I think it’s always a case by case basis, but if multiple people are saying you’re coming off as manipulative then the issue is probably in you.
I see you acknowledge that it is a case by case basis. That is an important point.
I think from your post you are looking at your behaviours and are willing to investigate you own behaviours and are wanting to get people to challenge them selves as well. In Buddhism this is a special role. We are always hold those closet to us (and ourselves) to the highest standards.
I think that your proposed discussion is an important one.
I have another way of looking at it. This is roughly my experience.
Often those on the cutting edge of Intergenerational Social Change are seen as a problem. As are those experiencing or fleeing child rape and Intimate Partner Violence.
What about a case of an eldest 15 year old who discloses that their father raped them and is threatening to kill all of the family.
And at that time their mother (who enabled the rapes) and seven siblings say that the eldest 15 year old is lying and manipulative.
However, a decade later, the seven siblings have admitted that they were also raped by their father. But they don't want to publicly disclose this fact because of how the 15 year old was scapegoated, character assassinated and ostracised.
And they thank the 15 year old for disclosing the threat of death because they knew that they were about to be killed by their father. Once again they don't want to say anything publicly because the child rapist father is still around stalking and menacing them.
But what is left on the extended family and friend grapevine is that 15 year old person is a liar and a manipulator.
In light of the statistics on child rape and domestic violence that's a lot of character assassination and being labelled as manipulative.
1 in 3 girls experience an attempted or completed rape between 11 and 17 in the US. See National Sexual Violence Resource Center
Statistics - National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC)
And (brutally edited for fair use policy)
In the US, almost three women are killed by an intimate partner every day. Just as in the case of ... women in the U.S. are predominantly killed by men they know, and largely by current or former intimate partners.
...in 2018 in which the victim-to-offender relationship could be identified, 92% of victims were killed by a man they knew...
In the United States, femicide ... the gender-based killing of women... a study on female homicide victimization... found that 70% of all cases occurred in the U.S.
The Silent Epidemic of Femicide in the United States
