Tactics Tuesdays: What Happens When You Label People (or Let Them Label You)

Some years back, as I played around with cold reading, I soon found it often wasn't to my advantage to label people. I'd try; coming up with all kinds of cutesy labels like, "Ah, so you're an adventurer," or, "You're a pretty ambitious person, then." These were seemingly positive labels, but often the women I used them with would reject them. "No, not really," they'd say. It was odd.

I began to realize there was power in labeling. When you label someone, you are, in effect, telling them who or what they are. You're setting yourself up in the position of deciding someone else's identity.

That gives you great power if you can pull it off. It also gives you great responsibility toward the people you label.

But it also opens you up to being knocked down a peg or two, the same way we discussed combating people trying to "tool" you or make you look silly or weak in "Dealing with Disruptive Men;" basically, by politely but firmly shutting this down.

As I began to explore labels more, I gradually got better at using them correctly with other people - and shutting down the efforts of people who sought to use them in a damaging way with me.