I heard a good joke about this: when you're 20, you're obsessed with what others think about you. When you're 40, you don't give a damn what others think about you. When you're 60, you realize others were never thinking about you at all.

I hesitate to quote Ayn Rand, but it's fitting:

"Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us."

"But I don’t think of you."

-Ellsworth Toohey and Howard Roark, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

Michael Ginsberg: "I feel bad for you."

Don Draper: "I don't think about you at all."

(The irony of this line is that Draper, in fact, was obsessed with one-upping Ginsberg the whole episode.)

Things like this are what make Don Draper such a fantastic (and fantastically loathsome) character. He knows which buttons to push at which times. It is that quality that makes him both successful in his career and miserable in his life.

"Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person." -- Mark Twain

Ran into a coworker on the elevator. We worked together on the same floor in the same department for a few years then I changed departments and floors and now we hardly see each other. When she saw me on the elevator she said "I forgot you exist!"

Does that empower the "Move fast, break things" mentality since others were never really thinking about you (or other people for that matter) and just mostly themselves?

I'm kind of coming the other way. I don't think about what other people think of me much, but I do start to worry a bit when I notice a particular person constantly talks smack about other people to me- if you'll say that about person X, who knows what you say about me to person Y?

I wouldn't worry, except sometimes the people prone to talking a lot of smack are the sort to wildly exaggerate or fabricate.

Just for fun, I'd like to throw in my opposite experience. A few years ago I was quite active on FB, you know, posting random thoughts and music videos and stuff like that. The stuff I posted was indeed random, just things I liked and wanted to share based on mood and ...well randomness. But unbeknownst to be, an acquaintance of mine, who was at the time engaged in a horribly soapy love triangle, got it into her head that I was speaking in code about her - more specifically that I was totally in love with her and wanted to make her nicely constructed love triangle into a quad-shape.

It didn't help that I really had been unlucky in love for months at that time, and I once confided to said threesome girl my situation over a coffee. I did express to her quite clearly who my "problem" person was, but for some reason (and I learned that only much later from a meetup with her boyfriend) she actually thought I was again speaking about her, in code. I was not. However, she convinced a lot of people.

Only after noticing that quite a few friends and acquaintances were turning their backs on me lately, and a few people coming out and saying strange things like "hey, what's up with you and X, you gotta let her go, man" or even "dude, I heard what you did and it's not seriously not cool" I gradually learned that this person was waging an epic info war around and about me, who supposedly couldn't stop hitting on her. Upon learning this, I broke off contact immediately, but to my amazement the damage was still unfolding.

I simply could not believe the amount of gossip and straight-up fantasy people engaged in with me playing some kind of role in what had become a huge reality soap opera. Honestly, I never thought I was that interesting. But that didn't matter, because the made-up stuff just kept coming. It was as if I had a very active doppelgänger walking and talking around somewhere. It was absolutely stunning, and more than a bit horrifying. There are a lot of things I still can't wrap my head around. What was she getting out of this? And all the time, we had a "hey, let's grab a beer and cheer you up"-kind of relationship that I thought was pretty good. Why would anyone do this? And why was everyone willing to not only listen but also willing to add to this story?

Now, years later, my circle of friends has shrunken immensely. There are a lot of people who won't talk to me anymore, and I never got to find out why exactly. I only know that the moment I start asking questions, the whole affair seems to get reactivated. One friend told me only recently (unprompted) that there are so many conflicting stories about me in circulation, it's hard to keep track of them all. And none of them is good.

Why me? I'm neither rich, nor good-looking, nor in any imaginable way socially interesting. Seriously, it's stunningly stupid, and I can't for the life of me understand what powers this process. But it happened. A home-made conspiracy story. Sometimes, people really do talk behind your back - a lot.

Having seen a similar case up close myself, it is amazingly hard to wrap your head around some kinds of socially manipulative behavior. And I think that is why some people will fundamentally never come over your side - it's too hard to understand.

I've learned a few things from this (my) experience:

- Most people really are not interested in getting to the bottom of anything. Even if it is pretty serious and damaging. Sad but true. They can't be bothered to doubt their first instincts.

- Most people think they are such a rock-solid judge of character.

- If something doesn't add up, people may notice but then sweep it under the rug.

- Personality disorders are probably too hard a concept for people to consider. One thinks of a mental disorder as a person gibbering nonsense.

I've been through a similar, although not quite so extreme situation (post-breakups) a couple of times. One thing I have realised is that the people that stick with you and don't believe the bullsh*t are those that will be your friends for life.

There seems to be no shortage of people who will happily listen to one side of an argument and disseminate it. I've even met people for the first time, and when they found out my name say something along the lines of: "Oh, I've heard all about you."

It really is childish behaviour, anyone with a modicum of decency would confront you about it, and let you have your say. If they don't, they're not worth knowing (IMHO).

I have seen something like this before. Your case looks similar (it's impossible to know for sure, but I'll tell you what this looks like). She was in a self produced (shit)storm and you were chosen and used as the lightning rod. She actively engaged you in the equation without your knowledge. You were left in he dark, but she made sure all her and your friends got to know everything about you. She was "just the victim". She directed the talks (and the anger accompanying them) towards your person and got away with her own behavior. The fact that people still don't know what to believe makes me think she was quite successful. Of course this would not have worked if the target (you, a.k.a. the lightning rod) was -as you put it- "socially interesting". This strategy works especially well inside large companies. If you fucked up, you will most likely know it in advance and (if you have the power to) you select a person without a lot of good colleagues and blow up a small problem and make it huge. Get everyone to talk about his project and his mistakes and make sure your failure 'hides' behind the attention the other problem receives. In case your wondering, I've been a lightning rod as well. But I found out why in time...

You should point to this comment on your facebook feed. That'd be a fun comment thread.

Oh dear gods no, I'm trying to put this debacle behind me. It seems every time I try to clear something up about this, two more stories come to life. The only winning move, as they say, is not to play. I'm counting on the semi-anonymity of my HN account here ;)

I would go for it. Just @ a whole bunch of people. Ask what shit / lies this women said about you.

Nah, I tried all that and more years ago, it only made things worse. My interest actually contributed to keeping this thing alive. The longer I don't show any interest in the story, the more it atrophies. I'm just telling this as a cautionary tale, not soliciting any solutions - this chapter needs to die.

Unfortunately, you can't really caution against people who are projecting onto a situation for whatever personal benefit / coping mechanisms they have. It sounds like you didn't do anything wrong in this situation, and that's the best you can do. It's unfortunate too that people are uncomfortable to ask questions, and just assuming things they hear about someone are true, especially when it's in a bad light, ask to confirm or hear the 'other' side of the story - and gauge for themselves believability of both parties.

It's like you suffered the worst parts of an affair without any of the benefit.

This article was on the HN front page some time ago:

http://chronicle.com/article/I-Will-Ruin-Him/136693/

It sounds like your situation is similar, though perhaps less extreme.

Maybe, but I think this is fundamentally different. Threesome Girl did not have a real motive against me. In fact, we were still drinking buddies when I learned what she had been doing this whole time. There was no love interest, no need for revenge, nothing to gain from doing this. Yet, she did. And even more puzzling: a lot of people helped her, she always had a lot of social support. She was quite brilliant at that. Maybe - maybe getting that support and recognition was the motive, but she already kinda had that before.

There are people who just love to surround themselves with drama.

Exactly, I know some people in real-life, immediate family members, people I can't easily ignore even if I want to, who just loves to feed on drama.

I usually try to stay away from drama queens like my sanity depends on it, but when family members do it, not easy or (always right) to ignore them. I tried to explain, rationalize, reason with them and their drama ways; but it didn't help much.

I think drama loving people are kind of addicted to how it makes them feel.

I think your last sentence is probably the best rational explanation:

foment drama --> experience drama --> dopamine hit...

Seems like for some people you can never have enough, its like drinking salt water to quench ones thirst…

Borderline personality disorder strikes again.

Isn't it the same cause from a different perspective? She thought people (you) were talking about her.

We've a natural tendency to be egocentric because whenever we look around... we are at the centre. Happens at all scales e.g. geocentricism, anthropomorphism.

While you do not connect the dots, you have them all in your description. People were willing to believe her, because they wanted to be the fourth angle. By being in a triangle she was sending the message that a fourth angle is possible. By creating this story about you she was actually reinforcing that signal, making this possibility a discussion subject. Men are notoriously keen to have sex, especially on the age implied, and her behaviour was very promising. On the other hand, keep in mind that there is no randomness in thoughts or feelings you express. What you felt random could instead be serendipitous and she might even be right, but not in presenting that as something intentional.

Wow. That's a solid "no" on pretty much every single point you made.

serendipity: a stroke of luck, typically beneficial.

"You'll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do." -David Foster Wallace

This can be true, but Facebook is also used as a tool for people to measure how good they are doing in life to one another. Last weekend a friend of mine started talking about how ugly a specific kid was, then went on Facebook to look up a picture of the ugly ginger kid. Then when scrolling through 'the wall' he went on and on and gave his shallow judgement about people who all were doing worse than him in some way. Probably to reassure to himself that his kid is better on the scale he invented and that his life wasn't that bad after all. Sadly it's not the first conversation like this I overheard. It is one of the reasons I left Facebook, maybe private life should remain what it is, private.

His quote about society is absolutely beautiful.

"It would be like suddenly subtracting the strong nuclear force from the universe; the fabric of society would instantly evaporate, every marriage, friendship and business partnership dissolved. Civilization, which is held together by a fragile web of tactful phrasing, polite omissions and white lies, would collapse in an apocalypse of bitter recriminations and weeping, breakups and fistfights, divorces and bankruptcies, scandals and resignations, blood feuds, litigation, wholesale slaughter in the streets and lingering ill will."

This is true. However, in some cases, the short amount of time people think and talk about you is enough to cause permanent damage to your reputation/career/job/life.

> The truth is you probably spend a lot less time in people's thoughts than you think you do.

There is a clinical term for this phenomenon.

Egocentrism.

?

I don't know it... but I know it exists, LOL.

Perhaps pronoia ? [0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoia_(psychology)

I was thinking narcissim...