When people think you're a creep

My father has a bit of a problem in social groups, because he makes out-of-line suggestive comments to women and pats them when he shouldn't.  He doesn't do this all the time, of course, but it's a behavior that people notice, especially when (like his in-laws, my mother's family) they see him over and over.  And I think it has cost him some friends over the years.

I'm always a little cautious about bringing the subject up, because ... well, hell, he's still my father and I love him in spite of his faults.  But sometimes he brings it up himself, usually when one of my aunts or cousins has finally had enough and tells him off; then afterwards he asks me about it because he genuinely doesn't understand that he did anything wrong.  "Hosea, what on earth was she so upset about? She couldn't possibly have minded anything I said, could she?"  And I try to find some tactful way of saying, "Well yes, in fact, you're lucky she just yelled at you instead of slapping your face or suing you."

Often I try to talk about how times have changed from when he was a young man in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  I tell him that back then, you could say those sorts of things and get away with them.  (I don't really know if that's true, but "Mad Men" has convinced me that the bar for what you could say in public was a lot lower back then.)  He listens and nods appreciatively while I talk about the huge social changes since then, but he doesn't change his behavior.  (In the back of my head I have thought to characterize it another way -- viz., that he acts like his social cues were frozen at about the age of fifteen. But I don't say that out loud, for reasons I have already mentioned above.)

But a few months ago, while I was looking for something else on the Web, I stumbled across a link that seemed just perfect.  It was to an advice column where two different people had written independently asking how to handle guys in their respective social circles who behaved a lot like my dad.  I should add that most of what they describe is more extreme than the things my dad has done when I've been around to witness him personally.  But there is a close "family resemblance" between the behaviors that I thought might help him understand what people were getting at.  So I forwarded him the link, which is this here:

http://captainawkward.com/2012/08/07/322-323-my-friend-group-has-a-case-of-the-creepy-dude-how-do-we-clear-that-up/

I framed my e-mail in terms of social change, but the point was to get him to follow the link.  Well he did, and his reply was uncharacteristically brief:

Was I that bad?

I wasn't quite sure how to answer that.  What I strongly suspected, though, is that he would try to steer the conversation in the direction of arguing, "The accusations are false: I never did any of those bad things."  And I wanted to get him to see that in interpersonal relationships, that question isn't particularly useful.  So I wrote:

I have no idea.  I wasn’t there.  All I know is that often things look very different from one person’s point of view than they do from another.  So you should really be asking two different questions: …

Was I really that bad?Answer: I don’t know, because I wasn’t there.
Did I really look that bad to these other people?Answer: I don’t know because I didn’t ask them.
But what is absolutely, fundamentally critical is to see that these are totally different questions, which means that it is entirely possible for the answer to the first one to be No and the second one to be Yes (or vice versa, of course) … and that this mis-match between the answers does not necessarily involve any bad faith or lying or hypocrisy or dishonesty on anybody’s part.  It really, truly is possible for appearances to be genuinely, honestly that different, depending on whose eyes you are looking through.

It’s weird but true.

For that reason I am always very reluctant to speak for somebody else or to tell you what somebody else’s opinion probably was.

On the other hand – for exactly the same reason – if someone complains to me about my doing something bad that I know for a fact I didn’t do, I work very hard not to get mad but to remind myself, “Somehow he misunderstood something that I did so that it looked that way to him. So even though I know I didn’t do what he says I did, it is up to me to figure out what I can do to correct his misapprehension. Why is it up to me, when he’s the one that is wrong? Just because if I don’t do it, there’s damned sure nobody else on the planet that’s gonna do it for me. So it really doesn’t matter if it’s fair or unfair … it’s still up to me to take his report as accurately representing what he thinks he saw and therefore to do what I can to help him see the truth next time.”  It’s not easy and it’s not fair, but personally I have never found any other option that works.

Just for what it’s worth.  Your mileage may vary.

His next answer was almost as short as his last one.  For my father, this is really saying something.  If he's not going on at length (kind of the way I do), you can guess he is uncomfortable.

So either I:

a) join a twelve-step program so I can "make amends" to all who say I've wronged them;

b) move to a new town and start over;

c) become a stand-up comic and get paid for saying outrageous shit;

d) [fill in suggestion here].

Sorry, Dad, but that's a bullshit answer and you knew it was when you wrote it.  You're not taking the discussion seriously; you're just trying to look oppressed.  No, of course I didn't say that.  What I wrote instead was:

Or none of the above.  It’s a free country.

(b) is too much trouble.  (c) is appealling, but a lot of work and even then the odds against striking fame and fortune are huge.  And (a) is an exaggeration designed to make the whole conversation look absurd.  But heck, even that is more work than you need to go to.  Just delete this e-mail and don’t answer it, and look at all the trouble you’ve saved yourself.  As I say, it’s a free country.

All that I am suggesting here is that it is better to understand what is going on than it is to be shoved around by events that make no sense to you.  It’s better to understand the people you are with so that you can interact with them on purpose and get the reactions you are looking for, rather than acting at random and having them react in ways that baffle you.  It’s better to see what is coming than to be blindsided.  That’s all.

Also, understanding someone else means understanding him (or her) on his own terms, from his own point of view.  Saying, “Well yeah, I understand that Fred is a malicious asshole who has been conspiring against me for no reason since Day One,” is not really understanding Fred; it is, rather, a refusal to understand him.  You can do that if you want, of course, but personally I don’t find it very satisfying.

If you do get to the point of understanding the other fellow on his own terms, then after that you can do pretty much whatever you feel like.  Maybe this means changing nothing at all … but in that case it will be with full knowledge of what it looks like to the other guy, so you have to decide if you are comfortable with looking like that.  Or maybe it means handling it the way you’d handle it if you accidentally trod on someone’s toe … call him up informally and say “Ooops, I had no idea I was stepping on your toe. Ouch, I bet that hurts. Hope you’re all right and all that.”  Or maybe … gosh, I dunno.  You’re a creative guy; use your imagination.  But when you ask somebody else (like me) to tell you what to do about it – even in a joking form by listing choices (a), (b), (c), and (d) – that implicitly means playing a role and asking which script you should use.  Don’t do that.  Don’t play a part.  Don’t act.  Rather, if you get to the point where you really can see things from the other guy’s point of view, then do what you really, honestly – in real life, not by putting on a character – feel the most comfortable (or least uncomfortable) doing.  If you forget about all the couldas-wouldas-shouldas, if you stop thinking about what other people want you to pretend to be, if you silence all the noise in your mind that distracts you on a daily basis and keeps you from focussing … you might surprise yourself with what you come up with.

In any event, do what you want.  My only advice is that sometimes you might have to think about it a while to be able to see what it is you really want.

I truly meant the part about "Do what you want."  I do think -- and this may be the only line in the whole post that has any obvious resonance with classical thought -- that there is something universal about our knowledge of what is good.  If my dad -- if any of us -- can just cut the crap for a minute, the odds are very good that what he (or we) really wants to do will actually line up with what is right.

Of course, "cutting the crap" is a lot harder than it sounds.  But it really is the main thing.