Sasza Lohrey

Hello, hello, thanks for tuning in to this new series of the BBXX podcast. We wanted to bring you more content, specifically more BBXX original content. And we’re using this as a chance to experiment with different topics, different formats, short format, longer format, casual interviews, more formal interviews, and a bit more fun stuff. So this new series will bring you mainly content from what I am referring to as the food for thought series, which explores different terms and terminology, or questions that might be particularly relevant to now, it might elaborate on something specific from one of our main interviews. Or it might just dive deeper into question that people have been asking me or that I’ve been wondering about myself. But we’ll also include things from fun ratings and reviews for books, movies, other podcasts, etc. To live interviews, and informal interviews with more people, perhaps such as yourself, talking more about personal narrative, and personal experiences that have shaped ourselves, our lives and our relationships. Because as much as there is to be learned from us from bx sex or any expert, we have just as much that can be learned from all of you, and from each other. 

I recently did an interview with Terry Cooper’s who studies isolation he studies, people were in solitary confinement studies, a lot of things that can help us better understand the human condition in general as well as a very interesting and important concept called attribution theory. And so, attribution theory has to do with the way in which we interpret a certain behavior event or outcome, as being attributed to as being the result of or being caused by either internal or external factors. And so this, for example, could be if somebody has toxic relationships, for example, we could attribute that to them being an in stable person, we could attribute that to them being insensitive, we could attribute that to so many internal factors. And in that sense, I want to say, because of who they are, their personality, and these are more fixed things. So we are considering that a fixed outcome. Or we could attribute that to external factors. And those could be for example, the way they were raised, and unhealthy parental figure in their life, previous abusive relationships, a simple and very common misunderstanding of basic communication, a lack of skills. 

And so that is attributing a certain outcome or circumstances to other outcomes or circumstances or experiences and the way that it is shaped or influenced someone the circumstances under which they have been forced to act. And so those are two very different things. And for example, is Terry Cooper’s when we think about why people end up in prison, is that because they’re an evil person, is that because they make worse decisions than any other normal human? If the case extreme cases if somebody is a psychopath, okay. Yes, perhaps chemistry wise brain chemistry wise, there is a certain internal factor that we can attribute it to. But if somebody was raised in a toxic environment and severe poverty under extreme social influence, peer pressure, desperation, can we attribute their actions to who they are, who they were born versus desperation, necessity, influence, not knowing better. And obviously, there is a huge scale. But this is something that I think we perhaps do more than we realize, when we are in the grocery store, and the person in front of us is slow and can’t get their bags together is taking a long time to pay, we attribute them to being a slow person to not being intelligent, or third card is rejected, you know, we might make the assumption that they don’t have money, we make so many assumptions and attributions without even realizing it, perhaps.

And I think particularly in dating in relationships, this is, I think, where we crossed the line between kind of dating and being in a relationship and more of a metaphorical way, perhaps. But I think in the beginning, when we don’t trust people or know people, we just kind of row assumptions out them or label them in a way that really isn’t fair. If somebody doesn’t respond to something or does whatever action that we don’t like, how often do we actually ask them why they did that or try and better understand whatever reasons might be behind it. And yes, there might be people who just don’t care or are care less or aren’t taking other people’s feelings or circumstances into account. But we don’t know what their previous relationships were like, We don’t know what experiences they had growing up, or recently what they’re going through, they might be under an extreme amount of stress at work, they might have lost their job or lost someone close to them or had to move, they might be going through a very difficult time. And I don’t think we give people the opportunity or the benefit of the doubt whether it’s the person in the grocery store the person on the other end of the dating app, or whoever it might be as to what their intentions are, or why that outcome came to be.

And so yes, I do think, in certain circumstances, maybe we need to protect ourselves. And we can’t give everybody the benefit of the doubt all the time. But I would pose the question, you know, can we could we, if we might get hurt as a result? Okay, but would we actually be hurt? How much does somebody who you don’t know? them not responding to how much does that hurt us, and that might be different for each person. But I would invite you all to kind of weigh how much cost you would really be undertaking and giving people the benefit of the doubt, or trying to better understand what might have shaped these outcomes, events or behaviors, versus making assumptions and attributions, and to weigh that with the benefits of offering a helping hand at the grocery store, or giving somebody another chance or going out of your way to reach out to them more than once. If they didn’t respond and the new lesson learned the new relationship or friendship that could come out of it. And so to weigh, how much cost and how much benefit is there really, behind this and how much are we just assuming