Friday, Mar. 01, 2019 - 10:07 a.m.

I read this article— ok it was really about racism in the knitting community and white women white womening but the intro was 4 conditions for a relationship.

1. Boundaries. Noting that you should watch out for nonverbal and other signs of a boundary and then when someone asserts you are crossing it, back the fuck off. “The obvious, empathetic response is to stop”, is how they put it.

2. Respect, which they call “full acknowledgement of their identity and experience”.

3. Openness— a lack of lying and deceit. “Harmful intent dressed up in niceties is still harmful. Pretence, superficiality, politeness for the sake of it: there are endless ways lying manifests. It is always destructive.” Saying you’re here to support but then disrupting is an untruth.

4. Trust— which you can’t achieve without the preceding conditions being met.

I don’t know how this holds up analytically, but there is something to it. My relationship with my mother fails on every count. Chronically. Obviously I have some obligation to her but how much? And does that obligation include pretending there is a (good) relationship there when there isn’t? Unrelatedly: I miss a bc pill ONE DAY and my uterus is like, “Yayyyyy is it time to bleed now?” NO, go back to sleep ya worthless fuck.

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