Okay, in re: This thread-
I read it, it struck a chord. I’m a doormat guy, mainly for, as mentioned there, fear that I’d be alone if I wasn’t. So, my question is… How do I change? I mean, I pretty much constantly go out of my way to be nice and helpful to folks… I can’t imagine suddenly -not- being nice and helpful. That would be… Jerk-like. So… What’s the good option here?
Ya know, I always kind of considered myself a doormat until all this talk started. Now I’m not so sure. I do all 8 things on your list, including both 4’s.
But you can do all of those while still being easy-going, laid back, and accomodating to those you love. Yes, you can take that too far on occassion, but for the most part, I think that’s more good than bad.
To a lot of the people responding to these threads, they seem to think if something doesn’t go exactly your way every time, you’re a doormat. Most of the time (in fact, vast majority of the time), I don’t have “a way” that I want things to go. When I do have “a way”, they almost always go “my way”. When they don’t, like in my original thread, I get upset. But rarely upset enough to do anything about it. I guess that’s the most doormatty thing about me.
[QUOTE=wasson]
Ya know, I always kind of considered myself a doormat until all this talk started. Now I’m not so sure. I do all 8 things on your list, including both 4’s.QUOTE]
I left out the cardinal rule of doormathood:
If you wonder whether you are a being a doormat or being used, you are.
Seems like this is a very poetic phrase but it doesn’t really make sense.
If you’ve “fallen for anything” don’t you now “stand for something”?
Doesn’t it just mean “if you don’t stand for what I stand for, you’ll end up on the wrong side”?
I can show you how to stop being a doormat… for $100 in advance
Lemme hit this point by point.
“You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything” is a part of the lyrics to a country song that I always liked. It just means you have to have principles because people will coerce you into things that are contrary to who you are. Understanding who you are and what you stand for at a deep level makes identifying and correcting those circumstances easier.
Being nice and helpful doesn’t make one a doormat. That is, as long as what you project to the world matches what you feel inside.
Say, a coworker asks you for help moving. You show up at the time he asked you to, only to find him still asleep and not packed.
He says he was out late last night, partying, so you should come back in 3 hours.
Does this annoy you?
Do you let him know it annoys you?
Do you return in 3 hours?
If you answered yes, no, yes, you may be a doormat.
If you answered yes, yes, yes, you’re probably a nice, helpful guy.
Here’s another:
Your girlfriend of 6 months loses her job and asks if she can move in with you, bringing her cats, birds rabbit and marmot. You live in a 600 sq ft studio.
Do you think its a bad idea?
Do you tell her that?
Do you let her move in anyway?
If so, do you set a time limit?
If you answered yes, no, yes, no, you’re a doormat.
If you answered yes, yes, yes, yes, you’re a nice, easy going, helpful guy.
If you answered no, no, yes, no, you might have a brain tumor and should see your doctor right away. (A little humor. 
Yes, I know, very little.)
Never be afraid of being alone. Learn to like yourself enough to enjoy your own company.
Relationships are more likely to succeed if both partners come into it as whole people. If you have missing pieces, you must find them yourself. We are all too different to patch each other, without losing a part of ourself.
picunurse is good. I boil it down to this: I consider myself friendly and helpful, but not a doormat because:
I will help people do almost anything.
I will help someone find what they are looking for.
I will share what I have.
Etc.
But…
not if you want help because you just don’t want to do something
not if you should know how to find it already and I am enabling you to be dumb
not if you always borrow/take and never loan/give.
Also, not if it prevents me from doing what I want/need to do, is something that I really don’t want to do, or is something I don’t think should be done.
Hrm. The points make sense. However… I have a deep psychology of helping others, even when I don’t want to, and convincing myself I want to anyway. (“Oh, well, I wasn’t doing anything anyway, why not help Bill find the stuff he’s looking for? He’ll be happy afterwords.”) So, for the idea of saying ‘no’ when I don’t want to help others… I tend to think (at least at the time) that I really -do- want to help them. 
Try a couple little exercises to find why you must help.
In a quiet place, when you have some time to yourself. Turn off the phones, the TV, lock the door.
Sit comfortably lean back, close your eyes, and picture the earliest you remember “helping.”
Did anyone tell you should help?
How did the experience make you feel?
Were you rewarded?
Now, picture the first time you remember not wanting to do what was asked of you.
Did you say you didn’t want to help?
If so, were you chastized or punished for not helping?
Were you forced to help anyway?
How did it make you feel?
A bit of a different exercise:
Think about your family. Who else is “helpful”?
Does that person seem always happy to help, even when it interferes with something else?
Do you try to please that person more than others?
Do you fear that person?
One more.
Think about yourself as a child outside yourself, as though the “child you” is a discrete person from the “adult you.”
How do you feel about tha “child you”?
Are you angry with him?
Are you indifferent to him?
Do you love him?
Now, have a conversation with that child.
Was he happy most of the time?
When he was unhappy what made him so?
Is he still happy most of the time?
What did he fear most? What emotional response did he consistently try to evoke in others?
Was he successful?
Who did he love most?
Who did he fear?
Were they the same person?
You don’t have to share the results of these exercises. They are only to allow you to consciously explore the origins of some of your behaviors.
Once you see where, and when and by whom your patterning began you can start to change the pattern.
Good luck
Here are my words to live by:
We are all responsible for our own actions.
Be true to yourself and honest to the world.
Everything Always works out for the best, because there is no other way it can work out. If you make the wrong choice, it becomes the right choice, by default.
Learn from the past, but never regret it. You can’t take it back, so move on.
It’s not who loves you but who you love.
I was a bit of a doormat in my first serious relationship. Nothing major, I was just way too accomodating and passive. When you’re young and dumb, it’s easy to get sucked into the nobility of making small sacrifices for Love, the righteousness of putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and seeing things from their point of view, and the goodness of doing nice things for the person you love, regardless of reciprocation.
Being a doormat is not the same thing as being nice. One can be incredibly nice without being a doormat. The issue is really one of equality and respect. Each person in a relationship needs to speak up for themselves and make their preferences known. Perhaps even more importantly, each needs to know that the other will actually speak up if they are dissatisfied or have a conflicting preference. You’re not doing your partner a favor by simply going with the flow and ending up hurt/unhappy/mad.
The key to not being a doormat is battling the insecurity that leads you to assume that you have to do more to make someone want to be with you. It’s better to be alone, gaining a stronger sense of self, than to be in an insecure relationship.