The Art of Reading People

by Ian Tuhovsky

  Instead, we need to work on seeing people as objectively as possible. We don't need to do this all the time. What we do need to do is be objective when we read people. For this we need to step back, however briefly, and ask ourselves how a bystander might interpret the situation.

  What about the people who are objectively, morally in the wrong, though? Well, we know they are definitely “bad guys” in the conventional sense. A thief or a killer is literally a bad guy. (Whether or not they are to blame for their badness is another debate entirely.) However, when it comes to bad guys who aren't criminals, we also need to ask ourselves whether it’s effective to think of them as villains.

  Does labeling such people villains, and getting emotionally invested in our relationship with them, help us? I thought of my bully as a villain. It did not help me. I thought of my shopaholic ex as a villain. That did not help me, either.

  What would have helped me?

  Reading them. Reading them and knowing their intentions could have helped me immensely.

  To read people we need to separate ourselves emotionally. We don't need to think of them as villains we need to save the world from. As we shall see, many people lie for various reasons and not all of them are actively hostile. We need to think of them as forces of nature, like a hurricane or a wild dog, for which we need to be prepared. And, hopefully, to also prepare others.

  If they are criminals or rule-breakers, then we can get rid of them. If we can sever them from our lives - then we should. If we can warn others about their ways and help others to spot, read, and overcome these dangerous people, then we must. If they are unavoidable, then we must learn to prepare for them. We must learn to read them, interpret their tactics, and stop them from hurting us.

  Calling them a villain will not prepare us. Reading them will.

  Lesson 1: Differentiating between objective and subjective goodness.

  As we’ve discovered together, objective goodness is based on universal moral values. The sort of values so common to humans across the world that they are reflected in law, culture, and societal rules. It is objectively good to not intentionally harm someone else. It is objectively good to stop them from coming to harm.

  Objective badness is the mirror opposite of objective goodness. Society punishes objective badness. Harming others is legally defined as abuse. Letting harm come to them when you could stop it is negligent.

  Between these two objective definitions lies a moral gray area. For example, a girlfriend who steals your money is objectively bad. A girlfriend who does not steal your money is objectively good. What about a girlfriend who demands your money? Or who asks for money repeatedly?

  If she’s conscious of her actions and their ramifications, we could argue she is manipulative and harming you intentionally. But if she’s ignorant, does that make her good or bad? And how do we tell the difference between the person who demands money because she thinks it's okay, and the one who demands money despite it hurting the giver?

  Let’s use a more extreme example to drive this point home. Assisted suicide is currently a moral gray area being debated across the world. We know that killing someone is objectively bad, and saving a life is objectively good. But what about helping someone to kill themselves? Some argue that legalizing assisted suicide is just a way of helping those who are suffering. Others say it opens the door for violent people to commit murder.

  This debate leads us to an important concept. We cannot tell the willfully abusive and the accidentally abusive apart. We cannot get inside the head of someone who helps their loved one commit suicide and determine if their motivations were good or bad. We can only decide if their actions are good or bad. And, if their actions were bad, then we must punish them and prevent them from doing it again.

  Likewise, someone who hurts you may be doing it for all the best reasons. Or they might just claim to be helping you. It doesn't matter. If you ask them to stop hurting you and they don't, they are bad for you. [5]

  This examination leaves us with four types of people:

  1: Those who are objectively good and good for us. These are people who do good things, for the right reasons, and who bring joy and goodness to our lives. We want to surround ourselves with these positive people.

  2: Those who are objectively good and bad for us. These are people who do everything for the right reasons or claim to do things for the right reasons and we believe them. They are the hardest to break free from because we believe they are inherently good. They may even have the support of others. Their motivation doesn't matter if they are hurting us. We need to ask them to stop. If they don't, we need to start reading.

  3: Those who are objectively bad and good for us. These are the second hardest people to break free from because the confuse us about our own intentions. We can see that they are not good people in general, or not good to other people. But their actions benefit us. Which makes it hard for us to break free. In these cases, it is important to read them so that we can protect other people and prepare ourselves for the times when their badness is directed at us.

  4: Those who are objectively bad and bad for us. These people don't have much of a place in our lives. We see that they are bad, others say that they are bad, and they do nothing for us. So, unless we’ve fallen madly in love with the bad-boy/girl, it is very easy to avoid them.

  You may notice that with 1 and 4 it is easy to tell these people apart and easy to decide what to do with them. Whereas with 2 and 3 we have a dilemma. 2 is a person who claims to love us while hurting us. As empathetic people, we want to believe them and give them a chance. And 3 is a bad person but there’s still something in it for us. Something we want or need. As humans, geared for survival, we cling to bad things that help us, such as soul-sucking jobs, or person 3.

  Exercise:

  For this exercise, look at the bad people in your life. The ones who either hurt you, or someone you love and trust, that might be considered bad by the above definitions.

  Take a blank piece of paper and draw out three columns. “Objectively bad”, “Subjectively bad for me”, and “Subjectively bad for others”.

  Sort the bad people in your life into the three columns. Try and be rational and honest. Look at them like you would look at someone you do not know. It can help to use a genuinely bad public figure, such as a criminal, as reference. This way you can be objective.

  If a bad person's actions are universally bad, hurt more people than they help, and come from selfish intention, then they are objectively bad.

  If a bad person's actions affect you but not others, come from a good or neutral place, or are considered to be accidental or inside a moral gray area, they are subjectively bad for you.

  If a bad person's actions affect someone you know, do not hurt most people, come from a good or neutral place, or are considered to be accidental or a moral gray area, they are subjectively bad for others.

  After compiling your lists, take some time to think about what makes the objectively bad people different from the subjectively bad people. Think about the why behind their actions. Think about how you could avoid them hurting you or others. It's not enough to make the list. It is important to reflect on the meaning behind this list.

  Lesson 2: Playing Devil's Advocate.

  When it comes to bad people if you are still having a hard time deciding if they are subjectively or objectively bad, it can help to play Devil's Advocate. A Devil's Advocate is someone who takes something or someone bad and creates a positive argument for them.

  This doesn't mean you agree with them!

  It involves picking their brains, trying to see what makes them tick. [6]

  Thankfully, few people are evil for the sake of evil. Most people are motivated by results. So, if someone is being a bad person, you need to ask yourself how their actions align with their goals.

  When we play Devil's Advocate, it can help to focus on four questions.

  1) What does this person gain from what they are doing?

/>   2) Does this person know that their behavior is wrong?

  3) Does this person change their behavior when corrected?

  4) Does this person act selfishly, or with other people in mind?

  Just these four questions can explain a lot about people and their motivations.

  Usually, when we ask these questions we uncover one of 4 “Bad Guys”. And behind these Bad Guys are 4 types of behavior justification. These reasons for the bad behavior are culturally universal, and one of them is always behind harmful actions.

  The manipulator. The manipulator wants something, sometimes something physical, from their victims. Your suffering means nothing as long as they get what they want. Usually, they want your money, your body, your energy, or your time. Sometimes they want your material goods, or your relationship. The manipulator will either try and take your stuff or will try and ruin what you have. For example: The manipulator wants your money, so they sweet talk you into giving them a loan, which they never repay.

  The follower. The follower wants to change you. Sometimes they are compelled by their own idealized version of God. Sometimes by the head of a cult or scam. Sometimes by their parents or friends. Your suffering is a worthwhile price to pay for the proposed joy you will experience later at the hands of their idol. This person has a strong, codependent relationship with a powerful manipulator or sadist. So even though the follower often means well, they will do serious harm. For example: The follower believes their preacher can save your soul, so they will hound you to join their faith.

  The dreamer. The dreamer has good intentions, but usually falls short of their own goals. There are many reasons for their failure. Your suffering is purely accidental to them. When harm is done, they think they can it by doing the same thing again. They think it is their job to fix the mess, or they’re genuinely not in touch with reality. For example: The dreamer tried to help you get back together with an old friend, causing everyone heartache. Rather than let things be, they keep trying to set you both up repeatedly.

  The sadist. The sadist is the closest we will ever come to evil for evil's sake. They make you suffer, not because your suffering is unimportant, but because your suffering is deeply important. Some sadists get a sexual thrill from harming you. Some sadists like feeling empowered and abuse you to feed that urge. Some sadists simply enjoy others suffering like we enjoy a good TV show, something called Schadenfreude. Many healthy sexual sadists engage in consensual sadistic activity with a partner. But plenty of sadists will abuse anyone they can. For example: The sadist saw you drop your keys and kicked them into the drain, for the hell of it.

  Two or more of the above. It’s important to note that a lot of dangerous people with personality or psychiatric disorders have two, three, or all four of those personality types which makes them particularly bad. Most normal, healthy, morally neutral people will do one or two occasionally. A bad person indulges in one continually. And a dangerous person does two or more continually.

  Remember: we can all be any of the four main bad guys at various times and for various reasons.

  We might be the manipulator when we lie to get a job. We might be the follower when we nag a friend to come to Church with us. We might be the dreamer when we lose our parents' money on a bad business idea. We might be a sadist when a celebrity we dislike meets some misfortune and we feel joy in their downfall.

  These occasional actions are all perfectly normal. All these examples have something else in common. They aren't pathological. They aren't continual. They aren't ruining lives. We do these things once or twice a year like normal, healthy people do. None of us are saints.

  Let’s explore why a person who regularly acts on two or more of those motivators is dangerous. It's simple: They have a reason. They always have a reason. Someone who regularly falls for scams and gives bad advice might not be trying to hurt you. As a dreamer, they will always have a reason to mess up your life. So will someone who gets immense joy from watching you fall and little happiness from anything else. They love hurting you. And that will always be reason enough.

  The more reasons someone has to be bad, the more of a Bad Guy they will be.

  Exercise:

  Look at the people in your life, from people you know, to celebrities and fictional characters, who you consider bad. Ask yourself the four questions.

  1) What does this person gain from what they are doing?

  Are they being selfish and manipulating you into giving them things? Are they trying to help you? Are they trying to hurt you for their own enjoyment? Why would they want to do this?

  2) Does this person know that their behavior is wrong?

  Are they malicious? Or do they have their head in the clouds? Do they believe your suffering is meaningless? Do they believe you are not suffering? Do they believe you should suffer?

  3) Does this person change their behavior when corrected?

  Do they seem remorseful? Do they stop doing the thing you complained about? Do they start doing another hurtful thing? Do they try and make up for the harm they have done?

  4) Does this person act selfishly, or with other people in mind?

  Are they hurting you because they want to? Because they need to? Or because they think they are helping? Because they are scared? Because they are brainwashed or controlled?

  When you determine the answers to these questions, you will conclude whether this person is one of the “Bad Guys”. That is, whether they are continually hurting you for one or more reasons. You will also see what type of Bad Guy they are. That is, for what specific reason they are hurting you.

  This means you can start playing Devil's Advocate for them.

  You do not want to excuse their behavior

  You need to explain it.

  Devil's Advocacy does this. It takes a person whose actions are harmful and explains them in a light where we can determine their motivation. This puts us in a position where we can avoid being victimized by these people.

  Are they trying to control us to feed their power lust? Then we can do things to make them feel less powerful.

  Are they assuming their actions are helpful? Then we can set them straight and show them how to actually help.

  What’s more, by learning their motivations we can also help others. And we can learn to detect similar people in the future. It may be easier to just avoid everyone as soon as they hurt us, but this sort of cagey behavior is not constructive. Reading, and only reading, will help you to spot dangerous people early, maintain relationships with misguided people, and protect yourself and your loved ones from being exploited.

  CHAPTER THREE: FOCUSING ON QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

  So, what did I mean when I said that cutting out people who hurt us is cagey? Allow me to explain.

  Let’s go back in time to 2011. I had started a new and exciting business venture with someone I thought was a professional, a visionary with a similar goal to my own, and, above all, a friend.

  I was wrong.

  We were trying to start a website selling some clothing products. He swore we could get them cheap enough and sell them fast enough to turn a sizeable profit. My contribution involved investing and building the company side. He promised he could handle buying and selling on his own. I invested a lot of time, energy, and money into that idea. It really meant a lot to me, and I was very excited, so I just kept throwing more and more resources at it. And he reassured me. He made me confident that it would work, that it was working, and that I would see the results soon. And, as I'm sure you've already guessed, he was lying to me. The venture failed, the business barely afloat, and all my time, energy, and money wasted.

  To this day I am still not sure whether he lied on purpose to hurt me, or whether he was caught up in his own delusions. That doesn't really matter right now. What does matter is what I did when I found out.

  I cut him off.

  The pain of failure and loss overwhelmed me. The only thing I could think of doing to get the turmoil to ebb was to s
top talking to him, stop seeing him, end the business venture, and retreat into myself. At first, it provided some relief. I even contemplated quitting business altogether. I wanted to go back to the rat race, just so I never had to suffer like that again.

  Which probably sounds ridiculous to you, right? “Why would you give up on business, on independence, on other people and on your dreams because one guy hurt you?” Eventually, I saw the light and understood that I could always try again.

  It takes a lot of faith to be that vulnerable again. Even worse, if you never work out what went wrong in the first place then you are putting yourself at risk of repeating past mistakes as soon as you step out there.

  For this reason, some people feel like they're magnets for bad relationships. Because in that short window when you're reeling from a bad relationship is exactly when bad people attack. They smell weakness, see the emotional mess that the last bad person left behind, and they swoop in to take advantage of the lessons you haven't had time to learn. So, you get trapped in a cycle of bad experiences and vulnerability until it breaks you. Until you give up.[7]