I like to look into psychology and try to understand the people and the world around me. After looking into psychology through researching it and really opening my mind to the ideas of how our minds work, I think it is the most powerful subject out there.
You come across to me as a friendly guy. A bit too friendly I must say I think maybe you need to be more assertive and set higher standards of those around you. So that people don’t try and take you for a ride.
You’re past experience of people being selfish and using you or taking you for granted will allows be remembered and if its happened a lot then you will eventually start to believe that everyone is in it for themselves.
Think about this. If you believe in something you embrace it. If you believe in certain things to happen to you then you will unconsciously make it happen. If you believe that people will continue to take you for a mug then you will unconsciously lead them to do that and because of that belief you’ll notice them more than you’ll notice of those who haven’t stepped out of line.
I think maybe you should try and really think more positive about others so you can take more notice of their actions in a positive way rather than the negatives which remind you too much of your past.
You can’t change other people you can only change yourself.
Try and program your mind to see the positives in your life and how your going to improve it.
Making friends is a skill you must master. Join a team or club, or even try to meet up with some people you like here on the dope. I think most people have said here that yes people can be scummy and bad. Including YOU. How do you think those people who e-mailed you feel about you not replying? They probably think the same things you feel, although perhaps they are more forgiving. Honestly with social skills like what you have got going, I’m amazed you’re married. Just think about what might happen if your current wife is not around anymore. It’s gonna get awfully lonely if you can’t swallow the pill that all people are out for their own interests, and that it’s not all about you.
Sorry to be blunt here, but I’ve learned these lessons the hard way (after being mopey for far too long) and the faster you learn them the better you will feel about yourself. When betrayal happens to me, I work hard to keep my trust of people and my happy heart alive. After major betrayals and disappointments from others in my life I have exercised, actively journaled, sought therapy, forced myself to meet new people, go outside my comfort zone, tried something new, etc. It’s work keeping your mentality healthy. Treat it like a job and you’ll do well. Just remember, whenever you have been betrayed…the sun always came up the next day. Life always goes forward.
Opening your heart again, after having been hurt is a choice. It doesn’t just happen, and it’s freaking hard. But it’s better than the alternative, of going through life feeling like you’re cold and unfeeling, insulating yourself from ever being hurt again.
They call it baggage for a reason. You choose to carry it around with you like a valuable life lesson when it’s really just you refusing to put your baggage down. Put it down and walk away from it, instead of friends and acquaintances!
What I don’t understand is why people are being such jerks in this thread.
The OP is admitting that he has a problem–which is a really hard thing to do. Especially when it comes to something as personal as this.
As far as we know, he has not done anything bad to anyone. Ignoring emails does not count as “bad” in my book.
I understand that everyone’s got an opinion, but I don’t understand how posting like an asshole is supposed to convince the OP that he’s wrong about people.
The op is somewhat right about people. People can seem horrible at times. However the issue is the OPS attitude. Right now you are insinuating that people here are assholes for being brutally honest. If I were to go by the logic of the original post, I should remove you from my life and distrust others for decades. I won’t do that because I know that in the grand scheme this is small stuff and you are likely a good person who means others no harm. There is no pretending people can be tough to deal with and that they make poor decisions. That is no reason to withdraw from meaningful relationships and assume everyone is horrible.
No, people are being assholes. Not everyone and not most posters, but some people. There’s advice-giving and then there’s unnecessary commentary and jackassholery.
And to be honest? The advice-giving is well-intentioned, but a lot of it is not going to help the OP. Who doesn’t already know “everyone sucks, including you”. That’s not really revelatory or earth-shattering information. It just sounds like the perfect thing to say.
I didn’t see the OP presenting an argument, but rather exposing feelings–which he admits are tormenting him. You see him needing “tough love”, and I don’t understand why (other than it’s fun to play the stern grown-up sometimes). As far as we can tell, he’s not hurting anyone or doing anything that deserves scolding. He already knows he has a problem. People like this don’t need tough love.
The guy needs to work with a professional, preferably someone who has experience with personality disorders. 95% of the rest of the advice here is just a variation of telling blind man to open his eyes so he can see.
IMHO is not a good forum for this kind of thing, I agree.
I don’t know what he needs. That is just the approach that works and continues to work for me. But that is the beauty of these threads. He can choose and react to the posts that motivate him the best. And this is coming from a fellow “blind man.” I do wish him the best.
I have met (and once gone out with) people who are otherwise intelligent and normal people, but have very brittle and rigid friend/enemy classifications in their lives. There is little gray area with them. For them people are with for you or against you, and there is a hair trigger sensitivity to anything that could be considered a slight which they will quickly magnify into a profound betrayal or other antagonistic intention or action some kind.
I believe this is an inborn trait somehow related to innate paranoiac tendencies and it is not able to be changed. You can change how you react but the mental impulse of feeling shafted by everyone will always be there.
The somewhat odd thing in your OP (which sets off my BS alarm re your OP) is that you claim you are a successful comedy writer. Successful comedy writing requires (IMO) a good deal of projection and some degree of empathic ability to see and understand a interpersonal situation from many angles and perspectives involving many gray areas in behavior. It also requires working with others in a fairly give and take fashion. People with the aforementioned binary personality traits really do not have this ability in any substantive capacity. I would have believed almost any other job description you named but successful comedy writer is hard to swallow given your claimed personality disposition.
So he’s either lying about having a cold personality, just so he can be showered in love and affection from the teeming millions, or he’s lying about being a comedy writer…since going with heart surgeon, police detective, or drill sergeant would have been way too easy.
Good comedy actually requires some emotional distance. Who’s more likely to tell a funnier joke? The guy who weeps over his stuffed bunny collection, or the guy who uses stuffed bunnies for target practice?
astro, you may be interested in “cognitive” versus “affective” empathy.
Nowhere does the OP say that he has problems with empathy anyway. What a bizarre accusation.
Really? Because in just his first few paragraphs I see:
Bolding mine.
I agree that you should be working with a professional. There’s something about the combination of hating people and wanting them, but judging them and feeling superior to them, that makes for a very lonely life.
Because it sounds like complete and utter BS. Comedy writers don’t have to be “nice” but it is a profession where you have to get along and work with people of all personality types along a continuum of various stages of disagreement and drama. Trying to imagine someone who is so brittle they make people dead to them the first time there’s a substantive disagreement or conflict succeeding in that kind of hothouse emotional and interactional environment is absurd.
I don’t understand why this comment was necessary and (IMO) reaffirms the OP’s fears.