A lack of filter means saying whatever is on your mind without considering politeness, appropriateness, relevance, or respect for the situation. People who have no filter may use profanity when they should not or bring up sensitive topics such as religion, politics, sex, body parts, or body odors in ways that offend others. Human communication follows social norms, and these norms discourage creating unnecessary controversy, embarrassing people, or discussing highly divisive topics in casual conversation. When someone ignores these norms, they may be seen as awkward, weird, or socially unaware, and others may feel unsafe or uncomfortable interacting with them. Appropriateness is a skill that can be learned by thinking before speaking, considering the audience and situation, and asking whether something is respectful, relevant, and suitable to say.
I think the point of communication is to communicate. People who “have no filter” aren’t communicating because they don’t care how their words are received. Knowing your audience is half the battle, right? I am harshly straightforward with other people who are, because if they can dish it they better be prepared to take it. But mostly I try to speak in a way that can be received by the person I’m talking to.
I’m ok with the no filter people unless it’s someone using it as an excuse to be mean, that does happen. “I’m just brutally honest!” No. You are not.
What are your thoughts on people that say you need to have a filter?
I’ve been masking for 40 years and I’m done. Never again.
If someone is telling me that I need a filter and they’ve seen me interact with others, I’d probably listen as to why.
I have an excellent filter, not talking to people. Works every time.
I think its polite to try to stay on topic and such and its a good skill to have but everyone is going to get to different levels vs their nature and its kinda situational. Like at work im in a disciplined state but if your flowing and loosening up ya may drop a lot of that.
They are correct. Worst things I’ve done or said in my life were because of no filter - regarding the said, i usually didn’t even mean it.
I think it’s a good practice. Hopefully it gets stronger with practise.
People justify being really terrible by saying “just being honest” or “just saying what’s on my mind”.
My life has been much better since accepting that less is more. Take longer to think and say less. There are far more regrets about saying things that I shouldn’t have vs leaving things unsaid. Theres always a chance to later say what was unsaid; but far more difficult to take something back.
So long as it stays on topic, I don’t much give a fuck about politeness or how blunt you want to be with your message.
Also not talking about religion, politics, sex and related items is precisely what makes a human ignorant and disrespectful, not many things are worse than willful ignorance and the consequences thereof.
About the #1 thing for me to loosen up socially was to avoid lists of things you have to “stop doing immediately” and shit like that because they get me in my head, then I’m triple-thinking everything and saying nothing.
Rather than “do not” tips I try to focus on “do” tips for people improving socialization.
“Showing interest and asking questions” is a #1 tip which precludes you doing a lot of rude things.
If you swear a little while doing that, no one is going to be upset.
I have a pretty tight filter, I think. No one has ever told me I needed to talk less, or more judiciously. However, I have a filter for a reason, and the filter isn’t 100% effective. I think it’s something I get better at with practice though.
My brain has a font of mostly nonsense running more or less all the time. I don’t hear it all the time the same way I don’t hear a clock all the time, but I don’t think it ever shuts off completely.
I say it’s mostly nonsense because every once in a while, maybe by random chance, it’ll produce an idea that merits a second look. 99% of those ideas are, on second look, gibberish, but every once in a rare while it’ll be a bona fide coherent thought.
Paying attention to the font is great for solo work where one can really sift through the shit, but I can also use it to “think fast” in a conversation. This may be an argument, the kind where talking just to take up space is an allowed thing to do for some reason. It may be a riff on a suggestion in a spitballing session. It may be a joke that depends on very quick timing to work.
The problem with relying on this type of quick-fire type thinking, for me, is that it’s hard to turn on and off on a dime, especially before I was aware I was doing it. I found I would just… say a thought before I was even aware I’d thought it. Sometimes it would be funny, sometimes it would be weird, sometimes it would be gross or macabre, sometimes it wouldn’t make sense.
I think being able to catch these thoughts is a considerable net positive for me and my friends, so I practice. I may miss the occasional devastating retort, but I like being able to be deliberate about how I hold conversations with my friends. And my acquaintances. And my enemies. Being able to choose one’s words well is a valuable skill that not everyone has.
P.S.
If I had to express my filter in terms of a folksy idiom, it would be “think before you open your mouth”. I heard this a lot growing up and, while it did usually just mean “be quiet”, it’s also kind of how my brain catches those thoughts that would have slipped out. I feel the impulse to start talking before I really notice it happening, but if I can train myself to just not open my mouth right away, I get enough time for the rest of my brain to catch up and think about whether it’s really worth saying. Sometimes it is, a lot of the time I’m glad the catch worked.I’ve always had an excessive filter pipeline that slowed me down. My partner always had no filter. It was like Katara with Toph (but easier than Toph, much much kinder and well meaning). After years we both somewhat met in the middle.
Let’s put it another way: I needed alcohol to shut those inhibitory filters down; she did not lol.
My personality is my filter. For every 10 folk who find me awkward, there’s one motherfucker who’s goofy ass will dilly while I dally. I am not here to please the masses, I’m here to fux with me n mine. Fuck masking.
There isn’t a singular filter, it is a wide spectrum. There is a reason to have some filtering based on context, such as not shouting obscenities in a kindergarten class. While society tends to expect a pretty strong filter as part of conflict avoidance, it is possible to have a filter without suppressing expression just because people don’t want to hear it.
So it depends on who says that a filter is needed and the context.
I wouldn’t want the listener to be uncomfortable or worse inadvertently hurt while delivering the message in the best way possible. Being appropriate is certainly the key but the listener too has a key role to play in taking the message in correct way, for this trust and intent needs to be established first as it is possible for listener to interpret the message in a construed or improper way, or worse make a normal thing sound bad or weird.
No one has ever said that to me.
