[Geir tries to lay out his premises and the pathway they took as logically as possible. he wants Dirk to be able to follow his thoughts.]
Um. I know I'm new at this, and I probably like a lot of terrible people, but you being terrible doesn't actually make a lot of sense to me. So if I just start thinking about it from "Dirk isn't terrible," it's like...
You cared about your friends, but you knew you were bad at dealing with people. So you tried to get around that by manipulating them, like you said, and obviously that didn't work. Okay, so far that looks kind of terrible. So you tried to be... "idealized Dirk," I guess?
But you also got embarrassed that you were bad at people, so in your... picture of Best Dirk... you don't mention that part at all. Best Dirk wasn't somebody who practiced a lot and got better at feelings. He's just someone who could manipulate people really well and didn't ever have to be bad at something. That was the part that was confusing me earlier, when I asked if you ever practiced. You didn't say "I tried to practice talking to people but I kept getting scared and lazy and tricking them instead." You said "I tried to be better and I just ended up being myself."
So that makes it-- by your, um, definition, "Dirk" is someone who can't talk to people and tries to trick them instead to cover it up, but "Ideal Dirk" is still just someone who's so good at covering up his weaknesses that it didn't matter that he was ever bad at them. There's no way for Best Dirk to magically get better at anything, and all you were practicing was more tricking people. And then tricking people didn't work, and you were still bad at talking to them. So it makes sense that you think you're terrible.
I don't think you're thinking about Dirk when he's willing to admit he's bad at things at all. I've met him, and he's explained a lot of things to me even when he's embarrassed, and he's really nice. So that's why I like you.
[that's possibly the longest speech he's made to Dirk, even in their conversations, which get pretty wordy for Geir. he looks at him anxiously to see his reaction.]
no subject
Um. I know I'm new at this, and I probably like a lot of terrible people, but you being terrible doesn't actually make a lot of sense to me. So if I just start thinking about it from "Dirk isn't terrible," it's like...
You cared about your friends, but you knew you were bad at dealing with people. So you tried to get around that by manipulating them, like you said, and obviously that didn't work. Okay, so far that looks kind of terrible. So you tried to be... "idealized Dirk," I guess?
But you also got embarrassed that you were bad at people, so in your... picture of Best Dirk... you don't mention that part at all. Best Dirk wasn't somebody who practiced a lot and got better at feelings. He's just someone who could manipulate people really well and didn't ever have to be bad at something. That was the part that was confusing me earlier, when I asked if you ever practiced. You didn't say "I tried to practice talking to people but I kept getting scared and lazy and tricking them instead." You said "I tried to be better and I just ended up being myself."
So that makes it-- by your, um, definition, "Dirk" is someone who can't talk to people and tries to trick them instead to cover it up, but "Ideal Dirk" is still just someone who's so good at covering up his weaknesses that it didn't matter that he was ever bad at them. There's no way for Best Dirk to magically get better at anything, and all you were practicing was more tricking people. And then tricking people didn't work, and you were still bad at talking to them. So it makes sense that you think you're terrible.
I don't think you're thinking about Dirk when he's willing to admit he's bad at things at all. I've met him, and he's explained a lot of things to me even when he's embarrassed, and he's really nice. So that's why I like you.
[that's possibly the longest speech he's made to Dirk, even in their conversations, which get pretty wordy for Geir. he looks at him anxiously to see his reaction.]