ESL Blogs

Have you ever been a victim of the manipulator? Or what's even worse - have you ever manipulated anybody? I guess, we all came across something like this at least once in a life time. To manipulate means to skillfully force others to do the things we want them to do, even though it is against their will. Sometimes we aren't even aware of the fact that somebody applies their manipulating technique on us. On one hand we can say, it can happen mostly to people with low self-confidence, on the other hand there are the situations that make us weak and then we can easily become the manipulator's victim.

Even innocent kids try to manipulate their "desperate" parents at early age. All these crying scenes to get something they long for, we can without doubt call manipulation. Poor kids just think..the more I will cry, the better it will work and I will get what I want. In my opinion, if we show them that such scenes are totally useless, will not pay attention to them, they will learn that such way of acting is not effective. It isn't easy at all but once we succeed, we are on the best way not to raise spoiled kid.

What about teenagers? Have you ever experienced the situations like...your classmates expected from you something forbidden such as smoking, cheating during the test etc and if you rejected doing it, all those so called friends would consider you loser? This is also manipulation since somebody is pushed in the corner and is forced to do the things against their own principles, morals. Honestly, such manipulating "friends" might influence us a lot in a bad way and it is nightmare of all the parents to see their kid surrounded by such kind of people.

Another chapter is love and manipulation. Unfortunately, there are people who think that to love somebody also means to owe him or her. Sentence like: "You don't love me, since you don't want to do this or that for me" is just typical example of manipulator's behaviour. Furthemore, if one wants to break up with the manipulator, it won't be easy at all. Some of those people might go so cheap that they are able to emotionally blackmail partner and they even don't hesitate to say: "If you leave me, I will commit suicide". Since nobody wants anybody to die, victim's life can become hell. Even though most of the manipulators will never commit suicide, they simply will do everything to force the second one to stay.

To find out, if the manipulator is somewhere around you, check this website to get to know their psychological profile:

http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/emotional_manipulation.htm

In the end I would like to point out that there are several ways of manipulation we might face - we can be manipulated by tricky sellers who persuade us to buy something absolutely useless or our kind boss can in few days turn to the worst manipulator, who will force us to work 24/7.

So dear friends, just be careful when you find yourself in the situation you don't feel comfortable, stay strong and say: "ENOUGH!!!"