On Discomfort as Politeness, Circling, Culture & Social Contracts

An experiment getting to know my sister's new Cree boyfriend via trying a new conversation technique led to delving deep on unconscious social contracts, prejudice, identity, presence and other things

I’m a Two-Spirit Métis (Canadian First Nations) person exploring my identity in the wake of a life-changing trip to the historical grave site of my ancestors in Waterton Park in August of this year. It's the holidays, and my sister has a new boyfriend, so my family has been spending more time together. Recently, I happened upon a Twitter post about "Circling". It immediately appealed to me and I suggested it was something that could be practiced at the next Vibecamp.

ChatGPT-o1 had this to say about "circling:"

"So, “circling” is essentially a group conversational practice that mixes mindfulness with everyday interaction. Think of it like a guided meditation on how you connect with others in real-time. Instead of everyone trying to talk over each other or keep things superficial, you pause and check in with how you feel, notice how the other person might be feeling, and speak honestly from that place.

A typical circling session often has a facilitator who helps the group stay focused on the “here and now”—nudging participants to describe their immediate experience, reflect on what comes up emotionally, and communicate it openly but gently. This might involve slowing down the pace of the conversation, sometimes naming awkwardness or discomfort if it arises (“I feel a bit tense bringing this up, but I want to share...”), and inviting everyone to explore that feeling together rather than brushing it off.

The idea is to get used to being authentic and transparent, so you naturally build deeper connections, even around strangers. It’s like practicing the art of curiosity and empathy: you ask clarifying questions, share how the other person’s words land for you, and vice versa. Over time, you learn how to spot subtle cues in both yourself and others—body language, tone, hesitation, excitement—and address them openly, which can defuse tension and create trust.

In short, circling invites you to be both a curious observer and an active participant in your own relationships—an approach that can transform uncomfortable social dynamics into opportunities for genuine connection."

Even having no experience, I decided to jump in right away and introduce it to my sister and her boyfriend before dinner in an effort to get to know him better.

Introducing Circling to the Family

Tanner (not his real name) is 39 and also Cree, meaning that as Métis, we likely share distant ancestry, so I was also intrigued to dig deeper into his experiences to understand my own a little bit better.

Even though I don't really think they "got it" in terms of the point of what Circling is, it still provided valuable insight into Tanner's experiences and thus did what I set out to do with it.

I enjoyed the chance to draw out someone's honest thought process around authenticity and bring more of ourselves to the conversation than we might have otherwise, so I would definitely recommend giving it a shot introducing it to a group if the idea appeals to you. Again, I had no experience with it whatsoever before what I read about it on the Internet, but approached it as an exciting new tool for exploration and vulnerability with other people.

The conversation drew a curious reaction from my mother, however, which sadly confirmed a lot of what I'd suspected about her in the past. Namely, she acted anxious and uncomfortable around the conversation, subtly discouraging us, despite the fact that there was no actual objectionable content in the conversation whatsoever. She's examplified other narcissistic and controlling traits around familial relationships and conversations in the past, acting as a "facilitator" peppering people with questions and soliciting feedback, rather than letting conversations and relationships between family members flow naturally, and then becoming anxious, uncomfortable, or disinterested when conversations don't follow this format, sometimes even taking action to shut down conversations she deems "inappropriate."

Reflections on Family Dynamics & Control

There's a lot to tease out here, and in some ways seeing my own (white) mother's reactions to my conversation with my Métis sister's Cree boyfriend helped confirm and illuminate a lot of problems in my life that have been long-standing. Namely, that my mom exhibits a lot of the insecure patterns of behaviour and control that characterize covert narcissism, which has coloured my experience of both myself and the world. At this tender moment in time, when my sister is finally moving away from cohabitation with her ex of 2 years (who she'd previously dated for 4 years) and I have only begun exploring my Métis ancestry, my mom's behaviour throws highlighter all over the types of subliminal prejudices I feel like I've been facing my whole life. Reflecting on the complexity of familial relationships and neuroses, and how they amplify interactions I’ve had with non-family in daily life (work, school, online, etc), it becomes even more difficult to discern how much of the challenges I face is capital R Racism, and how much is familial relationships setting me up for failure in how I navigate the real world.

I identify a lot with Tanner. I'm not sure I identify with being "an asshole" (although in my 20s there were times where it was certainly the case), but I do have a lifelong problem with coming off as rude in ways I don't really mean to. At an earlier point in my life, I was much more apt to blame this on autism. Which I'm sure to some people sounds like a cop-out, but it actually took a lot of training to become sensitive enough to understand why telling someone "I'd prefer not to talk about that" would garner a dramatically different reaction than "That's none of your business." It's not like I've ever harbored an attitude of priding myself on "telling it like it is" (although I knew people like that), it's that the sensitivity to discern the impact that my words would have on people preemptively just wasn't there, and I had to train that sensor manually, over and over, through rejection and trial-and-error.

I feel a lot more informed as to why I'm like this now: A recent YouTube video I watched from Heidi Priebe talked about unconscious social contracts.

While my mother's controlling behaviour might push her more into the category of being a pathological outlier, I think a lot of people carry around social contracts that are very similar. It's easy to speculate that these unconscious social contracts and expectations about how others should show up to interactions are culturally ingrained, intergenerational patterns of tension. By paying attention, you can kind of tell from the patterns of tension in her body and the way that she speaks that Heidi still holds onto some of these social contacts after she's done the work to make them conscious, and transformed them into standards. At 8:47, she even acknowledges that she's German, seemingly taking it for granted that it's obvious this fact plays a role in the kinds of unconscious social contracts she found herself embedded in.

I can see now that my own mother holds onto lots of unconscious social contracts that probably aren't healthy or reasonable. Namely, she seems to show up to conversations with a distinctly uncomfortable, performative approach reflected in her rejection of conversations that are too open or authentic regardless of whether their actual content is objectionable or not. Tanner and I didn't do or say anything aside from relect and share about ourselves, but it wasn't what we were saying, but how we were saying it. My mother's unconscious social contract which a lot of people seem to share in is "I will make myself small, performative, shallow and uncomfortable because that is Polite, so you should also make yourself small, performative, shallow and uncomfortable because that is Polite." Thus, she feels even more discomfort and a sense of threat when people don't adhere to this contract. I would speculate interactions that take place outside this social contract likely make her feel unsafe for reasons she doesn't understand.

On Familial/Cultural Contracts Distorting Personal Identity

It's easy to see how these expectations can put a dent in the shape of the topological presentation a child meets the world with, and these observations have started to give me some breathing room and understanding around recurring challenges I've faced. Despite adhering more to the patterns of tension examplified by my mother earlier in my life, and displaying fawning as a mask of my neurodivergence with some success, I have still been confronted with a lot of repeated rejection, which seems like it could partially have to do with inability to regulate my tone in conversations or read social cues and coming off as "rude" just as much as it could have to do with an inability to tense myself into the correct shape to adhere to other people's social contracts in order to make them feel safe. I think what could just as easily be explained as prejudice is people misunderstanding each other's social contracts and having incompatible and conflicting intergenerationally and culturally ingrained tension patterns. Regardless, when this kind of material is left unconscious and allowed to fester, it breeds all sorts of anger, misinterpretation and resentment which just entrenches itself deeper. I resent my mother for breaking my sensitivity to whether what I'm saying could reasonably be considered rude or inappropriate through her rejection and control issues, but moreover, it's really hard not to resent people who look like her and carry these very common unconscious social contracts and tension patterns into every interaction.

When a parent is rejecting and makes you feel unsafe to show up as yourself, it splinters the psyche. On any given day there's a rebellious child who just wants to be allowed to play without being fussed over, a fawning sycophant desperate for love, and a belligerent asshole who is exactly the terrible person their mother thinks they are naturally, all who are just waiting for the reasonable adult at the helm to get tired, annoyed or offended so they can have their turn in the spotlight. That's not to even mention the challenges with feeling like other types of people get away with showing up with far more of themselves than anybody could possibly want: Personalities who are ruder, more arrogant, and more abrasive seem to get more of a pass for reasons that seem inexplicable if we aren't willing to look at how gender and ethnic background impact how individuals are received when trying to navigate society.

There's the fact that I'm Two-Spirit, and have reluctantly had to acknowledge that there's a more masculine side of myself that I have tried to keep hidden but who nevertheless wishes to speak more openly and garner the positive regard that men seem to receive for "telling it like it is", but still feels hopeless to do so without wanting to go through efforts to medically transition. (Although I've flirted with social transition in the past, and found it very affirming, regardless of how it was also very difficult.) Let's be real, though: Lots of men lead very lonely lifestyles when they don't have the charisma necessary to pull off having a more assertive personality while remaining likeable, and I'm just not sure I'd ever be willing to give up the perks of femininity to pursue the potential tradeoffs of "passing" as a man.

So, at the risk of not having a more satisfying conclusion for this article, I'm just not sure what to do. I don't want to not look like I'm not "doing the work," but grappling with my place in the history of this country and Turtle Island as a whole makes it really difficult to engage with ideas and information about how to make friends, be more charismatic and influential, how to control how I come off in conversations, or overall be more "presentable" that doesn't rub against the sore spot of my resentment of shallow saviorism, the kind that fails to acknowledge that you can only show up as much as other people's prejudices will allow, and that intergenerational patterns of trauma and tension affect the shape of our minds as well as our bodies whether consciously acknowledged or not. Furthermore, the degree to which people won't ever uncontract themselves for my sake feels unsafe to me, the knowledge that the patterns of tension I carry from intergenerational trauma are too dense for some bodies to ever reliably help me process when things get hard regardless how much "work" I do on myself - which they almost inevitably will, because that's how life is, and what's the point of maintaining shallow connections predicated on upholding a social contract that you can only adhere to at the best of times?

It seems reasonable to conclude that if one’s upbringing deforms the topology of the self they meet the world with, there should be a process that is capable of hammering out those deformities; I just haven’t figured out what it is yet. Regardless, before 2024 comes to a close, I wanted to put it out there that I intend to keep showing up in the ways that I'm able and contributing to these collective conversations around boundaries, social contracts, standards and safety, whatever that looks like.