we all know the game telephone where you
whisper a phrase down a line of people
and then see how convoluted the message
becomes the further it gets from the
source
it's not a very fun game i mean
personally i prefer katan
michelle if you give me all of your ore
i will be your surrogate
when you're ready to have a baby you
can't do that that's why she didn't say
it
i can't use my own body these wheels
love making deals way more fun than
boring ass telephone
did you just say i'm a loser
[Applause]
good for you melissa i love this game
but a lot of us don't
stop playing telephone when we get into
adulthood some of us unknowingly employ
a tactic called
triangulation so triangulation is like
the smarter cousin of gossip because
it's manipulative behavior whether or
not it's intended to be
and i say girls in the title of this
video because in my personal life i've
witnessed this a lot between female
friendships but you know this message
actually applies to everyone
everyone needs to stop triangulating
triangulation is where one person
will not communicate directly with
another person and instead use a third
person
to relay communication to the second
thus forming a triangle
if you've never heard of this term
before it's because it's mainly used in
trauma-informed therapy
so intentional triangulation is what's
most often discussed online and in
mental health spaces
because it's a manipulation tactic used
by narcissists
dr armani a clinical psychologist you
may remember from the podcast
describes triangulation as a
psychological threesome
you did not consent to so for example in
an abusive family dynamic
one kid is labeled the good kid the
other bad and the narcissistic parent
will play them against each other
so the kids are incentivized to be
dishonest with each other in order to be
accepted by the narcissist's parent
in a romantic relationship the
narcissist may bring in a third person
like
an ex or a colleague to create
insecurity and shift the power balance
by telling you that their ex wants them
back now or their calling just keeps
hitting on them
intentional triangulation can range in
its subtlety
but ultimately it's about creating chaos
harnessing that chaos to keep control
and maintaining power in the
relationship but we are not all
narcissists
so that's pretty irrelevant to us
right right today i want to talk about
unintentional triangulation especially
in front groups now even though
triangulation
in its nature is manipulation we often
do it without realizing it or
intending to manipulate and none of us
are bad for doing it
we're usually motivated by pretty
innocuous reasons like when i was a kid
i was definitely
perpetuating unintentional triangulation
because i was just so shy and awkward
hi what can i get you
she wants a cosmopolitan okay that would
be
money money money
she says thank you tell her i said
you're welcome
[Music]
message receipt bye seriously i could
not talk to strangers to save my life
i made my brother buy me so many
cosmopolitans in my youth
in addition to being shy we may employ
this because we're afraid of uh
confrontation good old conflict
thank you so much for meeting us sure
what's this all about
why is there a lawyer here i'm going to
ask you not to speak to my client
to direct all your questions to me so
what we have here is that on october 29
2020 you went into a verbal agreement
with my client during a game of katan
that in exchange for her ore you would
in fact be a surrogate when she was
ready is that correct
that was a joke i wasn't actually gonna
do that oh a joke
how convenient especially given that my
client gave you all of her aura during
that game a move
which in effect made her lose michelle
what is this about excuse me
please don't speak to my client
otherwise this meeting is over and we're
gonna go straight into litigation
so what we have for you here is a very
generous proposal you can either fulfill
your surrogacy obligations within six
months or
in perpetuity every game night you will
give miss macedo
all of your ore you have until monday to
think about our offer
let's go and then of course you have
survivors of incredibly toxic and
abusive families who don't know how to
have a direct conversation
because this behavior was modeled for
them as acceptable
or they were taught direct conversations
were just unsafe
ever since i learned about triangulation
i see it everywhere now and my hope is
that you do too
and when you catch yourself doing it
because you inevitably will
remember that unclear is unkind when we
love people
that means being honest with them that
means having a hard conversation
every relationship is rupture and repair
conflict is bound to happen
and it's the way we choose to deal with
that conflict over time
that creates fulfilling honest loving
relationships
i'm anna akana and thank you to the
patrons who supported this video and
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