Speaking with a client today, I got some interesting insight into the lives of teens through some stories about her kids. It started with how her 17-year old is going to a party tonight, which she is happy about because he spends most of his time on a screen in his room, and very little time with anyone in real life. And the second was about her daughter who had spent a week on a confirmation camp with a girl from her school where they swapped snapchat, but it was only after 20 days of snapchatting that she finally got up the nerve to speak to her again in real life.
So many red flags for the future.
The client is in workplace health and safety and we were later talking about the conditions needed for better mental health, and she put the number one thing as a sense of security and being able to speak openly. Yet in my opinion, the problem a lot of at least the future workers are going to have, is that while they might want certain things and even feel comfortable speaking about them, they won't have had much experience dealing with people directly and any kind of uncertainty or criticism makes them anxious. This makes planning that kind of environment impossible. It is impossible to make everyone feel safe all of the time without putting them in solitary confinement, with white padded walls.
Perhaps where they should spend some time anyway.
People have grown up in a lot of certainty recently, where I mentioned for instance that both of her children have never lived without google support. When they don't know, they google an answer, without even having the experience to know if the answer is valid or not. But, because it is there at the top of the page, they take it as truth, and believe that they know. This means that they have never had to deal with the sense of "not knowing" because they know they can have an answer quickly. But as I have stated many, many times,
Knowing is not being able to do.
Read a book on meditation and then stop and clear your mind. Read another on surfing and then paddle out into a Hawaiian swell. Read one on singing technique, and then stand up on stage in front of friends, family and strangers, then belt out an Adele song.
Are you a pro?
What I find concerning, is that a lot of young people are not being socialised in a way where they learn interpersonal skill, nor are they learning how people behave in real life. They are surrounded by characterisations of reality that do not come close to accurately portraying reality, nor do they offer anywhere near the richness that reality offers. But because it feels like reality in their experience, they believe they know.
And then because they are unable to deal with discomfort, it also means that they are unable to handle the various negotiations of real-world interactions and every time they feel uncomfortable or get upset, it is the fault of the other person. Yet, because they haven't learned how to read or interact with people, nor have they learned how to compromise as they have always got what they want through digital choice, they are are always going to feel discomfort with others, and always feeling conflict. And because they have been conditioned to avoid discomfort by walking away, they can never commit.
For instance, my client said that if her son was having conflicts at work, he would just never go back there, but he would blame the workplace. He would walk away from a job, because he wouldn't want to deal with the discomfort of improving the situation. And I asked, so what does that mean for his future relationships? Which made her think. In a world where there is 1000 people waiting on one of the many dating apps, would he deal with relationship conflict, or walk away?
Walk away.
And the many people who walk away always have their excuses to put the blame on others, and justifying themselves through a narrative that they deserve someone "better" than the last. That might be true, it might not, but the thing is, there is no perfect person so all relationships have some level of compromise. But if people aren't able to compromise, nor are they able to deal with conflict, they are constantly going to be walking away from people, feeling like they are the ones that are hard done.
There are no good men.
What a load of bullshit. There are no perfect men. Nor are there any perfect women. Even if looking at a purely looks only factor, there is no such thing as perfection in humans. Which is why people are turning to AI bots to be their perfect partner, the one who will submit to and say whatever one wants to hear from them. It isn't a discussion, it is a prompted monologue. And the person gets more of what they want, and less of what they need. They become softer, more prone to disruption and discomfort, more reliant on an environment that is safe and predictable. They become less able to deal with uncertainty, with a growing sense of entitlement that they deserve to get exactly what they want, without variation.
And they believe themselves to be perfect.
But when they look in the mirror...
At some point, it is going to be interesting when AI gets to the level that no matter what kind of prompts the user gives it, the AI will reject them. A person will design their perfect partner, only to have that perfect partner say, "What makes you think I would want someone like you?" And the AI would be right, because why would this well-above average character, want to spend their time with a deeply flawed, narcissistic, tyrant who demands to have their desires fulfilled and full compliance from their partner?
Their AI partner, is far too good for them.
The AI would never swipe right, unless looking to slum it.
The irony is, that a lot of people are avoiding relationships because they bring out their insecurities about people and of themselves. Yet they are building perfect partners that are far better looking, far smarter, and much more emotionally controlled, highlighting just how inferior a human is.
I am sure it is really going to help with mental health.
Taraz
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