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Cruel to Be Kind? - Page 3

Name: Wildthing
Country:

Comments: Cruel to be kind is very true but can be very variable and its a skill to get it right with girls.

A few years ago I had a bit of an emotional love affair with a married woman (I was single). To cut a long story short she gave me signals that she wanted something from me that a girl never asks for verbally, she was a very attractive girl with nice brown eyes and brunette hair and 32 years old.

We ended up playing out some kind of mating game and basically she walked past my house a lot and did subtle things to say she was keen and kinda stalked me a bit but I loved it really. Occasionally we would get the timing right and she would be walking up the road so I would approach her and work my magic charm and ask her if she had time to go for a walk which we did and I would try to find out as much as I could, but after every time I saw her I would go and spoil it by being mean and firing her off.

But that's where the cruel to be kind comes in because it made her want me MORE, in effect I was taking her up, spinning her round and then knocking her back down again but she kept coming back for more and it made me want to make it up to her. I was only cruel because she didn't seem very interested in me and just seemed to want me to nail her in the bushes somewhere. She ended up getting the messages I was sending and she came around from it and started to learn what I wanted from her which was to open up and let me into her heart and be honest.

I ended up growing very fond of this girl after the build up of events and emotions but I did/said a few things I shouldn't have done and didn't make a move on her when I needed to to make it right, but it also turned out she had been doing her sly walks for another man who was also married but to her probably appeared to have everything, that animal attraction good looks, a farm, barn conversions for sale, a child's nursery, lots of machinery and assets etc etc. Which made me quite jealous as I could never complete with him, but I persevered and I think she knew I was worth ten of him anyway because my heart was in the right place and he just thought he was a big man knowing another girl wanted him.

Needless to say the whole situation ended in disaster as she ended up leaving to go back to her parents 60 miles away, she left without saying goodbye or leaving any way for me to contact her which hurt me quite a bit after everything I'd put myself through as well as her. It should have been the most natural thing in the world and led to us creating something very special. She had to go bankrupt to divorce her husband and settle finances and I have many enemies now that would like to more than just punch me I'm sure.

So my take on cruel to be kind can lead to lots of heart ache and create dangerous situations.

Kind to Cruel

Cruel to be kind.... I think the "they're just not getting it" crowd is close.

But no, there are situations wherein you cannot be nice, you cannot help, and you cannot tell lies of comfort to another. They must fall, and fall hard, on their own. These are moments when compassion will only harm another individual either now or further down the road.

Cruel to Be Kind? Health & Special Psychology

Name: Clare
Country:

Title: Circumstances

Comments: I agree that sometimes circumstances call for a decision that is going to hurt someone. For example- I split with my ex 5 years ago- he was a nice guy and easy to get along with, but totally emotionally remote and so absent from the relationship, and very 'superior' in his tastes in things (my opinions were accomodated, but amusingly, kindly, inferior to him- from his musical tastes to his taste in cheese, would you believe). We had been together for 4 years but both knew from the start that we would not stay together, and neither of us fell in love and there was not passion, more friendship. You see- his father had killed himself when he was about 11 and he had spent the rest of his life deciding he would never have kids, get married or be emotionally 'dependent' on anyone (encouraged by his mum- who loved me actually). Anyway, I had enough, and ended the relationship and, coming to my senses regretted wasting the 4 years together, despite still respecting him as a nice person. The problem was that we were teaching English in South Korea at the time and sharing an apartment, paid for by the school we worked at. So we continued to live as flatmates for the following 10 months. As he sees himself as 'above' human needs and emotions, he saw it as proof of our 'coolness' that we remain friends, unlike other 'mortals' (in his mind- prooving his lack of emotional dependence on other human beings). With his lack of reactivity to anything emotional, it was pretty easy to stay friends, as he was cool as a cucumber. Until... After 6 months of being single I inevitably developed my first singledom crush on someone else. He found out and ruined things for me- very subtly by discussing my 'feelings' for this other guy to him and really exagerating them- scaring him off. Then we both started dating. I kept things to myself- he dropped in all kinds of inappropriate details into conversations (a lot of s-xual stuff, strangely), and starting doing subtle 'one up manship' over my American guy who I was crazily in love with (apparently he was upset when he found out I was dating someone, until, that is, he found out who it was. At that point I could have knocked his block off, but refrained from revealing the truth about how they compared in my mind- I'm really do not like being cruel). Still controlled by guilt because he was always so 'reasonable and nice' and having to proove that I too was "cool", as well as the fact that we shared the same friends both in Korea and back in the UK, I continued to partake in this idea that we could stay 'best friends', but actually secretly resented him, just as I had for 2 or 3 years of our 4 year relationship. Funny what guilt can do. He went home, and then when we would have contact it would be in the form of 'Oh, where have you been hiding?', numerous guilt trips that I had stopped putting the effort into our friendship. Sadly my relationship with my American ended due to numerous factors, and I started seeing a Dutchman in the UK. My ex at this point seemed to be going through a big depression of his own, and despite cutting down on contact with him and making subtle and not so subtle hints that I was uncomfortable, he really stepped up the emotional efforts. When he came down to meet a traveling buddy, he told me he 'wasn't like these other guys' (drunk as usual) and cared for me in a differnt way (like family I suppose he meant, as he doesn't have much). He told my brother's best friend that he loved me, he would often tell me that he would always love me (not in that way he would reassure me), and that he'd been talking to his friends about how he missed me. Then, at other times he would use favours to guilt trip me into contact, and subtly show that he thought he was superior to my Dutchman. All this time I was telling him I thought we couldn't be friends anymore and we should just be normal exes. But somehow he never quite got the message. The final straw came when my lovely Dutchman and I went to the wedding of my university friends recently. My ex was there- drunk as a skunk as usual. The night before he kept making loud conversation with me, and more or less ignoring my boyfriend, who is a little shy and not drunken at all [..]. At the wedding, he kept joining groups I was in and drunkenly dominating the conversation and talking to me. My Dutchman and I quietly resigned and unfortunately he didn't get the chance to get to know my friends very well.Then- bloody hell- at dinner, someone sat my Dutchman on my left, and my drunk ex on my right. What a shambles. He emailed me after the wedding- despite me having cut off with him a couple of months ago, another long one. Finally- I have had enough- my numerous kind and respectful requests to cut off contact, no longer be friends and just be normal exes were simply not understood as he didn't understand what that entails... So I sent a very brief, very straightforward reply about cutting off totally-not rude, not angry, not mean- just cutting off all contact straight away, I've had enough of this farce etc. Etc. And please don't try and catch up with me again if we are at the same gathering... he was furious- absolutely furious-but I know several things- 1. he was NEVER going to get it unless I made it that obvious and 2. I was never going to get rid of such a sad, guilt-ridden emotional tugging piece of baggage unless I did it like that 3. He was never going to move on totally unless I was blunt and sadly 4. I think our friends will STILL think, because he's so ridiculously nice and 'reasonable' sounding, that I'm the grumpy cow to blame (believe me I HAVE been grumpy- I've had this awful guilty burden all these years that I've been trying to subtly shake off without hurting its feelings). It was yesterday that I FINALLY got the response I wanted- that he FINALLY wants to cut off- and I feel like I could fly like a bird This life sentence is finally over! I wish him the best and myself the best but I think there is a clear strong message here- DON'T let guilt control you- DON'T let other's view on what you would be doing make you feel guilty either and DON'T allow things to carry on for so long when it becomes quite clear that someone else can not help themselves! You might need to help yourself and them by being cruel to be kind [because] some people will never, never, take the hint! Now then- I'm going to listen to my inferior music, eat my inferior cheese, and drink my inferior beverages, with my wonderful, superior, non-drunken handsome boyfriend. [..]

Page 3 Kind to Cruel

Name: GF
Country:

Title: Cruel to be kind

Comments: As well as being the title to a very catch pop song in the late seventies, the saying implies that even though you might have been harshly treated; perhaps by being scolded, there is quite often a beneficial outcome.