thing is that bullies don't work like that, instead they profit from the tendency on people not to call them out because that allows them to keep abusing their victims. They thrive on the space you give them and abuse of your politeness and social expectations. But also, as you allow them to continue abusing you, they grow bolder and bolder, so by the time you finally reach your limit and decide to cut them off or stop them, it would be much harder than at the begining. They have worn you out, they have grown stronger and they know your weak spots.

It's kind of similar to when someone mistreats you, you cut them off and them forgive them, allow them back in and they resume their abuse, only the second time around it will be harder to stop because they know you how to get you to forgive them and receive them back. The longer you take abuse from a troll, the more they know how much are you willing to give and how much you are afraid of escalation.

Facing bullying online is "easier" in the sense that we can block the person. Just block the given person's user and all their access to you. Black list them, make yourself unreachable, report them... go the whole nine yards. It is harder in real life because we could be physically threatened or we could be in a position where our abuser have power over us through emotional, familiar, work or study related means. We can't block people in real life with a button, and sometimes we can't draw a hard line, but there are things we can do.

Online, let's defend ourselves not by antagonizing the troll (although I did that, just because I felt like ticking them and run), but by taking away their platform and block them. No need to explain, no need to reply, just block and erase. You owe them nothing and you don't need to give them nothing. Blocking them from your social media or your e-mails and chats isn't an attack on "freedom of speech". If they want to express themselves, they can get a blog or pay and add in a newspaper.

In real life, limit your interactions with them, avoid being alone with them, or alone with them and the people that get on their side. If you need to interact with them, don't give them explanations: be short and get away. Be not afraid of walking away the moment they start harassing you. And start looking for ways to either move or report them. Talk to others, create a support system around yourself, talk it out. Sometimes your friends can come up with clever solutions for your issues. Talk, listen and protect yourself.

There are no easy, quick solutions for harassment, but we must remember (or try to) that we can do something to fight it.

Thoughts on Manipulative Friends

Source: Tumblr
Shallon Lester's Channel

One of the vloggers I follow in YouTube is Shallon Lester, a former magazine editor, who now gives relationship advise online. I have seen several of her videos, and though I don't agree with all of her advises, I always enjoy her videos and her style.

Something she does in her channel is to psychoanalyze drama among celebrities and their private life. What she does isn't going for the gossip - though she does benefit from it - but also to teach people lessons about themselves and the people around them by using behaviors widely known through the media to pinpoint what people can also encounter in their lives.

The last video I saw touched on the current drama between beauty vloggers Tati Westbrook and James Charles, in order to talk about manipulative friends.

The topic of manipulative friends hits me close because I have had to deal with those. I mean, if you read my blog you probably know about those cases, right? Yes, it's not pretty but it happens and we need to be prepared to del with it.

I have a friend who is married and he's not very happy with his spouse. We talked recently - he has taken time to open up to me about his marital issues - and he said that though he wasn't happy, he was chosing to do the "right thing" rather than what he really wanted and what made him happy. I didn't say much - with words - but me being as transparent as a glass of beer, probably let him know what I thought: "you are being profoundly stupid". Now, judging and finding solutions from the outside is very easy, but it's not as simple when you are IN the situation. That's why it happens that you can be very good at giving relationship advises to others, but you still get yourself in all sorts of relationship jammies. Why is that? Because when we are IN a situation, we usually don't have the panoramic view people not involved in it have. When we are in the situation we find it hard to untangle, to be objective, to see the good and the bad, and we are subject to emotional pressure.

Now, the thing here is that we are also vulnerable to these same things with our friends, with the additional threat of us being less prepare and less suspectful since we think friendships are much safer than romantic relationships. Just think about that. In a romantic relationship you prepare yourself to suspect your partner of cheating, of being with you for your money, your connections, your looks, your status, or because you are just a device for them to fulfill a life goal: it's not you, but the ring you can put on their finger, or the ring they can put on your finger.

With friendships, we often tend to believe they are honest, serious, and when they are not, they tend to be scarce enough to be filed as "acquintances", so you don't worry. We also think that the "bad friends" are easy to spot, because they will pressure you for money, or ask you to bail them, be their guarantors for loand they then want to leave on to you and so on. We are not prepared for the manipulative friends that seek to leech on you in other ways.

Shallon Lester mentions as manipulative friends the people that are very self-centered and who talk only about their endless problems, and it's always the same issue. Here I want to make a distintion. There are friends who have a specific type of problem that is either eternal or cyclic, like issues with their job or issues with an illness or a family health problem. Yes, there are limits for that as well, BUT we can also understand when a person always talks about their problems in these topics.

What makes the difference - for me - is when the recurring issue is something the person can't really escape, and is bound to keep struggling with. An issue with a job can't always be fixed with resigning or looking for a change in positions, specially not when the market is in turmoil. People are also bound to their jobs because of the income and obligations they carry, like loans, mortgage, supporting their family, and so on. Health issues also take much of the attention and energy of the people. Being there to let them vent is important for them.

However, a friend who is going through these struggles will also ask you about your life, your issues and pay active attention to them.

By no means, a stressful job or a health/family issue entitles someone to monopolize the conversation.

Curiously, as a Childfree person, I have noticed this with some friends and acquintances who are parents: all topics are always child related, and if you try to go to a non-child related one either they veer from it, or just stare at you while you say your piece, and then go back to a child-topic. Now, 1) this is also a way of manipulation, by diminishing your topics and your issues, compared to theirs, and 2) beware because this is not a "parent thing", but a thing manipulative people do. I'd given you the example with the "child topic", because we all have had that new-parent friend who gets lost in parenthood, even though later they get out of it, but we know the experience.

So, when you are with someone and you feel like something is just not ok, you feel a bit bad or shamed, take a second to compare the situation with that "new parent" hype. If it fits, you are talking to a manipulative person, and they are casting their net on you.

Manipulative people monopolize the time, the conversation and/or the situation. It's always THEIR problems, THEIR issues, THEIR concerns, even when they are not presenting them as theirs. For instance, the friend that every so often comes to you crying about how much they are suffering by witnessing the suffering of someone else. Be it a family member, a close friend, a dear colleague... they pick someone who is close to them, or are portrayed as close to them, and then paint a gloomy, terrible situation (whether it is real or not), that makes the person a helpless victim, and they (the manipulative friend) is forced to witness it, wants so desperately to help BUT can't do anything. This last part is crucial because it ensures pity ON them, while looking at the same time so selfless and saint. There might be even a tear or two for dramatic effect and blocking logical thinking and trigger emotional response from the audience.

I used to have a friend who did this often, who used another friend to gain pity for herself. Curiously, when you talked to the martyred friend, they seemed to be absolutely ok. The cover of the manipulator? Oh, Martyr doesn't want others to know/notice. Does it ring a bell? You have no idea, how I wish it doesn't.

In other cases, the manipulator does use a real situation, a real problem of someone else - the Designated Martyr - in order to give their manipulation tools legitimacy. Here, the key one has to pay attention to is whether the issue can actually be fixed by the manipulator, and what is the manipulator doing to fix it. The issues manipulators pick are often the kind that can be milked for a long time. The longer they can exploit the topic, the longer they can command attention, earn pity/admiration and even get away with whatever they want.

Finally, here is the last element manipulators use to get their "reward": they often seek to push your boundaries. They get a boost, a victory when they can exert power over you by making you endure dissing, humiliations and other forms of disrespect. This is a way to state to you that they are more important than you: it sets a hierarchy among you, where they push themselves to a position - rather subtly - where they wistle and you jump. Part of the perk of these moves is that they are subtle enough to be easy to turn against you if you realize what's happening and complain.

What do I mean? For instance, the friend that's always late. Yes, we all are late from time to time, but there are people who seem to be chronically late and late by a lot. For me, the reasonable window to be late is five to ten minutes. I mean, consider traffic, finding a parking space, public transportation being late... A regular friend being late usually calls you to let you know they are going to be late. A manipulator won't tell you because part of their power trip is to keep you expecting, insecure. Manipulators also tend to make you wait for really long periods of time, often stretching into hours. It's usually a progressive thing, as they need to "train" their friends to just keep waiting. To "reward" the waiting friend, sometimes they shower them with excuses and copious amounts of apologies.

A rule of thumb here: someone who consistently makes the same offense or disrespectful action, and always apologizes for it, is placating you, not really apologizing. True apology is often followed by real efforts to correct the undesired behavior.

Now, being late and using tardiness to manipulate others is quite a textbook case, and easy to spot, but there are other, more conceited ways to bend other people's dignity and will to you, as a goal of manipulation. In this type of manipulation - into which chronic tardiness also falls - is about forcing others to accomodate to the manipulator. Instances can be the case of the person that always changes everybody's plans at the last minute, always dictate the whole program or part of it. A typical case would be that of the vegan friend with whom you always have to meet and go eat at vegan places. There are many excuses for this, such as "there are so little options for me in other restaurants" and "the menu says it's vegan, but they actually use animal byproducts in the dressing of the salad".

Again, I use a vegan individual in the example because this might be easier to spot, so it can be used as a template to discover similar behaviors, but think of the friend who always picks where do you go because "they can go to X place because there are so many memories there with their ex", or because "they have read the reviews", or "it's closer to their place, and they have so little time, since they have to take care of children/job/project/you-name-it".

This can also be the case of the friend who always picks the movie you are going to see, picks the seats, or picks where are you going for vacation and where are you staying. It's also the friend that orders for you at the restaurant quite often, usually disguising it as "you have to try this", or the friend that gives you tasks, or in any other way takes away your power of decision.

These forms of manipulation are particularly tricky, because if you react against them, the manipulator will always act surprised or offended, and turn the blame on you. They have a situation that's very difficult and you are not being understanding. They have so much work and they are trying so hard and you don't want to cooperate. They are trying to accomodate and make it good for everybody and you are being insensitive/spoiled/selfish.

Other forms to take power from you and manipulate you, is through making you suffer public humiliation or guilty tripping you. For instance, they can be prone to burst into tears at any thing, scream, throw temper tantrum... Things that are designed to make you feel bad, so that you will always do whatever there is in your power to keep these scenes from happening. If it happened once, rest assured it will happen again. Manipulators dose these incidents to keep the threat alive.

Ms. Lester gives a lot of good advise about how to deal with them, so I encourage you to look up her channel and check out some of her videos. If you ask me, I always go for the cut throat solution. Yes, I've been roped into these games, I have had hope my friends would enmend their ways and I have tried to minimize their antics. Experience has thought me that accomodating to manipulators and trying to softly undercut their antics only empower them more, because their realize you want them in your life, so they will keep playing on that and finding new ways to exploit you.

As I've grown older, my response to manipulators has been swifter, which as result has led me to lose those friendships. Then again, if I was being used as a toy for their instincts, was there really a friendship?

So here are my Cut Throat Advises:

1. You may allow the behavior once or twice, until you notice the pattern and can establish there is really a manipulative intent behind. Then, cut it.
2. There needs to be a facing of the facts with the manipulator. Ms. Lester recommends you frame your issues, when you confront your manipulator in "I feel" sentences. Here I tend to use two ways: the indirect one, where I answer behavior with behavior, and simply don't comply with the expectation of the manipulator, and the direct one, where I purposefully refuse to use softening phrases like "I feel", "I think" - which can be later used against you are a part of an argument of "everything is always about you and how YOU feel and what YOU think"- and rather state things in "you" sentences. Say things like "Don't talk to me like that", instead of "I don't like the way you sometimes talk to me", and don't fall for the trick of "What did I say?", or "When and what exactly did I do/say?". This is a favored trick of manipulators because memory is tricky, and they usually deal with subtext and tone, leaving their words purposefully open to interpretation. If they do that, don't answer, and if you are pressed reply something in the line of "don't add insult to injury", "I know you are smarter than that". The trick here turn their game: they want to make the problem about you, so you have to call them on it and place the problem on them.
3. If their game is tardiness, leave after 10 minutes and don't call them to let them know. If you call, you are opening a chance for them to keep you waiting. If they didn't call to tell you they'll be late, you have no obligation to call them to tell them that you are leaving.
4. If their game is changing plans at the last minute, you have to options: you stick to the original plan (and make previous arrangements to make sure you can go without the manipulator), or cancel them. If you cancel, don't go even if they set the original plan again. Show them there are consequences.
5. If their game is to take decisions away from you,  when the place is selected or the task given, tell them no. And stick to it.

Never be afraid of cutting a relationship with a manipulator person. Remember that you are in an illusion of a relationship, one where only you are. The relationship is a box, and you manipulator wants only to play.