dear friend,

what is right and what is wrong

Recently I got into an argument with a friend (ex-friend? current acquaintance? I'm not sure how to categorise how I know them since I’m not talking to them right now) and needed somewhere to process what happened, so I went to Claude. It helps that the AI has no stake in my life and literally only knows what I've shared, so I know it's an unreliable narrator.

I've been using it as a way to send my harshest replies that I stopped myself from sending because I knew if I sent something in the heat of the moment, I will regret that later on. And I would ask the AI to rate the response. Time and time again, Claude would reply to me saying that if I were to send that to other party, let’s call them P for simplicity, it would escalate the situation and truly burn that bridge.

For example, I really wanted to send this draft to P: "Thank you for your honesty. It's true I don't want to deal with your bullshit, please take it up elsewhere. And it's also true I'm not that sympathetic to the scam - from your messages it sounds like you knew it was a scam yet you continued to participate in it. So I don't get what it is that you want from me." And Claude was nice enough to tell me:

Your frustrations are valid, but expressing them this bluntly might:

Thanks Claude. I mean, I knew intuitively that saying that would not solve anything and just add more fuel to a burning pile of shit. But I've been reflecting on how this situation developed and wondered to myself: do I actually value this friendship? The fact that I've been misunderstood so egregiously and have my words twisted to the point that I don't recognize myself - I'm like, wow, tell me more about how I'll be treated when you prioritize your own emotional needs above everyone else.

I don't want to go into too much specifics about the argument because P is someone that values their privacy, and I want to respect that. At the end of the day, I don't actually think either of us is in the wrong. I just needed somewhere to vent and remind myself that my own truth matters, that as much as I try to be compassionate, my words may not land the way I expect them to.

Why is communication so hard? Especially as an autistic person when I'm expressing myself as directly as I can and that gets blown out of proportion. Just because I'm direct doesn't mean that I don't care.

Honestly, the way P went at me as though I was siding with someone else and ignoring their needs, when really I was just trying to separate the two situations and remind P to be considerate of their actions on others. I can care about two things at the same time - it's not black and white. So I'm taking some time away from this friendship, evaluating whether I want to continue being their friend, and how to respond to similar situations in the future.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

#diary