Social Harm and Why I Believe Human Instinct Is Dying

You catch a glimpse out of the corner of your eye. Something is flying towards you fast. You don't know what, but you don't want it to hit you. You don't want it to hurt you. In a split second, your brain is reacting, moving your body to try to get you out of harms way. Then the pencil whizzes past you,  a good five feet from where you were sitting, and everyone laughs cause you jumped up out of your seat for it.

Why'd you do it? Why'd you jump? Well, I think the answer is rather simple. Self preservation.

You didn't know what the pencil was, you just knew it was coming towards you, and it could have been dangerous. You didn't need to know what it was, or how close it would come to you to react and try to stop yourself from being hurt. It's not just human instinct, it's animal instinct. Every living creature wants to try to keep itself safe. Well, used to at least.

I call it "Social Harm" although I'm sure there's a real soc/psych term for it. I guess one could say it's a subcategory of "Emotional Harm". Essentially, any situation in which a person is hurt emotionally due to a poor decision made in a social situation.

The example I see most frequently:

A teenage girl or boy (Person A) develops a crush on a male or female (Person B). Ah, young love, but wait. Person A isn't too sure about Person B. I mean, maybe Person B has cheated on all their previous girl/boyfriends, or perhaps Person B is well known for being manipulative or cruel, or in some cases, Person B is actually dangerous.

Now the problem at this point, arises when Person B likes Person A back. Person B will probably act incredibly sweet or kind to Person A, because, well, they like them and want to win them over. This will most likely make Person A very happy, and Person A will abandon all worries or fears, and rush passionately into Person B's arms, happy to be with the one they "truly love".

So why am I writing about this?

It pisses me off.

I've known a LOT of Person As in my life, and Person B isn't always a Person, sometimes it's Drug B, or Alcohol B, or essentially any poor decision, in which Person A had reasonable doubt to begin with, but tossed it aside completely.

I've talked to a LOT of Person As. I hear the usual "I'm worried about this..." or "What if he/she does this..." and my response is almost an instantaneous reflex to me now.

"Don't do it."

That doesn't mean don't do it ever. It just means don't do it so long as you're doubting it so much in your head. If you can say "This is a bad idea," then don't do it! Yet most people do it anyways. I don't know why, maybe it's because it's the more fun decision at the time, but more often than not they know everything that will go wrong before it even does, and so do I.

And the worst thing anybody can possibly say is "Oh well, I'll learn my lesson," or "When it happens, I'll deserve it." You won't learn your lesson, because you already HAVE learned your lesson. You've already identified everything wrong with your decision, and you're doing it anyways!

Also, I've grown tired of hearing "Well then you can say 'I told you so.'" No, odds are I'm talking to you because I CARE about you. Whenever the consequences for your bad decision catches up to you, I guarantee I'll be too busy wishing it never happened and trying to help you through the aftermath to even think of saying those words.

I see so many people do this on a regular basis, and I simply don't understand how a living being programmed to survive and preserve itself can choose to do something knowing full well that they're making a bad decision that will likely result in their being hurt.

So, why would you dodge a near harmless pencil flying at your face, but not months or years worth of psychological damage or drug addiction? The latter even gave you more warning!