Dear Daniel:

I decided to read and reply earlier than intended. Yesterday, I asked you what you meant by “always” having suffered from “anxiety/ low self-esteem”. “Always” suggests that you suffered from anxiety and low self-esteem as a child, and since childhood. I asked you what you specifically meant by it because I wasn’t able to detect your anxiety and low self-esteem in your posts outside your later in life (20s) failure to establish a desired long-term relationship with a woman.

In your post before last, you mentioned growing up around an alpha male group. So, I thought that in context of that group you felt inferior/ low self-esteem. But in your most recent post, you expressed no “anxiety/ low self-esteem” experience in the context of the alpha-male-group, growing up.

And so, I am lost. I still don’t know what you meant by Always having suffered from Anxiety and Low self-esteem. And therefore, I don’t understand your current difficulty in regard to establishing a long-term relationship with a woman. I wish I could offer you something helpful, but I have nothing to offer when I don’t understand.

anita

Dear Daniel,

you seem like someone with very high self-awareness, as well as sensitivity. And I think it’s actually to your benefit that you’re also an emotionally aware person, with empathy and an ability to listen (I am not weak when I say emotionally in tune, what I mean is I am not afraid to show interest/express a feeling/listen to others/help those in need because I care.)

I also believe it is to your benefit that you’re genuine, that you don’t play games and are wearing your heart on your sleeve. All those are qualities that women like and prefer, so I find it very unlikely that it is something that would repel them on the long-run (But I am starting to feel that this emotionally in tune side of me is weak to women or it doesn’t help ignite sparks or create attraction in me.)

What I am noticing instead is that you say you have a very supportive family:

I am in at a personal level thanks to the support/upbringing of my family & friends

stable career/family life

And at the same time, you say that your anxiety stems from your parents:

I think I have always had a degree of anxiety coming from my parents as they can be stress heads

Have they changed in the meanwhile and now they are very accepting and supportive of you?

I grew up around a very “alpha male” type of group and within sporting environments where sort of oneupmanship was a theme and a “boys club” type of vibe.

Have you experienced oneupmanship and “boys club” vibe only in the sport clubs that you were a member of? Or perhaps your father is also an alpha male, and you’ve experienced it at home too?

I am asking because it seems to me that a part of you might be too blended with your family, even if there might be some issues still unresolved between you?

Dear Daniel:

It reads like you need to be FREE of your parents’ worries and emotional investment in your life. Your life is your life,  not their life. Their lives are for them to live; your life is for you to live.

Their caring suffocates you- their caring weighs you down; their caring then, in practical terms, is not love. Love Energizes, Love Encourages… love is not a burden, a suffocation, is it…?

anita

Dear Daniel:

It occurred to me yesterday, after reading what you expressed about your parents (common to many parents): “the expectation is like go to school -> get a job -> further study/university -> get a full time job -> get married/have kids etc., etc.“, that this is indeed a very common approach by many millions of parents. I’d call it the cookie-cutter approach to parenting:

– parents put in the work feeding and clothing their children, arranging schooling, buying toys, letting their children know of the expectations (I compare this to preparing the cookie dough, putting eggs into it, chocolate chips, etc., mixing it all, using a cookie cutter to create almost equal shapes and sizes of unbaked cookies, and then putting the unbaked cookies in the oven and turning on the heat). They then wait and watch, hoping that all of the children go to school, get a job.. get married, etc., fulfilling the expectations step by step; they watch and worry if any of the children is late at achieving any of these steps (I compare this to watching the unbaked cookies in the oven as they bake, expecting them all to rise at about the same rate and to the same extent, then they worry if one of the cookies, or a few of the cookies, seem flatter than the others, being late to rise.. worrying that they’ll never rise).

It is not that these (millions of) parents don’t love their children, it’s that they misunderstand their children (and themselves): they do not understanding how elaborate a human being is, and how much more individual attention a human needs. Going back to the cookie analogy: some cookies need more chocolate chips, others need less sugar; some are lovely in their own flat ways… and different does not mean inferior.

Is my analogy making sense to you or does it only make you feel having fresh, out of the oven cookies.. (lol)?

anita

Dear Daniel:

You are welcome. This is what I figure this morning: your parents have been in the habit of over-reacting to non-positive events in your life/ to your low moods, getting very stressed and unhappy, and they either over-react to positive occurrences in your/ to your elevated moods, feeling hopeful and happy, or you are afraid that they will over-react to these and end up getting disappointed, stressed and unhappy.

You adjusted to your parents’ over-reacting by under-acting, that is: you appear neutral, best you can, stable, predictable, laid back, not low and not high, somewhere in the middle. The idea behind this adjustment is that the more stable you are, the less there is for them to over-react to. This adjustment makes you non-spontaneous and (for lack of a better word) boring in the context of a romantic relationship.

Here is evidence that your parents are overreacting: “Basically I think I have always had a degree of anxiety coming from my parents as they can be stress heads… they are natural worriers about their kids/life in general and they so much want what’s best for me and my siblings that I guess they can be overly invested in our lives… sometimes how much they actually care is almost a bit suffocating as I feel like if I choose the wrong partner or make a wrong move ultimately I will let them down… I think my parents sometimes see the emotions I may be going through or the disappointment I may be going through they really feel it & live it“.

Here is evidence of how you adjusted to their overreacting: “Basically the feeling is like this silly sort of analogy… I am like a book you pick up, read the blurb and the review and it looks pretty good nothing wrong with it at all, you start reading and have a good impression of the story but eventually it bores you and you put it down & never got back to it… making people comfortable/laugh & being laid back… do women feel just a down to earth guy who seems stable is boring?”.

You asked me sometime along the way: “Do you think that I need to be more alpha male or whatever the term is to maintain a girls interest, do women feel just a down to earth guy who seems stable is boring?“- I don’t think that trying to be more of an alpha male is a solution. I think trying to be less laid back, less predictable; more spontaneous, and more alive: more reactive to your emotions is the way to go. In other words: do some undoing of the adjustment I mentioned.

You wrote: “I sort of feel like I am responsible for other people’s feelings as well and have to fake how I feel“-do you fake feeling less so to minimize over-reactions in others?

I am guessing that you do what everyone does: projecting our parents into romantic interests, and in your case, expecting the woman you are dating to over-react if you.. do not under-act. Does this make sense to you?

anita