Try this:

https://highlysensitiverefuge.com/highly-sensitive-man-tom-falkenstein/

Dear bedofroses,

What is it about negative emotions that scares you so much? From the time of your adolescent, it seems that you don’t like the fact that you have negative emotions therefore try really hard to “turn that frown upside down” by changing your thoughts to positive ones. But that was merely an illusion you’ve created for yourself. The illusion of positive thoughts is that you aren’t feeling depressed; yet because it is an illusion, those negative emotions won’t go away. Those negative emotions will merely be stuffed into a chest until you can’t work your magic and create another illusion. And now it seems that the chest has no more room to stuff those negativity anymore. So now you’ve turned to drinking to try to help you numb those feelings, but those feelings doesn’t go away, does it? Rather, it feels all the more helpless.

Your boyfriend sound like a lovely person, but the issue here isn’t how to talk to your boyfriend. The issue here is how you talk to yourself. What kind of things are you telling yourself? What kind of things are you allowing yourself to feel or not feel? Where does that need to hide your depression and negativity come from? Why can’t you be depressed? Why must you be happy all the time?

Start from there. Ruminate on these questions. Think about why you have to hide this or that. And remember, this is about your health.

Good luck.

Hi X,

Cheers to moving on.

About the Rapunzel part, you weren’t sure if the Witch thought the world was evil or not, but I can’t imagine a mother locking up their child if not because they were paranoid about something. Of course, I had front row seat to helicopter parenting recently so a character like the Witch has a small space in my mind. And fairy tales being fairy tales, there isn’t much nuances about the characters that can be picked up since not much is elaborated, other than the obvious motive for their actions.

No, I didn’t “have the ability to go further.” You are making assumptions.

You’re right, excuse me. All the libraries, in some of the countries I’ve been to, that I’ve visited so far had never restricted you by age, and sometimes not even by institutional affiliation, to the books in rooms like yours had so I have never had to restrict myself in the books that I’ve read.

With an addition of regular travels to spruce things up a bit. This is exactly the way I live now. BUT I have always dreamt of doing it all with a partner who could also add to my being certain that this way of life will continue and not change. And this is what I am looking for now.

Do you not already have the kind of life you want sans a partner? So what difference would a partner make in that life?

And on the contrary, to do as much good as possible within my means, as long as it doesn’t deplete my own resources, my own “battery,” which isn’t as powerful as some other folks’.

If you wish to do good, then volunteer. It’s not like you’re going to join the Doctors without Borders program.

And yes, I love the position of somebody who has the power to say yes or no, but not have responsibility. Kind of like those French women for whom men still open doors and carry heavy things, but who do have the right to vote and all other rights.

If you wish for power, then why not strive for it yourself? Why date someone who has it just so you can share a portion of that power? After all, you might have to share the responsibility/burden of their decisions, good and bad.

And those men who hold doors open is still a choice that they made, the French women didn’t ask for them to.

(On the other hand, doesn’t Anita and didn’t Michelle both say to others that this or that mental issue will be healed once in loving relationship with a decent man?)

You’ll have to ask them that yourself.

The problem is that, looking back, I have never been in a healthy loving relationship, so I can’t tell whether it is true or not.

Also, I was so elated when in the relationship. That feeling of bliss seemed to be so much more intense and lasting so much longer than feelings of joy, etc. that I had felt before, in any given point of my life.

Does your friendship not give you feelings of elation too?

That fact (however subjective for the given moment) AND the awareness that everything in life, such as fame, money, luck, etc. is fleeting and not lasting naturally reinforced that idea of me finally finding terra firma, something real to hold on. I took time, I waited, and finally, I found it or rather, my ex found me – just like those good beautiful fairy-tale princesses.

But feelings are fleeting, so why would you trust that more than material goods that you can actually hold in your hand?

Throw in here the metaphysical conviction (or consolation) that I had made for myself before – that I hadn’t asked to be born and that I would have no problems trading everything I had in life, all the ups and downs and the uncertainty of existence against never being born, the non-existence.

So my logic went that since I was born, life or whoever made me born just HAD to make me happy.

To live is to suffer due to the awareness that humans have of themselves and the world around them. Who knows why you were born, isn’t that what people are always asking of themselves? Yet you haven’t chosen to commit suicide even when everything is meaningless so now you feel entitled to an answer in the form of someone loving you. Why is it someone else duty to make you happy?

So this relationship had absolutely no right not to be “true life.”

Many people have lived a “life” alone.

What if they say that their happiness and well-being is being with you no matter what?

Then that’s dependency, not love. They were able to live for themselves before meeting that person and they can do the same after leaving that person. Of course, if they choose to suffer by continuous wallowing, then that’s their choice.

You said so yourself, right above: “But love, affection, warmth; those are wired into the evolutionary genes that was inherited again and again by the humans on this earth.”

I am a pretty healthy woman in my mid-30s and the last time I kissed the man I loved on the lips and made love to him was over five years ago. It was never my intention to become a nun. Do I need to elaborate further?

Love does not always need to be equated to romantic passion. Love is also beautiful in its platonic form.

Key word: too hard. The golden mean of Confucius is a good rule to follow. Of course, one has to use one’s head, but if you acknowledge that the expected improvement on your side will be good for you, you would be a fool not to improve. And it is so much easy to improve when you know that the other side looks forward to it and has trust in you.

If the improvement is for the other person and not yourself, then does it really benefit you in the long run? Now, I like support should I tell people that I’m going to do that or this for myself, but to do it because of someone else expectation? For example, if the improvement is going sober after being an alcoholic, then hey, all the more power to that person. But if it’s about appearance or intellect or hobbies or money, etc, then I’ll pass. That’s not improvement, that’s a criteria for that other person and if they don’t like it, then they know where the door is.

Sorry, there a million other ways to find friends other than dating.

And I would hate to lead the other person on if I am not interested in him romantically, but I can see that he is.

There are people who become friends after a first date though they did make it clear that the romance wasn’t going anywhere.

So you do agree that males are taught to be tough and strong?

It is a sexist socialization that is still happening. It is any wonder that men still understand their emotions by the time that they become an ‘adult’.

That guy, Zberovskiy, conducted lots of polls, sometimes describing a situation and asking what men and women would make of it. For instance, it never occurred to me that accepting a man’s invitation to a cup of tea after dinner at a restaurant (where they can’t brew a proper cup of tea, and I so much enjoy a cup of tea after dinner, not to mention the restaurant’s oversweetened desserts that I can hardly eat) at their place is perceived by at least 35% of men (65% act dependent on the situation) as not my accepting to continue the lively discussion we started but didn’t finish at the restaurant, but my accepting to have sex with them. I swear I never thought that men view it like it – and then, after I read it and after I looked back at some hand-holding initiated by men whom I considered to be solid friends and nothing more than friends – I realised how true at least that poll was.

Well, it is now the ‘hookup’ culture apparently. Casual sex is casual sex and it seems that some of your acquaintances are okay with sharing a bed with their friends sans the emotional connection. You might need to reiterate that you don’t want any sexual activities or advances from them should you accept an invitation to tea at their houses. Though how boring these men are that they are only inviting you to their house for the sake of sexual activities.

My ex would often refer to an anecdote when a woman asks her partner to tell her the truth promising no scenes and when he complies and tells her all the truth, she goes through the roof.

Was your ex warning you that he doesn’t like shrill women?

Just plain curiosity and an understandable human desire to make sure that I am not worse than others, maybe even better off in the long run.

Worse than others? What’s the point of comparing yourself?

Exactly like Natalie Lue says narcissists and their victims behave – explaining away and rationalising and putting words in the mouths of their narcissists, words and intentions that the narcissists may have never even thought about enunciating!

Look up any cases of abusive relationships and you’ll see that abusers will gaslight their partner without batting an eye. And no, not all of them were narcissists. Also, you decided to love your ex so of course you’ll excuse some of his behaviors since you were looking at him with rose-tinted glasses. Many people do that.

Even though it is not China, I have yet to think of, for instance, a politician who would be marrying and divorcing his wives without thinking about the impact these actions would have on his electors. In any country, even the most advanced ones.

It also depends on the standard of that industry. Many CEOs and higher profile people have side affairs, some are even in the news. Give or take, after a few years people won’t care about the affairs of your ex and will move on.

You misunderstood me. I didn’t mean compassion and understanding for me. I wonder what image your mind has conjured of me, what I have written so far that made you think I was asking you or anybody else for pity???

You’ll have to elaborate whether you mean your ex or someone else then since those words are generally a defense of the person talking/writing.

Also, it sounds like you are the one who keeps stating that my ex was a jerk and not a narcissist for some reason thinking that I want him to be a narcissist so that I can absolve him of what he did.

You still want to be right about your ex being an narcissist.

I am merely discussing different versions, like an investigator who puts together pieces of a puzzle. Yet, it seems that the mere fact of my ex not keeping his promise if enough for you to say that he is not worthy right off the bat.

An investigator does not insist on being right, but being correct and you still want to be ‘right’ about your ex. How is anyone to be trusted when they don’t try to take actions when they say they would? Also, how would your ex know whether the divorce would have effected his career standings if he didn’t try to talk to people about it? What measure did he take to ensure that the divorce wouldn’t change how people viewed him? Or is the industry very strict about marriage status for whatever reason? Though I wonder what changed the wife’s mind all of a sudden that she pursued him again.

If he had promised to return from war and didn’t return because he was killed, would you be also saying that “promise” is the key word?

If that person was family in some way, then sure, I would hope that they come back alive. But if there is really no guaranteed that they would come back or if I could not guaranteed that I would come back, would it not be foolish to even make a promise in the first place? It’s war and life has no guaranteed that you would even live tomorrow, so what is the use in promises such as that?

He had kept ALL the other promises, and this one had weighty mitigating circumstances around it.

Yet he didn’t keep the most important one, divorce to be with you.

I have often wondered the following. How can we ever talk about verbal abuse or verbal harassment if it is entirely our choice how we react to it? Say, if a mad person accosts you, you wouldn’t be in a least offended, would you? The why do people condemn those who abuse verbally? Even on Tiny Buddha, you see so many replies to different posts saying “S/he had no right to treat you (verbally – I am only talking about verbal abuse) like that”

But that person didn’t have the right to abuse you in the first place. Just as a person might choose to abuse you, you have the choice to leave. Even if a person was not right in the brain, I still rather not be accosted in any measures.

Exactly what Natalie Lue said about narcissists. That they know that all the scenes and words made and spoken by their victims are just that – scenes and words. Nothing more.

You don’t need to be a narcissist to watch people, take notes of their habits, hobbies and lifestyle then memorize that information for your own use. Stalkers are very creative in how to use information of their targets to stalk them. Nobody’s Victim by Carrie Goldberg is a very good book about how the internet has made cyber stalking easier than ever.

No, it didn’t. Remember, ours was a very long-distance relationship. How can the two stay present in each other’s lives if they are not trying to imitate living side by side as much as they can? Thankfully, technologies permit it now.

Write letters? Is there a need to call each other every day? Wouldn’t you run out of topics to talk about? You have a life to live outside of your relationship so isn’t that something to concentrate on?

Sorry, don’t get this part: how come HE was right to dump me if he was the one with problems. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Please rephrase or elaborate.

If he feels that you don’t serve much of a purpose in his life anymore then he can dump you, though it seems that he isn’t very good with face to face confrontation since he didn’t break up with you in person?

That is why I asked you in the previous letter, is it not what we do that matters and not what we think?

Nope. Thinking is very important because thinking is one of the ways that people rationalize their emotions in meaningful ways. Thinking help makes sense of the emotions you feel so not only your actions, it is the way that you rationalize your emotions that plays a vital part in things.

Besides, I couldn’t say about myself that I had friends, like real friends who stick with you through thick and thin. As I told Michelle, for a long time, including the time when I was with him, I comparmentalised friends and topics and things that I discussed or did with them.

Say, I have lived in this country for over twelve years now and I still don’t have friends here. I have one real friend, but I had known him before I came over here. But I do have very good colleagues and acquaintances about whom I can sometimes say that they are “friends.”

Maybe now would be a good time to make friends. You may have acquaintances who you speak to, but that can’t replace an actual friend who would hold your hand, should you request it, as you try to sort out your affairs. A friend who would not judge you for your actions, unless those actions were truly spiteful, but who would honestly tell you when you’ve made a mistake. A friend who won’t leave you regardless of the geographic distance between you, unlike any potential lovers.

Before you enter into any romantic relationships, enter into a friendship that will show you that people can support each, regardless if they are family, partners or friends. But you’ll have to do the same for that person since reciprocation is a two way street in any relationship.

The way he puts it, plural and such a list, makes me think of him as serial dater and somebody who definitely has chemistry with MANY MORE people than I do. I wouldn’t want to do that or be dated like that.

So he dated many people, what’s wrong with that if the people involved consented? And whether he dated in a polyarmorous setting is entirely up to him and his girlfriends. He’s the sort that fits into the criteria of explorer so he need to date a lot to understand a lot. So, because he dated so many, he understands some of the things required for a relationship to function. After all, he does not only hold his girlfriend responsible to the relationship, he also hold himself responsible. And he’s also correct about the chemistry/compatibility aspect. It’s nice to meet someone who meshes well with you, but in the end, he is asking you to ask yourself what you want out of a relationship and the type of people that can meet that criteria. And be very picky about it.

I don’t get the point. Yes, if he is interested, he would ask me out – what is wrong with this assumption? When I say “like,” I mean “I feel chemistry.” And I think we have established that I can’t date without having chemistry. It is not my fault that I don’t have chemistry with every Tom, Dick, and Harry.

How exactly does that chemistry turn into love? From what I remember, it’s he asked you out, you date and then you decided you want to spend forever with him?

But I wonder – if co-dependent people get together, how come they ever break up? Like I fit the co-dependency criteria, my ex fits them, too. Yet, he was the one to get out first. How is this at all possible with co-dependent folks? Why don’t they stay stuck with one another exactly because they are co-dependent?

Those who are co-dependent can be very picky about who they pursue. Remember Hof? He fiercely resented his mother so he only romance and sleep with little girls because he couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping with someone who might turn into his mother one day. So his ‘relationships’ were more business transactions that soothed his ego than a real, steady relationship. Your ex had a certain criteria that he operated on and you probably stopped fitting in that criteria since he had moved on so fast to the #4. Though you’ll have to ask him about that.

Let’s see… Somebody in finance and a life coach at the same time, with a good hygiene… How are these criteria suggested by you not stricter than mine?

I am no motivational speaker, yet, I am able to discuss such things with you. I am no millionaire, yet, I am quite comfortable living the life I lead. If this means that I am exceptional, then hey, yes, I want an exceptional man!

You wanted conversation partners so threw out ideas. Didn’t think you meant romantic partners.

So how come I am “dating these men because you want to spite someone, however you think you may feel for them”??? Aren’t you mixing me up with somebody???

So you’re not wanting to date to prove to your mum that you can have a relationship even when you don’t care to cook, etc?

So the only thing I need to do is to increase those chances?

Bingo, that is what I was trying to find out.

Or is there anything else in your opinion?

See above. A friendship isn’t so different from a romantic relationship, the context is just more sexual for the latter. Though, there are such things as ‘friends with benefits’ so not too different. Well, you and your friend will draw the line somewhere.

I did mourn it. Again, I don’t understand what you are implying?

Three months seemed too short a mourning period for a six years relationship so was wondering if you really did let yourself mourn.

If the love interest of mine is not on my mind 24/7, if I can imagine myself with this guy and with that guy, it means that I am not attached to anybody. If I can only imagine myself with somebody to a degree, that means that I am in love to a degree.

So how is imagining being with somebody a sign of love? That looks more a sign of interest than love. But thinking of someone 24/7? Are you actually thinking of them while you eat and work?

At least that is my cynical interpretation.

Yet he was willing to have sex with you even when he wasn’t willing to leave his partner? I understand sex is important in a relationship, but was there not a red flag that he was willing to bed you yet leave once his wife called?

True, there are no requirements. But in all my 30+ years of life, I have never developed feelings for somebody whom I could see and like only as a friend from the very beginning.

I still don’t understand the process in which you fall in love and decide to stay with someone. Certainly, fantasy give you certain joy and a happy feeling, but reality isn’t that bad. Your basis on starting any relationship (by imagining being together) looks like it stems from chemistry, but it’s tamer than what I’ve seen. Take your ex for example, you didn’t like him at first yet changed your mind the next day, was it? What changed? How had you suddenly develop chemistry for him?

He stopped talking about it on his own. But when I would ask whether my understanding that divorcing is still his intention, he would say yes.

He might have the intention to divorced even before he met you, though he might tell you otherwise. You gave him a good reason to divorce, but evidently, it wasn’t enough for him to actually do it for whatever his reasons may be, his job not withstanding. Honestly, it feels like “he said this, I said that” and this is simply the outcome of the choices people made, irregardless of their suppose promise. And while your ex is egoistical, you’re not too humble yourself. But more than this, I’m more curious as to why you want a relationship so badly when you don’t do much to cultivate your acquaintanceship into friendships. What’s so great about a romantic relationship when you can’t share the ups and downs with friends, complain over a cup of tea or wine, bond over shared interests, have a person who’ve seen you at your worse, but still decided to stick in your life, etc? That person doesn’t have to be a romantic partner. And you can only do so much with a romantic relationship and even then, you have lived a life sans a partner. You have lived your life so far with and without a partner. So granted, you can live life without having a romantic partner.

So now the question, why so desperate for one?

You ‘reasoned’ over your childhood memories, does that sound anything pleasant to you? Better to erred on the side of caution than not.

Have a great rest of the month.

PPS.

Tchaikovsky had written letters to family and friends, discussing his depression. In many of those letters, he had belittled his existence, wondering for whose sake he worked, but all the while desperately clinging on to those days where he was okay with himself, ‘thorns and roses’ as he puts it, even as his depression served as background noise. Van Gogh was not so lucky, constantly visiting the psych ward. Virginia Woolf held on until she could not find the strength to continued. Rembrandt had used his depression as a medium, as did Poe. Keats lamented his inability to put words to paper many times. Hemingway medicated with alcohol. Tolstoy ruminated on his depression in “A Confession”, though he felt a failure for not having the courage to commit suicide. History is littered with despair, but the psychological field is only a century old. There is still much to be studied, but like all science, it must be adapted to the current era.

It’s fine to not know the particulars, but don’t simply lump or categorized depression as ‘a person who does not have the strength to move from their bed’ when you have only looked so far as a few articles depicting one of the more severe forms of depression. If it took that much to be labeled ‘depression’, then many of the world’s population would not know what to do with themselves since if it’s not depression that they feel, then why does the world look like it was painted in ‘a gray drizzle’, as William Styron had depicted in his memoir, ”Darkness Visible”.

Whatever might look ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’ is perhaps normal to someone, depression and all.

Hello X,

Glad to hear that you had a good vacation.

Generally speaking, I agree. I would also agree with the statement that villains are “bad,” because they murder others – but heroes also murder, so from that point of view heroes are “bad,” too. Still, heroes hardly ever torture villains, but villains do it all the time. So there might be a very fine line that, nevertheless, makes all the difference.

But not all villains murder just as not all heroes don’t murder. It’s simply how the writer had written their story. Take Rapunzel, the worse the Witch had done was raised Rapunzel in a tower for most of her life since her biological parents had stolen her cabbages. But that’s not all that dissimilar to many ancient societies with females raised in their homes, with not much chance of going outside (though many societies in the Middle East still have a similar setting now), until they were married out to their husband, most of the times the husband could have been their grandfather’s age too. Yet the Witch is the villain while the heroine, Rapunzel, was able to escape her prison and lived with her prince after a few years apart. For all her effort of raising Rapunzel, the Witch was repaid by betrayal of her trust. But she did not killed the prince nor Rapunzel, rather, she gave them a trial to which they both were able to overcome. Of course, her method of raising Rapunzel isn’t all that great since she was sheltering Rapunzel from all the possible evil in the world, not letting Rapunzel make the effort to live on her own feet, but you can’t say that the Witch didn’t care for Rapunzel. Yet, there is not knowing whether the Witch was able to find her own peace after banishing Rapunzel from her childhood home. Fairy tales may have been written a few centuries past, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be adopted to modern terms, just the question of how they were adopted.

And accordingly, depending on the society and environment that the villains were raised in, it is hardly surprising that they turned cruel, if only that was the best method for survival. Not many have the fortune to not turn to ‘crime’ to survive in their environment.

Not quite. The child may have the freedom to explore beyond, but s/he can get his/her hands only on what is out there in that “beyond.” I am glad that I had a good library of books to choose from at home, I also borrowed books from one of the biggest libraries in the city. Yet, the children’s section wouldn’t have the grown-up versions of the familiar fairy-tales, so even if I had known about them and wanted to read them, I wouldn’t have been able to do it in a regular fashion.

There was a big library with many selections so why did you not venture beyond the children section? Or did your parents check your selections before you were allow to bring home the books? I did not have much interest in fairy tales until my teens, just the usual passing knowledge, but even then, it was due to an interest in Greek mythology so they were just interesting comparisons.

I would argue that if you are riddled with depression, you are hardly functioning. I have read accounts of people who can’t get out of bed because of depression.

Or if you are suffering because of lack of sleep due to depression or anxiety, you are hardly yourself. I’d say that is beyond “surviving.”

That depends on how good a person is hiding their life behind closed doors. If depression is not new, but a constant companion, people can usually ignore it until they are in a place that they don’t have to act ‘normal’. Normal, of course, is relative since not all things depressing will lead to depression and not all things happy will not lead to it.

At the same time, I agree that I don’t know how soon I would have gotten tired of it. Normally, what helps me to decide whether to go for it or not, is to imagine really hard how I would feel in that situation a year from then or two years. Well, I tried to imagine myself living with him in my home city, and I didn’t feel any apprehension or doubts. That is until I learnt about his new love. Now I am convinced that if I had moved back, he would have fallen in love just like that after several years side by side, and I would have been left high and dry and back at square one. And there would have been no coming back here where I am now and where I really enjoy my life (if we don’t count lack of a partner).

As much as you can imagine your possible feelings after a year, you’ll have to acknowledge that you don’t know how your ex would have acted. Since you were able to convinced yourself that he loved you enough to divorce, or maybe not since he cared about his career more?, and then married you, the moving hinging on the fact that you would be married, you might have been able to give up your life of where you were to accommodate him. But that raises a lot of questions. You like your job a lot and your many hobbies and it doesn’t seem that you dislike your many colleagues, but to give up all of that without much resistant just because your ‘husband’ wanted you to move to his home country? Just how high of a pedestal did you put your relationship with your ex that you were willing to give up all that? Or is it that while you have hobbies and a good career, it’s not something you feel you should invest into, regardless if it’s something you’re doing for yourself? Then what are you investing in for yourself?

What is “real love” in your opinion? There are plenty of examples in literature when the person loves in such a manner that s/he is ready to give his or her life for the person in question, but only if it is here and now, but not ready to toil for a long time in squalid conditions.

I don’t know if my definition of love will do anything for you because your point of view is quite different from mine. Because it seems that love, to you, is a check list of things you do for someone rather than just an emotion you feel for someone. Love seem to conquer all for you, lasting into the human ‘forever’. But for me, you can love someone you don’t want to be with for whatever reasons you may have. Be it romantic, platonic or familial, not all love take on a physical form and I believe that’s fine. Love doesn’t always last and not all relationship will not have it’s deadline. Though I ascribe to the five remembrances of Buddhism of how life is ephemeral so holding on isn’t something I do.

Knights willing to win over a fair princess’s heart and spend some time doing it are long gone.

You have to wonder if the princess the knight is wooing is based on the objective reality or someone they have crafted an ideal image of.

Not quite. What is the problem with saying something along the lines “I would like to suggest the following for our date. Would you like to do it or do you have anything else in mind?” That shows that they have put in their own effort AND that they value my needs and opinion at the same time.

It is apparently chivalry to ask the female her opinions of where she wants to go and then go to said place to show how open minded the male is. Though if the person was more dominant or just like to make a decision, then they would just choose somewhere to go then inform you. It could show that they have good taste if they take you to somewhere you didn’t know of and liked from first impression. Of course, if the male does not care, then they’ll take you to wherever. But placing so much emphasis on how they ask you out on the first date is a little heavy in that they might not know you nor do you know them, superficial level doesn’t give much info and time doesn’t even give that much information either. If you feel disgust, that’s fine, drop them. But one first date does not give you much information on any person.

Surely, they can’t me expect to sleep with them for a glass of mineral water?

For your sake, I hope not.

Yes. You see, stereotypes are alive and well. It is generally assumed that all women want to get married. It is generally assumed that any woman past 30 wants to get married even more. It is generally assumed that all women want to have children. So a woman in her mid-30s must be desperate to get married and have children.

Worse than that. The stereotype about women from my country is that they are pretty and make great wives or housewives.

So when men meet me, see that I am in my mid-30s, pretty and learn that I am of such and such nationality, their immediate assumption is that I am driven by a desire to marry, have children and be a housewife / homecoming queen. That is what they think where I am coming from, and only a few have tried to get acquainted with “me” as I am and not a “pretty girl from XYZ.”

You’re also projecting your prejudice into your posts. No one can see you nor do they know your background unless you deemed it appropriate to share any informations in your posts. Though I don’t know the kind of men you seem to be meeting, if that’s pretty much the kind of people you are meeting, it might be time to visit a place that you normally don’t visit, but a place that hold an interest of yours should you not meet anyone interesting.

GL, you might have noticed that I tend to write “I think,” “I suppose,” “in my opinion.” That is why I asked you whether you had any background in psychology because I would really love to know what kind of a person my ex was. I read a whole series on man-woman relationship written by a Ph. D. in psychology. Those books were NOT popular articles that sometimes pop up on the internet or can be found in a Cosmopolitan magazine. Now he would often make a caveat that there is a possibility you are dealing with a psychologically peculiar man, but “such cases are few and far between, it is very unlikely that yours is one of them.” Yet, narcissism, especially covert narcissism can be masked under so many “normal” things that it might not be easy to learn the true nature of the guy in question unless you are a specialist.

Besides, for some situations, he would say that they could be excused only if “your man is in a special task force, test pilot, explorer, geologist, deep-sea captain – or any of those adrenaline-driven professions.” Well, to complicate the matters, my ex and the area he works in is exactly one of those rare adventurous fields. So “normal” could not be applied to him by definition. Not an office job.

As someone with a background in economics, or soon to be past background?, I can’t say that I like many of the books published in the psychological realm, or research paper sometimes. Many of them has participants that doesn’t go past a hundred, so it can’t be compared to the populations of thousands, millions or billions. The researches rarely is peer reviewed, if at all, because not many are willing to read and look over a long book versus a research paper. And to use their own patients mean that there is a factor of subjective bias. That, and for the doctor to excuse people into certain categories just because of their jobs/careers when dopamine and cortisol is still a subject that many neuroscientists are uncertain about? Not to mention that the molecular wiring of the brain is still up for debate. It doesn’t seem that that doctor has taken into consideration neurological factors when women are also part of that high adrenaline career path, if only a little in numbers. Nor does it seem that he has considered gendered stereotypes. And excuse me, but did you happen to read the book ‘Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus’? Because that was not peer reviewed. Many others have also called it pseudo-science.

All humans have a narcissistic characteristic, it’s just show up differently for each person.

You did give a linked to the definition of narcissism from a relationship help website/podcast.

• ego-centric fuel by affection and admiration

Maybe. I can’t really tell since he was taking all his successes in a dignified manner and hiding his satisfaction with his achievements all too well. He surely doesn’t behave like Mr. Trump.

There’s covert and subvert egoism. It also depends on how you see egoism. And his satisfactions with his achievement meant to continued receiving praise, he had to work the room to his side, not make enemies.

• manipulating your hope and intentions

Again, I cannot confirm it. Doesn’t life get in the way of the best intentions? Just look at John’s thread “I feel like i ruined my girlfriends life.” He has wanted to part ways with his girlfriend since October, made some progress, but now too many things have happened (grandmother in hospital, grandpa having a heart attack, pregnant daughter bleeding in emergency room, etc. etc.) to continue. I can’t say that I would have behaved differently if I had been in his place. Though I do have that “leave it to fate” attitude. That is if I said that I would do it by time X, I have to do it by time X and come what may be. He said he couldn’t do it then. Isn’t it his choice? Besides, I am probably not that into my career as he was. And no regular definitions would apply to his field, so who am I to judge?

His job may be demanding, but he still chose to stayed married for the sake of his career, which means that he had put his career before you. He constantly(?) told you that he would divorce his wife, bordering on five/six years, when his career would stabilized, but he still chose his career. You really can’t judge how difficult his job is, but you can certainly judge his choice to choose his career which means he stayed married even though he told you that he would divorce. And he did, but only to married someone else. You could have judged that his words then meant nothing past the first year so it would have been better to break up and moved on, but you still chose to judged his words as the truth and so decided to wait for him.

• obviously has issues with intimacy

How can you tell??? This fits a narcissist, doesn’t it?

Anyone with trust issues will have issues with intimacy.

• and the ability to speak somewhat eloquently yet has done little to back up his words (dishonesty and poor communications, MIA for few months)

Again, I can’t say that I would have behaved in a different way if I had been in his shoes. There were a lot of things that I wouldn’t know – and he wouldn’t tell (and aren’t men supposed to sit in their caves and not divulge a word to women?) And when I talked to his peers, 90% of what he had told me was confirmed by them when they discussed similar situations that had happened to them.

Have you read Virgina Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’? It advocates that every women writer should have money and a room where they can write, but in that sense, it can be translated in that any person with money should have the space to pursue their hobbies and interests, time to themselves, without the interference from anyone, lest of all their family. That your ex didn’t feel the need to communicate with you about important things say a lot about his view on your relationship.

As for ghosting me (MIA for two months one month after meeting his new love), isn’t it unfortunately how more and more people choose to end relationships nowadays? It seems like a pandemic now. True, not very nice of him, but he is by far not the only one. Even one of my girlfriends did that to me out of desire to be nice, I presume. She said that she was going to another country and would write to me once settled. After I poked her with emails three times (I do three), to no avail, I left her alone.

Didn’t he ghost you for a month or two, then emailed you about something love and you decided that his ghosting didn’t matter and so got back together with him?

• Has he ever shown you his absolute vulnerable side (no?)

That probably no. Although, a couple of times he mentioned how afraid he had been of something, but I would learn of it only long time after the event. But again, don’t “real men” keep silent about their fears?

Wouldn’t you feel hurt if a close friend didn’t ask you for help in times of need? If your ex had trust you, wouldn’t he have been honest with you about his issues and then worked on it with your support?

• Does he resent his exes, former friends, colleagues or family for any of his ‘misfortune/depression’?

Well, I first learnt about the out-of-wedlock baby from Wife #1 from a older lady who had worked with him a long time ago. She wasn’t even telling the story to me, she was gossiping with another lady, and I happened to overhear. However, when he told me about it himself, he simply recounted it as a story from a book – as I may recount my love story with him after so many years now.

As for Wife #2, he does resent her somewhat. At the same time, his coworkers were not of too high opinion of her, so I don’t know how well-grounded that resentment is. In fact, I even wonder if he is resenting me now because he convinced himself that I had cheated on him with the “guy who led me on” chronologically before he cheated on me – and so I was the one to leave him per say?

You know, we first agreed to stay friends. We agreed that he would monitor my travel mobile phone balance and I would watch over his bank account in this country. And then some time later, I decided to check my phone balance and it was closer to zero! Imagine what a wonderful surprise that would have been if I had been travelling!

Then he borrowed some money from me promising to return in a year’s time. A year passes, nothing happens. He comes to this country and at the same time I go to mine. No email, no phone message upon return. No one passes the money to me on his behalf. I write him an email. He doesn’t respond for two weeks. I write another one. No response. (Need to add that he religiously checks his email every evening and has all text notifications set on his phone.) Only after I angrily sent him two texts one after another did he write back. Sorry, sorry, was on a business trip, see your message only now. Sorry, I don’t buy it. He did return everything in the end and, on my side, I closed his bank account here and returned the balance to him, but he had never behaved in a similar way with me in our six years nor is he known to behave like that to anybody.

And when he comes here, he brings small tokens of appreciation to everybody – sweets, boxes of chocolates and gives them to everybody in my presence, but not me.

More than that. Once when I happened to be in the room, he was calling somebody to reserve a business ticket for his wife. I still wonder whether that was intentional (he could have done that before I had come in – he knew I would be coming) or he merely crossed me out of his life so he doesn’t care what I hear or see. He doesn’t need me now, so he ignores me and shows his appreciation to those who can still be of use to him. But it does all seem like small acts of revenge, doesn’t it? What would you say?

You’re over-thinking this. Whether he is or isn’t should not be on your radar, rather, the question is why are you still aware of his actions? Another question, why are you still friend with him?

• Did he like being depended on (took responsibility for you in some way)?

Yes, but it wasn’t without contradictions. He would insist on waking me up with a phone call and on me saying good night to him, but at the same time once didn’t phone me for an entire week (it was in Year 3), so I started to worry. Yet, when I called him out on it, he said that nothing had happened, and similar things never repeated until the fateful Year 6.

Likewise, I remember a couple of cases when he knew that I would be late home, yet he didn’t phone to make sure I did get home. But it was literally a couple of times.

You write that I may have known after Year 4 or so that he was a “only a mask of no-risk passion.” Not at all. Actually, Year 3 was the bottom when I first decided to “punish” him for not divorcing at the time indicated (but he had his own reasons that I had to accept afterwards) and we communicated only via texts for four months. Then, after one more event that should have brought about the divorce, I stopped communication all together. He wrote me a very touching letter after three weeks of silence, explained his reasons, and I had to give in. At the same time, some encouraging things took place: he started phoning me at lunch and EVERY DAY before going to bed no matter whether his wife was at home or not (she worked shifts), he arranged for a six-month business trip here (his coworkers later told me that he was “desperate” to go on that business trip) and then one more six-month business trip here next year.

He had you hooked. He knew what to do to keep you from leaving him because he probably doesn’t like the fact that people can leave him therefore it is up to him to decide when to end the relationship while you didn’t have a vote. That’s the fear of rejection, doing whatever it is to prevent being rejected and then doing the rejecting. That’s stemmed from the feeling that if he was the one to reject you then he would retain a sense of control over the situation.

When I booked a trip of my own in a very distant country, he bought me a travel phone with a few SIM cards and took care of it watching the balance. He also took care of all my computer-related stuff (antivirus and similar).

Yet, when I look back now, it kind of feels as if he decided that, since he was so much in love, he was supposed to do X, Y, and Z. As if he did those things to prove to himself, to show to himself to what degree he was in love with me, but was not doing all those things out of real love or concern for me.

It does feel as if he lacked empathy (again, a sign of a narcissist). For instance, when we lived here together, he witnessed my fall from a horse. Nevertheless, not a single time he asked me afterwards how I felt. Barely a week later I hit myself badly on a corner. Developed a huge bruise. Never did he ask me how that bruise was doing. I compare him to my father – my father would have asked me for several days in a row until I would say that it nearly stopped hurting.

If he truly didn’t have empathy, then he would be a psychopath. But it doesn’t seem that he has exhibited extreme behavior so that’s on hold. NPD will also exhibit extreme behavior too. But you can’t compared your father to your ex, they are and will always be two different person.

Or else he would ask me how I was doing just to start a conversation. He would never ask me how my grandmother was doing even though I would often communicate my concerns about her health to her and even though he knew how dear I held her.

On the other hand, to do him justice, he noticed something that I repeatedly did and what could be a symptom of a grave illness and made me go to check it out. Not even my parents had paid attention to that.

Or a few other examples. Say, when I broke my limb at a martial arts class and told him, he immediately arranged for me to see a doctor friend of his, without telling me first. That is after our conversation, he phoned me again and told me to go and see such and such.

My old place was infested with cockroaches. Even my #2 would do nothing about them. My ex undertook buying all sorts of traps and basically barricaded the perimeter of the location with them. I didn’t have the pest problem any more.

When I moved to a new place, he assembled all the furniture items for me (to do my #2 justice, he helped me to move a sofa and a bed and assembled a writing table when my ex was out of the country), patiently spent hours in stores choosing appliances (and giving valuable advice) and worked on the lighting fixtures and wiring where he knew what to do. At the beginning of his stay, I would tell him what needed to be done and he would do it whenever he had time. Sometimes, something would not be done until the eve of his departure, but he would still remember that and still do it even if it meant going to bed later. (I wouldn’t remind him on purpose to see if he would remember.)

Also regarding those phone calls. At that time, he would have to buy cards in order to phone me. It was cheaper for him to phone me using those cards than for me to Skype him on his mobile phone, yet his salary was about one-third of mine at the time, so all those phone bills represented a considerable financial investment on his part not to mention his investing time and attention as I am describing above. When we Skyped each other and it was his morning, we would talk for at least 40 minutes before he was off to work.

I sometimes think that he falls in love (read feels sexual arousal towards a woman) so rarely that every time this happens, he thinks that the woman is sent from above and starts rooting for her.

If a person isn’t known to him, there’s little need to care about them. But since you are next to him and was his side mistress, then he has to show some concern. And if that concern is noticeable to other people, i e helping you move into a place, then all the better because you can talk about it to other people or other people can notice it and praise him. That’s covert egoism, doing things when other people are in the area so that they can see for themselves what a ‘good person’ he is. It seems that the ‘good person’ is the image he is painting for himself.

• Did he show sign of needing approval from those around him (work and friends)?

No. And I don’t know whether he was hiding it deep down as narcissists might.

He did ask me a few times whether I thought he was not becoming too fat (he wasn’t, but he had lost his lean figure when he turned 46 – all of a sudden – and never returned).

He care immensely for his career, right? Enough to not get a divorce?

• Was he able to take criticism from you (no?)?

Again, not sure. He would just calmly say, “This is not so” or “You are mistaken.”

That’s plainly not caring about your opinion or side of the argument.

What is NPD looking for?

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

He never had side mistresses before me. And when he fell in love anew, he happened to have two (but he stopped communicating with me after one month).

But he did have affairs so let’s called a spade a spade.

Please see above. I can list a few more things that, to my mind, were a clear indication of his serious intentions at the time. When he (according to him) realized that the career situation was still not conducive to his divorce, he started saying that he didn’t know when he could divorce and he would not give me any new date since he had already given a few and could not hold them. But he would divorce, that is for sure. (How noble, wasn’t it?)

I also need to add that in Year 6, my voicemail got an accidental recording of his quarrel with his wife over their holiday together. They never went anywhere except to his parents’. (With me, we travelled as much as I wanted and as much as his schedule would allow him.) That recording confirmed to me as to the nature of their relationship and that his wife still thought she could have him back (again, just as he was telling me). So frankly, given how much time had passed and all that, I was 100% positive, as sure as never, that he would sooner or later divorce.

He might have noble intentions from the beginning, but for it to take six years just doesn’t cut it, at least not for me. Anyone can talk, but for them to walk the walk is much harder. No matter the nature of their relationship and how much he valued his career, your ex did not file for divorce until he met his next wife. What does that tell you?

As far as I know, they are still together, but for some reason or other, her posts now of their happy life together are few and far between. I think I wrote already how he presented her with a plush toy, a balloon and flowers for two birthdays in a row? Well, this year there was nothing. And for two years in a row she writes an essay on “How much I love him” on his birthday and posts it for her friends to see, and he doesn’t even bother to say, “Thank you, my love.”

Why are you still keeping tab on their relationship?

GL, I wrote about his past love life. I’d say it is a mix of things, but I was the only one with whom he had an affair outside of his marriage before his current wife. I don’t think that any of his love stories can be called “sordid.” More than that, when I asked around, a few of my friends aged 25 or so said that they had had more partners than his number of six at that point at the age of 45. So I thought that he had made some poor choices pure and simple. But so hadn’t I, with my #1 and 2?

Having a range of partners does not mean that they were married while having those relationships, unless they practice polyarmory. That your ex had practice having affairs while married without the consent of his spouses showed that he had little respect for his marriage or his spouse.

In fact, my mother’s cousin has just did something similar. Good solid family, a daughter my age and a grandson. She falls in love with an alcoholic, insists on divorcing her husband, he doesn’t want to then agrees. The guy lives with his mother, ditches her for another woman, then his mother dies, then he dies. The property goes to his daughter, and both mistresses are left with nothing. She returns to her ex-husband who by then had had a platonic affair (or so he says). Now they live together as a family, only don’t sleep together. Real story.

Each person has different needs at different stages of their life. If having no sexual components, but still doing fine and dandy, then why bother commenting?

How can I change the cycle? I agree that potentially I might fall in love with someone to whom I don’t feel aversion (so that I don’t feel that I am wasting time with him), but for that he would need to make up his mind to court me, to be patient, to win me over. I haven’t yet met such a man.

A relationship takes time so it’s fine to want them to woo you, but you’ll have to do your part by also wooing them. Though I wonder what kind of image are you actually presenting to people. Certainly, biases do exist, but there’s also the impression that you are leaving on people too.

The family portrait comparison determines whether the man is attractive to me, that is whether potentially I could kiss him and make love to him. Yet, I have met men whom I liked at first glance, but after a few chit-chats didn’t like them or  they were not interested or, worse, I felt their bad breath, so my liking them disappeared into thin air.

So you want someone with good hygiene and not smelly breath. It also seems that your intuition takes on the form of that family portrait.

I don’t think it is a question of being safer or not. I guess I just like the position of somebody who is offered a choice or an assortment (of activities, for instance) and that I am the one who chooses. Don’t they say that it is the woman who eventually chooses the man? With a caveat, though – the woman can choose the man only from those who offer themselves to her. That is where I have a bit of a problem as described above. I think my ex was the only one so far who persisted in communicating with me and trying to win me over for two months after our initial meeting. And all that communication was done from another country. And we hadn’t even kissed by that point. I have yet to meet a man who would like me enough to want to show me that he is a reliable person whom I can fall in love with.

I prefer that both people chose each other irregardless of the choices. So your ex is your first serious relationship then? What exactly is reliable?

Like I write above, nowadays it is either “I like you – you like me = good, let’s sleep together” OR “I like you – you don’t like me = no prob, I’ll find another one.” Neither one suits me even if I like the man.

What would work for you then?

First, I am convinced that the first step must be made by the man. The woman can give out signs that she likes the man, but the first invitation needs to come from the man. I broke that rule with #1 beings so enthralled by feelings and emotions (I threw my arms around his neck the minute we were left alone and told him that I had waited for him for 12 years!) and by “the guy who led me on” – I told him I was romantically interested in him and before that I had offered to watch a few films together. But in neither case, anything serious came out of it.

Your experiences of wooing and being woo has both gone in a negative direction. So it can’t be said that one way or the other is good or bad, merely situational. If you prefer to being woo, that’s your preference. But the main question for you should be; are you looking at the situation as it is and not how you wish it was? You feel deeply for others, but that can also lead you to excuse the behaviors of others merely because they are someone important to you. Even now, you are defending the actions of your ex. Don’t do that, that’s not helping you. You have to look at your situation without any subjective favor or disfavor, the opposite of what you usually tend to do.

Besides, don’t they often say that women are often dreaming and fantasizing about a “prince on a white horse” and don’t notice good hard-working guys around them? Well, I look around and I don’t see any good reliable guy who keeps hinting me that he is the one for me. And when I looked around and made a conscious effort to like somebody, I ended up with #1 and, to an extent, #2.

I don’t believe I know many that care for the ‘prince on white horse’ analogy, but it does seem that you do. You want to be saved from something, but I can’t determine what that is. Or maybe it’s your idealism that is too high? But the princes that was adopted to modern time was merely a figure head of money and status. In Cinderella; he chose her for passion while nothing is known about him other than he might be handsome, but he at least has the money and status. Snow White; situational saving from death, that or necrophilia. Sleeping beauty; he did defeat the dragon though they made Maleficent to be less than powerful, so rigged in his favor (there was no dragon in the original). Beast was a plot device for Beauty (though it was originally her fault he almost died). In Rapunzel, he lost his sights until he was reunited with Rapunzel again. Mulan saved the country (depending on the dynasty, that might or might not be okay for a woman to be so active outside of her home), Pocahontas chose to sacrifice herself (white-washed story). Aladdin wasn’t even a part of the 1001 tales, the medieval Arabic text. So what exactly is your ideal ‘prince’ seeing as you are still enamored with it, or at least enough to mention it?

Don’t you think that liking each other should come effortlessly to both people in question? Without either one chasing the other?

Rather than chase, I prefer effort. If the other person is not willing to put in effort for the relationship to thrive, then are they expecting you to do all the work while they frolic around? That’s a big NO to anyone who expects that. But turn that around and question yourself how much effort you are willing to put into the relationship and why. The why is especially important because it lay the foundation for your relationship with each other while the effort is the building block.

In addition, it seems like I oscillate between “I am in love so I am totally co-dependent on my partner and have to make a mental effort to get down to things that I enjoyed doing before meeting him” and “I enjoy being busy in my own way that I have no time for romance.” One of the psychologists back from the 70s whose essays on love I read when recovering from the breakup with my ex, wrote that the remedy to co-dependency lies in the mantra “It is good to be with you, but if I am by my self, it is even better!” I wonder if I have unconsciously taken that to the extreme?

You might be. It feels that whatever advice you are given to do, you’ll do it just to test if it fits into your schedule, but that eventually wears off. On the other hand, it feels that your check list is there for the sake of ‘control’. You have a schedule that you’ll keep to because it’s easier to follow a schedule, to have something to do, to keep busy. There’s also your criteria for men, in that they have to pursued you for awhile before you are sure you want to be serious? But that’s dating, isn’t it? Enjoying people’s company for a period of time to determined how serious you wish for the relationship to be. But considering that your ex is your first serious relationship, you probably jumped the gun in thinking that he was ‘the one’. The last two relationship didn’t work well and it didn’t seem that they even tried to pursued you. Then come along a man who would gallantly woo you so it set off your romantic clock in thinking, I want this relationship to last ‘forever’. He gave you what you wanted so you didn’t want to let him go. That’s why you excused his selfish behavior, for even now it seems that you have rose tinted glasses when you think of him. You are even trying to look for an excuse for his behavior, for if he is a narcissist, then it can’t be help that he hurt you?

If you don’t want a family, that’s fine. Simply look for a guy who wants the same thing. But right now, you need to address your hold on your ex. It doesn’t seem you are over him, you still look at his wife’s social media to understand their current relationship status. You still wonder if he is a narcissist, which is why you can’t get over his callous act of dumping you. You don’t wonder if your other exes were narcissist, only this one. Or are you still envious of your parents’ story and relationship that you wondered why it didn’t worked out the same for you? Why does this seem like a competition for you? Why must what happened for your parents occur for you? Or is it that you simply feel more comfortable if life took on a similar path since you can predict the outcome? Again, there’s the control part. It seems as if you don’t wish for any chaotic factor in your life thus hope to replicate what happened to others so that you might predict your partner’s actions and reactions and make the correct reaction in turn. After all, a human forever can only last so long, but death is at least predictable. And a prince on the white horse is perfect in that he’ll love and never leave, or at least you won’t have to worry about the ‘forever’ part.

Have you heard of the memoir ‘The Art of the Pimp’ by Dennis Hof? Written by a man who owns a brothel, he wrote of his experiences while including some narratives from those around him, namely his prostitutes. It is interesting on how sexist Hof is while also telling the world that he loves women and that his gift to women is his ability to pleasure them. That, and he displayed co-dependent behavior in that he would jump from one relationship to another, lavishing his favorites with gifts and money until he grew bored of them. Interestingly, many of those fell for him, not his money, but no matter what they did, he was unable to trust their affection for him. His fear of rejection drove him to seek sexual pleasure from women, but that fear also kept him from believing in others. He substituted ‘sex’ for ‘love’, his addiction to sex masked his need for love. Though he’ll forever tell the world that he is searching for love, but he won’t even give those who did love him a chance.

Til next time.

Dear Puce,

You don’t trust that you, as a person, is enough for anyone in your relationships, which lead you to not trusting others.

You’ve been hurt by people before so it’s understandable that you are leery of forming deep bonds with any females. And the bullying had damaged your self-esteem during your formative years so that’s something to look at too. That’s why it was safer for you to befriend male friends while fantasizing intensely about your casual female friendships. It’s not that you didn’t want female friendships, it was that you didn’t want to relived your childhood nightmares. But right now you’ve cocooned yourself in fear and shame, with your thoughts and imagination fueling it.

Your apprehension of all the tensions with many of the females you are acquainted with speak of your fear that they might not like you, hence rejecting you. BUT that fear is your personal interpretation of the situation. You don’t know what the person before you is feeling or thinking until you’ve asked them point blank their thoughts. Yet your assumptions on the silence seems to lean toward the negative.

Though you might be correct in that they actually might not like you, that’s simply how the world works. People will have lukewarm feelings for you at the best of time, no matter how much you wished to cultivate a deeper relationship. And there will also be those who won’t like you for whatever reasons. You can extend many olive branches, but it is still their decision to commit to a deep friendship with you. And if they don’t wish for it, the best thing for you to do is to mourn that potential deep friendship then move on.

It’s just, your fear of rejection makes you want to control the impression that other people have of you. Your fear makes you out to be a defective person therefore you fear that people will also see it. You fear that other people will see the defect in you and scorn you for that reason. After all, you were rejected by your peers in your childhood, whose to say that it won’t happen again? Therefore, in your need for control, you rejected your mother and your boyfriend and possibly keep a certain distance from your female friends. If you reject them first, then they can’t reject you.

Right now, you know that you are looking at your world through the lens of ‘what if’, invoked by your desire for a relationship similar to the ones in your fantasies because you fear your reality. You have casual friendships as you imagine what could happen if it was a deep friendship instead. You offer olive branches to those who you don’t like that much while silently thinking that some people don’t like you. You try to appear likable even when you avoid people. You wish for friendship because you don’t want to be rejected because rejection is a reflection of your own flaws.

So if you ask the people around you to show up, would they? If you tell the people around you that you think you are defective in some way, would they be able to accept you irregardless? But it doesn’t seem that you’ve asked anything of them while also not letting them ask anything of you. You’ve been making assumptions while avoiding speaking of anything less than harmless to these people you call ‘friends’. After all, you don’t say “I’m scare, worried, anxious”, you only say “I have migraines” as if they would understand the underlying message that you’re struggling with being a friend and asking them for friendship. You don’t say much.

Your fear keeps you from speaking, it provoke you into making assumptions about others, it makes you keep people at arms’ length. Then there is your shame of being defective. Your reaction to your shame is observing people’s reaction to you and using those reaction as building blocks to support the basis of your shame. And you’ve trapped yourself in that spiral of shame.

Now, is the UK a country that stigmatize mental health? Because your sense of shame of yourself is definitely not new so the best course of action would be to seek professional help in untangling it. Be warn, changing the perspective of your view on yourself and your world is difficult because you are essentially challenging your personal truth of your shame, but if you wish to be able to form relationships without pushing people away, then it’s one of the challenges you’ll need to face.

Each person carries their shame with them in some way, yours simply show up as the fear of rejection and being ‘defective’. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s simply your form of shame. But it is something you’ll have to work with for the duration of your life because life has an ironic sense of humor in that you’ll always have to face your fear in different forms in the various stages of your life.

You’re scare, that’s okay, but you have the choice in what to do about that.

Dear Lily,

Fearing the judgment of people can mean many things, but in your case, it seem to be highlighting your shame.

There’s a certain negative aspect of having a parent or two that has the habit of blaming/criticize/reproach/reprimand/chide others for little to big things. It is actually nothing personal, or at least in the regards that your father hate you or anything. Rather, as you’ve noticed, because he cannot accept the fact of his own flaws, however small, he must find the flaws in others then berate them for having flaws. But because you’ve had to live with that and was one of his targets, it is difficult not to take on his shame and make it your shame.

Your shame makes you fear the eyes of other because they might be able to see all your flaws and deem you as a ‘bad person’ or whatever fear that haunts you in the depth of your heart. Judgment is frightening in that they reinforced your greatest fear, your belief of your inadequacy as a person. And right now, you have surrounded yourself in a spiral of ‘anxiety’ rooted in shame.

This incident with the missing knife (please move out as soon as possible, it doesn’t sound safe) made you question whether the people in the dorm were suspecting you of theft because of your general disposition as someone who didn’t care to socialized much. You even write that it was your fault for not socializing, or at least appearing like someone who is warm-hearted and trustworthy. But even those that smile can have cruel thoughts and the stoic ones might have the warmest heart, but you don’t know that until you have some understanding of their true character. But even that doesn’t guaranteed you’ll know a person.

The incident itself, though, is not that important. What is important is the effect that came about because of it. For you, the effect is the shame of possibly being suspected as the thief. No one wants to be a bad person, and it is doubly so for you because being a ‘bad person’ is associated with being a person with flaws. And having people see your flaws is utterly terrifying.

If you yourself is scared of your own flawed reflection, does it not become a nightmare that others should also see it?

But you can’t think away your shame nor can you ignore it as it will simply come back in another form. You can question it but emotions are not rooted in thoughts as it is thoughts that are rooted in emotions. That ‘shame’ is an emotion that you unconsciously justified with reasonable doubts about your own character’s flaws. And because it’s reasonable, it’s does not seem erroneous to continue those justified ‘thoughts’. You don’t want to be incorrect, no matter how negative.

So what do you do?

Well, the first step would be acknowledging your feelings regarding your shame. Acknowledge your fears, acknowledge the fact that you probably don’t like your reflection all that much. And then try to be okay with the fact that you don’t like yourself all that much. While it is easy to show other kindness, it is all the more difficult to show oneself kindness, but the least you can do is accept that there are things you don’t like about yourself. And that’s okay, you do not have to like yourself all the time. It’s okay to accept the negative for what they are, rather than ignoring or trying to force them away.

So don’t let what is negative fester, as what seemed to have happened for your father. Because he could not accept what is flawed, he could only find the flawed in other people. Even when it seemed absurd, his criticism was his personal shame. Yours is different in that you are too ready to accept your flaws yet you also seek to ‘think’ or ‘do’ away with it. But that is merely a band-aid on the open wound.

Slowly acknowledge what you can. It is a long process to accepting imperfection in a seeking ‘perfect’ society. You’ll probably have days in which you question why you can’t just function without the heedless worries of judgment, days in which you are tired of yourself and your ego, days in which you torment yourself over the imperfection and flaws. That’s okay. Life is not without the pointless worries. What is negative and what is positive is merely two side of the same coin. What’s important is what you choose to do or not do.

Good luck.