The Art (???) of Manipulation

I have just discovered that you cannot cut from another document and paste, which means that what could have been an introduction to this subject written in an email to a friend, has to be written again! Pissants.
Via email a guy friend from the music business and I were discussing the art of manipulation, which includes flirting to get something you want regardless of the impact on another person's feelings.
And that really sums up for me what manipulation means to me. Somebody using whatever means to get what they want, no matter the cost to others concerned.
And I realised that manipulation has been in my life from very early on, so if I could, I have had enough practical experience of it to use it. But then to do that, would mean to do exactly the opposite of what my less than saintly self has always tried not to do, and that's - hurt another person.
My Irish grandmother would not have even understood the word manipulate except perhaps the one time she manipulated the dead chicken's claws to move! She was love incarnate, and unconditionally loved everyone.
And when I look for the only other source of unconditional love I've experienced in my life now that I have lost Anita, I think of my Nan Fehin.
But, my English grandmother (and I understand that she had a tough life) manipulated all her children as much as possible, and failed miserably most of the time with her son, my Dad, but tried it nevertheless.
She certainly manipulated me and I knew it, and in the end would apologise for having said absolutely nothing, but listen to her lecture me or tell me bad things about myself! It was just simpler; and that carried on through until she died. And I loved her a great deal anyway. Lesson no 1.
When I was 9 (my brother's and my mum died when he was 4 and I was 5 and I still reckon he got the lucky break because he wasn't at school yet he went to stay with my Irish grandparents for 18 months, whereas I lived with my English grandmother (although this did give me the advantage of having three lovely aunts and their respective lovely husbands in my life and David got them too, but 18 months later), my father remarried. The woman who was extremely loving and far more friendly than the English grandmother my brother and I lived with when we would spend weekends with her and her two children (allowed to wear what we liked, run through fields, no criticisms, not telling offs), changed the minute she and my father married.
My life was hell for the next 10 - 11 years. I won't go into her art of manipulation, just that she was excellent at it. I tried very hard to get her to love me, but I do not love her. Lesson no 2.
Lesson no 3. The music business. Although before I joined that I had experience of manipulative people in the various art related businesses I worked in.
Sadly, in my experience, it was mostly women who used manipulation. And I can understand this from the perspective that we don't have the phsyical strength of a man, and can fall prey to using other means to safeguard ourselves.
In the latter instance, I cannot condemn any woman who would do this to save her own or her children's lives.
Maybe I was fortunate. The two main characters in my family were my brother and my dad, so most men I met, fell into either one or the other. I never found myself talking to guys any differently than I would a woman.
Two of the people I thought of as closest friends, I recognize now as manipulative, and knowing something of their childhood, I understand. But it sure cost me wasted time, money and emotional pain.
The music business was full of manipulators, master ones.
When I worked for Elton, he was still very insecure and there were many times I saw this used against him, by people supposedly there to take care of him.
We'd woo a band, every single member of them, sometimes against stiff competition and then ask them to ditch one of the members, who didn't quite hold the guitar the "cool" way. The worst was the duo. Who signs a duo, then splits them up. Sadly, the one who stayed did not fare anywhere near as well as the one let go, who made his own way with his own creative energy, and that was at the heart of the success of the duo!
I did try manipulation for a short period, when trying to work for a man at a company I loved and who had become my family. He made it clear at every point possible to the extent that managers noticed it, that I had to tow the line, his line. I simply could not and I stopped towing the line, and in the end, I also simply could not take the pressure of trying to put a stop to how other people I worked with, including acts, were treated as bits and pieces. I left the company.
Happened again when I went back to working for a music company and again I simply could not deal with it. I do have the precious memory of the entire administrative staff taking me out for lunch and offering in full force to leave and join me, if I would start a new music company.
The last 12 years of my life have been forever changed by manipulation. In the music business I sorted of understood it. It's a dog eat cat world. I am not a saint as I've written earlier - far, far away from being one, however, I draw the line at engaging someone ele's vulnerable feelings in order to acquire what I want. Better not to get what I want, if that's what I have to do.
Because I am not a saint, while I may think of things I can do, I know that I would pay a heavy personal penalty if I did use manipulation. And also know that having learned at the hands of masters how to manipulate, I have also similtaneously learned the emotional damage this usually does to people you love. End of lessons.