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in conflict with your childhood training and you find yourself without cues that would prompt you in coping with this conflict. What can you say? If I say “No,” will my friend feel hurt or rejected? Will he not like me anymore? Will he think I am self-centered, or at least not very nice? If I don’t do it, am I an uncaring son of a bitch? If I say “Yes,” how come I’m always doing these things? Am I a patsy? Or is this the price I have to pay to live with other people?
    These internal questions on how to cope are triggered by an external conflict between ourselves and another person. We want to do one thing, and our friend, neighbor, or relative assumes, hopes, expects, wishes, or even manipulates us into doing something else. The internal crisis comes about because you’d like to do what you want but are afraid that your friend may think what you want is wrong; you may be making a mistake;you may hurt his feelings and he may reject you because you did what you wanted; perhaps you fear that your reasons for doing what you want are not “reasonable” enough (you don’t have a broken leg and the Feds aren’t looking for you so why can’t you go to the airport?). Consequently, when you try to do what you want, you also allow other people to make you feel ignorant, anxious, or guilty; the three fearful emotional states you were trained as a child to feel when you don’t do what someone else wants you to do. The problem in resolving this conflict is that the trained manipulated part of us accepts without question that someone else “should” be able to control us psychologically by making us feel these ways. With the innately assertive part of us suppressed by our training in childhood, we respond by countermanipulation to the frustration of being manipulated. Manipulative coping, however, is an unproductive cycle. Manipulatively dealing with another adult is not like manipulatively dealing with a little child. If you manipulate adults through their emotions and beliefs, they can countermanipulate you in the same way. If you again countermanipulate, so can they, and so on. For example, in trying to get out of picking up your friend’s aunt, the words and phrases you use would be much more subtle but still boil down to something like this short segment of a manipulative dialogue:
    YOU : God, Harry! I’m so tired at that time of day. [Trying to induce guilt in Harry by implying, “How could anybody ask a tired friend to fight the traffic at that time of evening,” even though Harry’s telling himself, “Hell! I fight the same traffic every evening at five.”]
    HARRY : Little old ladies can get really scared arriving in a strange airport with no one to meet them. [Trying to induce guilt in you by implying, “What kind of fellow would make a little old lady go through that just because he is a little tired,” while you’re thinking, “Where did all this fragile-old-lady business comefrom? After fifty years of living with the Pascagoula mosquitos she must have the endurance of a horse!”]
    YOU : Well, I’d really have to go out of my way … [Trying to induce guilt by implying, “I will really suffer if you make me do this,” while Harry says to himself, “It’s a pain in the neck, but you’ve done it before and it won’t kill you.”]
    HARRY : If I had to pick her up, I wouldn’t even get there until seven thirty. [Suggesting that you are ignorant of the facts by implying, “My trip would be much longer and harder than yours,” except you think, “Where and what would he be coming from? He’s probably closer to the airport than I am!”]
    The farce of this manipulative-countermanipulative interchange is that who goes to the airport, you or Harry, does not depend upon what you want but upon whoever can make the other one feel guiltier. As a result of these types of manipulative interactions with other people you are more likely to finish up frustrated, irritated, or anxious, in spite of your