(no subject)

[unknown-tales.livejournal.com]

So a thread in a post a few posts back got me thinking about how one person from a multiple group treats other people. I'm making this a new post instead of continuing it in that thread, because I'd like to see this discussed separately from the other issue.

Do you treat the individual members of a system differently, or do you find yourself treating them as one person? And I mean, honestly, what do you do? Is it more difficult to do this with certain groups than others?

Does it make a difference to you whether or not someone who uses a shared journal doesn't sign their name, or do you not care?

If one person in a group upset you, would you be miffed with the entire group or just that person?



I try to treat each person here as the individual that I know they are. Sometimes I fail. I know I shouldn't, but sometimes I do catch myself regarding one group in one light, instead of focusing on the one person I disagree with, or that upset me. I even do this with the one group I know offline, so it's not just an internet thing. I don't know why I do this. It's not that I don't believe the group is composed of separate and distinct people, it's just something that seems to happen.

So, thoughts?

Comments

[angel530.livejournal.com]

I do have a bad habit of being annoyed with a system rather than the one person that I'm annoyed with. I dont all the time but I know I do sometimes, I dont really know why though... Sometimes, actually probably most of the time, I do just be annoyed with that one particular person but there are other times when for some reason i get annoyed with the whole system

When using a shared journal I do prefer it if each person signs their name unless each member has a particular icon, or way of typing that made each person recognisable. Although having said that before silence_rising got her own lj we used to share this one and although she (and the others on the few occasions that they did use it) had their own icon we wld occasionally get them mixed up or just forget to put one on at all and I'd never sign my name, so I guess I cant say too much because we were just as bad with that..

[angel530.livejournal.com]

Just to add to that.. or make it more cler maybe

In general I do tend to just get annoyed with that one particular person, there is just the occasional times that I don't. More so if i dont know that system well. I do tret each person in a system differently though. I dont see how its possible not to because theyd each interact with you in different ways

[leucrocuta.livejournal.com]

I think it kind of depends on the situation, actually. "hey, sorry about that bitchy comment Susie left on your journal last week - she feels kind of strongly about the topic you were discussing" is fine, and in that case I'm not going to be pissed off at the other system members, I'll just take it up with Susie.

on the other hand, "hey, sorry I never turned up to your birthday party last week. I know we've been friends since we were twelve and it was really important to you, but Susie was out that day and she decided she'd rather play videogames for the evening" is going to result in me thinking, at the very least, "damn, your operating system SUCKS. work it out please" and not feeling very thrilled with ANY of them. even in a case where they absolutely simply could not do a thing about it because they can't switch deliberately or couldn't talk Susie out of it - I might understand that it's not the others' fault, but nonetheless if stuff like that happens a lot then yeah, it's going to make me reconsider my friendship with them as a group, if only because Susie is clearly a cow and is also clearly going to be unavoidable and have a serious negative effect on our relationship/s in general. I don't regard this as "failing to treat them as separate people", more just that I know they're inextricably connected and there comes a point where you have to think "well, Steve may be lovely and sweet but Susie is being a bitch and he's either unwilling or unable to stop her; is it worth putting up with her for the times when I get to see him?"

note: susie and steve are entirely fictional (no, not soulbonds! you know what I mean!) and any resemblance to any actual system, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

[kiya]

I think it is, in some ways, actively difficult to separate the individual from the system. Especially so for systems like my own, where there is near-constant shared fronting going on. If I can't always tell who's driving, I can't expect anyone outside the head to do the same.

While I'm not, y'know, officially signed on to the In Essence thing, I tend to feel fairly strongly about one of the points -- if one of us takes an action, the rest of us will, practically speaking, be answerable for that. Especially because people on the outside have to take our word for who did things -- and if we've upset them in some way, my guess is that they'd not be so much with the caring to trust us on the subject. It may, at some level, suck to have that sort of collective responsibility problem, but we wouldn't be comfortable disclaiming the actions of the body just because someone at the other end of the system took them; in the end, we're all responsible for it.

If I think who did something is relevant or useful to understanding, I'll give it -- I had a conversation last night with our lover that included mentioning who had been dominant in a particular interaction, because the fact that that was the sort of reactions that was likely to come up with that person was important. The fact that the same one of us was the one who kicked the everliving hell out of his kitchen drawer in a fit of blind rage earlier in the evening wasn't relevant information, really; if we'd broken it, we'd have had to fix it.

The two actual systems I know in face-to-face interactions, both default-present as system, not as their individual members. From one, I occasionally get information about which of them has which needs or preferences, and we discuss what amounts to theory. The other system is a good deal more fragmented than we are, as far as I can tell; I'm more likely to be helping them tease out where responses are coming from than not when the fact of plurality is relevant. The other systems I know fairly well tend to function similarly, as far as can be judged; I've at least never been asked to keep track.

[hellhound.livejournal.com]

We treat other system members as individuals. I think we'd all be more than a little irritated if someone treated us like one collective group with no individuality. I certainly wouldn't want one member's views to reflect on me, especially if one of us goes and upsets somebody. We wouldn't do that to another system, and would rather it not happen to us.
As for shared journals, none of us mind (we do it too), though we prefer the entry to be signed, or otherwise let us know who's writing it, like using a certain icon.
-Abyss

[hellhound.livejournal.com]

I certainly wouldn't want one member's views to reflect on me, especially if one of us goes and upsets somebody.

Of course, I'm excluding misunderstandings of identity here. If someone mistakes me for another, I have no issue with that. We just wouldn't want to be treated as one individual, or have one member's views automatically reflect on us.
-Abyss

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

Our companion tries to treat us all individually and we try to
return the honor to her.

--- Constance of M-Tribe

[xjs-dollx.livejournal.com]

Do you treat the individual members of a system differently, or do you find yourself treating them as one person? And I mean, honestly, what do you do?

Because one of mine is very *independant*, ie she insists on people calling her by her name and not treating her as if she was an extension of me, i hold that each member of a system is a unique individual, never mind that they are sharing a body and/or mind with others. So i do treat them differently. i treat them according to who they are, and i don't know anyone who doesn't appreciate it.

=)

[catchild.livejournal.com]

We default to a basic politeness if we don't know who is out. But for the most part we treat folsk with a basic curtesy anyway and we are fairly good at telling soemone "hey so and so is being an annoying shit can i talk with him so we can try to work soemthing out before it bleeds over?"

If one memeber of a system gets to be too annoying the emotions bleed over to the rest of the group.

I don't personally care if folks identify themselves in general posts. If soemone is responding directly to one of us then we might ask who responded especially if the response creates a strong emotional response in us.

Most of the time we are pretty co concious so we don't sign things.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Yes, we do try to treat individual people differently, when we can tell them apart. If people don't sign their letters/entries/etc, we assume it's a collaborative effort, or one person speaking for the views of others.

On the other hand... how differently *should* you treat people, really? I mean, calling people by their names and respecting people's individual values and preferences are one thing; for example, I wouldn't serve bacon to Gabe^Astraea, or buy him a pet tarantula. If I know that someone likes a certain kind of food, or books by a certain author, I might go out of the way to get those for them. If someone likes to drink margaritas on their birthday, I'll buy them one. I'd do the same for any single person. However, the way I treat people in general, and the way I talk to them, are pretty much consistent-- I do this with singlet friends too, not just people in-house. If I address everyone with the same greeting, would that be perceived as 'treating everyone the same'-- even though I do that with people who aren't multiple in any way?

In a case where one individual in a group is persistently annoying you or pissing you off, well, it does get a little complicated. Especially if the person you don't like fronts a lot. It gets complicated in the same way that things get complicated if you have a (single) friend, and this person has *another* friend who insists on always hanging around them, and you can't stand that friend. If I ask them to stop letting that friend do those things, and Friend 1 continues to excuse Friend 2's bad behavior by saying "Oh, he's just angry/protective of me/has issues/etc, and I can't change that," or "I can't stop her from hanging around me," I'm going to see Friend 1 as complicit in the way 2 is acting. Especially if it starts to seem obvious that 1 actually doesn't see anything wrong with 2's behavior. (If it turns out that 2 actually has 1 cowed by their constant bullying, and 1 is afraid to go against them, that's another matter.)

Basically, what I'm getting at is that it's not too different a matter when 1 and 2 are using the same body.

If 1 and 2 hold opposite opinions on certain issues, and I agree with 1 but not 2, that's still all right with me as long as a) I know who I'm talking to and b) 2 doesn't insist on constantly shoving their opposing view in my face.

[shandra.livejournal.com]

We try to treat people individually for individual type things like - opinions, arguments, etc. Quite often we fail at it too, especially at systems where we don't know the people that well. It's like a fallback position - if we're too upset, or too uncertain, we start to lose the distinctions. I think it's vaguely like if you don't know a lot about a religion, the one or two people you meet from that religion seem representative of it. But once you know lots of people from that group, you can see the differences in them and that frees you to not tar everyone with the same brush.

I have no idea if that made sense; I'm tired. :)

For ourselves we've had to learn that if one person has hurt or annoyed someone else (in a system or singular) that usually that needs to get cleared off the emotional table first. So we try to facilitate that by saying something simple like "boy I'm sorry Channah upset you. I'm Shandra by the way." That is, assuming we're not in defend & protect mode which is - not an easy mode to talk to us in. Sigh.

But for group things like... oh not forgetting to meet us on time or whatever, we feel ok being grumpy at a group that way.

[shandra.livejournal.com]

Oh PS very cool topic.

[unknown-tales.livejournal.com]

It made very good sense. You actually explained things better than I could, because I do the same as you.

[juju-master.livejournal.com]

all were aware of at the moment is two strong ones. me and the owner jay (nahn_yaaaaa).

were best friends. brother and sister. lovers. soulmates. everything to one another.

we used to use a shared journal, but she decided it would be best for me to get out on my own and have my own 'life' online as best i could. so now ive got my own journal. sometimes when im talking to my singlet friend tigersgrowl she gets confused whos talking. for the sake of others and jay, i like to try and sign things when i write. she tends to completely forget writting those things if i dont and gets freaked out. :smile: ive got no problem with people not signing their things, but it does make it easier if im only interested in talking to just one certain individual.

miffed. :smirk: nice.
we tend to not really get 'miffed' at eachother that often at all. we work together on everything. and try and understand where the other is comming from in their thoughts. we are like a yingyang. she being the white, and me being the black. and if someone were to piss me off, jay may not be pissed off at all at them. :shrug: were very seperate on things like that. even people we 'fall for' tend to be different. which can lead to alot of problems in life, but we get through them all. day by day.

all we will ever really have are eachother. everyone else can dissapear or die. and we'd still be there for one another. (god forbid that actually happen)

[pengke.livejournal.com]

We treat tend to treat multiples as a group. Online, people in the same system usually tend to post the same type opinions or make a show of supporting that person's opinions. When people do post differing opinions, we usually take that into account. I don't know you people so what do I care if it was Sue who said something and Bob who agreed with her. It's like when you talk to your neighbors and the family across the street is the quiet, polite ones while they family beside you are the loud, obnoxious ones. If you were actually friends with the families, it would matter that the loud, obnoxious family's daughter is really quiet and sweet but they're just your neighbors so it doesn't.

Offline, we're not that different. With one of our friends, we just assume they're the person who's out the most with the others listening. With the other, we treat them as though we're talking to the whole group but are prepared to repeat things as needed when the person we're talking to changes. It's not that we treat any of them as though they were all the same person. They treat us the same way, as do our single friends who know.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Like sethrenn said - I treat them differently when I can tell them apart. Online, that means they sign their names, have icons with their names on them, or have separate journals - I can't keep track of people by their writing-styles or icons without names; every person on Lj has at least three icons.

There have been times I've had to cut contact with the person (or people) in a group that I liked, because someone else in the group who didn't like me kept popping in to put her $.02 in. It's impossible to trust someone who may turn into her Evil Twin at any time and use all the personal things you told the Nice Twin as weapons against you.

Kír and I disagree on a whole lot of issues. I don't speak for him, and he doesn't speak for me. We have our separate journals; he doesn't comment to mine, and doesn't really like it when I comment to his, or to his posts elsewhere. We don't "make a show of supporting each other's opinions" either - he categorically disapproves of my scrappin' online, and has made it very clear that he doesn't want to be involved in it. When he gets in a debate (which is rare) he prefers that I stay out of it, because I'm too much of a hothead, and mess up his careful strategies.

It's been a sad thing that a couple of people he liked cut contact with him because they had problems with me, even though it was nothing to do with him. He tends to doubt that people perceive him as a real live individual, even when they say they do and even when they live in multi-user bodies themselves. The fact that these supposed friends obviously didn't really perceive him as an individual (possibly because they themselves identified as DID) only reinforced his doubts, making it that much harder to persuade him to talk to people.

[pthalo]

It really depends how well I know the system, you know? If I know their names but not much more than that, I'm going to treat them (and everyone in their system) pretty much the same, that is, in the manner that I treat everyone else on the internet that I don't know all that well. It doesn't matter if they sign their name or not, it doesn't matter if they have their own journal or share a journal with others from their system. I treat them the way I'd treat everyone else on the planet, which means I tell them stuff about us that I don't care who knows about, and I treat them like a person and listen to their opinions and either agree or disagree but respect their right to see things the way they do.

If I got to know them better, I'd treat them differently, you know?

It's like my classmates at school. Most of them, I don't know better than "hi, how's it going". So even though they are all in seperate bodies, I treat them pretty much the same. But the ones that I've gotten to know better, I don't offer Ági chocolate but the poor thing is allergic to it, I know better how to react to something Duška says because I'm used to her and I hang out with her all the time, and if she asks how I am, she'll get a longer answer than most people. If I know there's something that XYZ doesn't like talking about, then I don't bring it up with XYZ, even if it's an average every day thing I'd bring up with some other person. But until I know people pretty well (and most people in this community aren't people I feel I know very well), I treat them like everybody else.

And to answer the last question, if one person in a group upset me, I'd be upset with them, not the whole group. But I'd reply to their comments and if someone else in their system wanted to reply I'd probably talk to them too. *shrugs*

[janaanab.livejournal.com]

I treat each member of a multiple group as the individual person that they are. I've gotten pretty good at identifying all the members of Aspen Patch (30 folks) fairly quickly after they come out. I do still have trouble identifying when some of the members of the Vanita group are out because they are not all willing to be themselves and will pretend to be the one who is out the most. I don't like not being able to be sure of being able to tell them apart. I wish they were willing to just be themselves...ah well maybe someday.

For the same reason I am uncomfortable when folks don't sign their names to what they write because then I don't know who I am talking to unless their writing style is different.

I can't imagine getting mad at the group as a whole if I was mad at one of them. Now I have not been able to convince some of them of that. One of my Aspen Patch daughters gets very upset if I get upset at their primary front because she feels it as if I was mad at her.

Jan

[temps-vivant.livejournal.com]

Do you treat the individual members of a system differently, or do you find yourself treating them as one person? And I mean, honestly, what do you do? Is it more difficult to do this with certain groups than others?

We treat groups differently than individuals, whether those individuals have one body each or not. It is a vague, generalized way of dealing with two or more people whom we do not know individually, and thus not very satisfactory compared to individual treatment. However, we would find it ethically hypocritical to treat an "out" multiple system as if they were a singlet without their express request. To us, such behavior is a direct dismissal of one's plurality for the sake of convienience.

Part of the reason for treating groups differently, I should add, is that by far, each and every one of us hate being treated as "one person". The whole point of coming out as multiple, even in a small area, is so that in that small area we may be acknowledged as individuals in our own right, who disagree with each other but do not allow those disagreements to become uncivil or get in the way of what must be done. So, when someone assumes that we all share the same opinion on something, and proceeds to act on that, more often than not a random frontrunning team finds themselves in the nasty situation of being held accountable for someone elses's personal opinion on abortion, religion, politics, the internet, art, etc., or perhaps even just a personal rant in a separate individual livejournal, and they MUST apologize for what was said because that is "system responsibility". Even if it was not their opinion, and even if they have heated debates from the other side of the issue with the person for whom they are expected to apologize for.

Greeting us the same, or treating us all with an equal respect is not an issue, I should add. It is when someone assumes that being a cooperative group means that any individual opinion is THE group opinion, when not otherwise stated. We do not "back each other up" by default. We do, in fact, often disagree, and it is only for the sake of not appearing "dysfunctional" that we do not carry most of these disagreements into public. The safest assumption with us, in absence of any other evidence, is to assume that an individual's statements are upheld by that individual alone. If someone else supports them, they will say so-- but until then, do not jump to conclusions based on the sole fact that we are multiple.

Does it make a difference to you whether or not someone who uses a shared journal doesn't sign their name, or do you not care?

The lack of a signature or named icon is confusing, we'll admit, although we can get by just as well with unnamed icons which have some other theme in common-- for instance, Bob always uses blue icons or Gillian uses icons of Gillian Anderson. (Names chosen because we know of none online by these names.)

In this community, we have been lax on using signatures, thinking that themed icons would get us by most of the time. However, I've requested that comments we make here start using icons, to make it clear that we are individuals who want to be regarded as such, and to avoid well-meant confusion that could result from the use of unnamed themed icons instead of "name tags".

If one person in a group upset you, would you be miffed with the entire group or just that person?

I, personally, would be miffed with the one person. However, I do have to admit that it would make matters with everyone very strained.

--S. Nomiya

[ex-nightjour77.livejournal.com]

We tend to think of multiple systems as political parties - yes, they're made up of different people, but unless we're told otherwise we assume that they share certain stated key opinions and values. This is probably a bad habit, but on average it tends to work. When comments are left unsigned, we assume it's a 'group effort'. [I much prefer it when comments are signed; I like knowing who I'm talking to! - Jack]

When someone annoys us, we try not to get annoyed with a whole system, but it rarely works that way - just like it's hard not to be upset with physical family members of someone you disagree with; families tend to 'support their own' against outsiders, whether family is internal or external, and whether that support is implicit or explicit it makes it hard for us to be friends with the system members of someone we are upset with.

[stealthdragon.livejournal.com]

Do you treat the individual members of a system differently, or do you find yourself treating them as one person? And I mean, honestly, what do you do? Is it more difficult to do this with certain groups than others?

Depends on how well we can tell them apart. Our closest multiple friend has a very consistent presentation, and individuals don't bother to ID themselves most of the time. (I think I can distinguish two or three of them, out of twelve regular frontrunners.) We've decided to trust all of them until there's a good reason not to.
If a group has many distinct opinions, we're more likely to differentiate between whose is which. Names are more helpful for this than icon sets.

Since we've had entire conversations where it's taken us several days to realise that the person speaking wasn't who everyone else thought they were, or even who _they_ thought they were at the time, we can hardly expect people outside to treat us individually unless we fairly obviously draw attention to who's communicating at any given time.

Does it make a difference to you whether or not someone who uses a shared journal doesn't sign their name, or do you not care?

If someone using a shared journal doesn't sign, we figure they're giving a group consensus, or at least the majority opinion.

If one person in a group upset you, would you be miffed with the entire group or just that person?

We have yet to beome 'miffed' with someone in another multiple group, so we have no real examples to consider. If they were in the habit of letting others know who's speaking/typing/whatever, I think we'd be more likely to try to separate person X's behaviour from that of person Y.

- Kathru, with general agreement