The way you feel about someone is usually pretty much the way they feel about you.It is not a law. My father, with his background in science, had a set of laws. Mine is just a rule. And using it has helped me navigate my way through all kinds of relationships with all kinds of people. Elaine's Rule works well in real time, and particularly with face-to-face interactions that happen in school, at work, and in communities (including families).
But yesterday, while reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, I noticed that in a work of fiction with an omniscient narrator, this rule doesn't apply to the characters.
It might not apply among people who participate in cults, because the cult "overlord" works a little like an omniscient narrator, controlling the will of the cult members, without the cult members realizing that their freedom to think for themselves has been seriously compromised, or taken away entirely.
A zealous evangelical fundamendalist Christian, for example, will often be nice to me. And if s/he knows that I am Jewish, s/he may be compelled to present me with the opportunities for an afterlife that her/his cult (I have to call it a cult in the context of this post) can provide. I can be fairly certain that this particular "exchange of information" has nothing to do with me as a person. If we have a working relationship, that single "exchange of information" might be ignored, and we can get to the actual business of whether we actually like one another. Then Elaine's Rule can apply.
But I tend to avoid people in cults, whether they be religious or political, and if I find myself working with people who participate in them, I have learned to keep my personal distance. Those people would probably act the same way. And there you have it. Elaine's Rule in action.
It wasn't until this morning that I realized Elaine's Rule mainly applies in real time and real space, and may not apply at all in online communities. Online communities have become a great part of the way we interact socially, and a clever person with skills and dedication can construct an online persona (or several online personae) that can behave very much like a character or characters in fiction.
A diligent person can make a big footprint in the twitter world by actively seeking out followers and starting conversations with people who they could/would never have a functional real-world relationship with. I find that after entering that sphere I feel disconnected and (dare I say it) irrelevant. So I engage only rarely. And because I do not have a "presence" on Twitter, it doesn't matter.
Elaine's Rule may have just applied: the way I feel about Twitter is pretty much the way it feels about me. Even though "it" is not a person, and if I engage with "it" enough, "it" might engage back. "It" doesn't have feelings, though. I do.
Think of the degree to which people experience interpersonal relationships through movies and television, watching actors, who are people with skills wearing costumes, wigs, and make-up (or not wearing anything), who make their living by pretending to be someone else.
Think of the degree to which people experience interpersonal relationships through movies and television, watching actors, who are people with skills wearing costumes, wigs, and make-up (or not wearing anything), who make their living by pretending to be someone else.
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