Dealing With People

I'm just relaxing in bed, watching a movie, and playing a game of solitare. I'm not sure why, but I realized something about myself:

I'm better at making enemies than I am at making friends.


Not to be taken in an extreme manner. I do have friends and I am rather outgoing when it comes to meeting people. I love talking to new, interesting people. But I have very few friends I consider close. Everyone else are really just people I talk to occasionally and I always keep them at a distance emotionally.


I came to this realization when thinking about how I am around my boyfriend's friends. Only a couple of them I've let my guard down with, and not even completely. If you haven't figured it out, I have some pretty big trust issues. And because of this, I think I automatically classify any of his friends as threats. My enemies. Which if you think about it, why should I have any real reason to trust them? They'll never be my friends. Their loyalties lie with my boyfriend. That's all there is to it.


But.. That's where I make my enemies. With them, at least. Because I don't trust them, because I view them as my enemy, I have my guard up tenfold. And I have a tendency to be a little..well..bitchy. Not towards them, really. But I guess I take it out on my boyfriend. Not that I'm verbally abusive or anything to him.


As he basically put it, I need to assert my dominance. I need to put on a tough "I-won't-be-walked-on" front because I actually feel vulnerable. Problem is, it comes across the wrong way to them because they don't know me. And it takes a while...a long while...before I'm comfortable enough to relax and put my guard down a little. This might be driven by a fear that if anyone could break us up, it would be them.


But that's so counterproductive. If I don't want them to not like me, then shouldn't I strive to gain their acceptance? Instead, I'm unintionally causing them to not like me. Which, I'm not positive as to whether they like me or not. My partner says that they don't not like me. He can't say that they do, because they haven't really gotten much of a chance to really know me. Partially my own fault and partially because I don't see them that often. The ones I do see, are the ones that like me. And I see them more often.


Maybe you could say I'm a bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Not sure if I spelled the names right, but you know what I'm saying hopefully).


Anyway.. All of that stuff running through my head lead me to a possible conclusion: Maybe it's easier to make an enemy out of someone than a friend because friends require a level of trust. An enemy is always kept beyond the walls we build within ourselves. Some might think that you should follow the motto many know very well. "Keep our friends close and our enemies closer." But can we really follow that anymore? We live in a world where even the bond between sisters, brothers, cousins, and parents mean nothing to some people. Moms sleeping with their daughter's husband/fiancée/boyfriend. Sisters, brothers, and cousins doing the same thing to each other. So when people will do whatever they can to reach what happiness they desire, stepping all over anyone, to the point where blood means nothing, can we afford to keep our friends close and our enemies closer?


If family will do it to each other, what's stopping someone you think is a friend? Granted a lot of it has to do with the company you keep, but how many of us have seen over and over how deceiving people can be? It's really like you can't trust anyone anymore.


..And that's the end of my rambling/rant. haha.

 

I'm a friend of someone that has a girlfriend.

When I'm not conspiring to break them up, I'm posting pictures of her head Photoshopped onto fat chick bodies.

You have every right to worry.

 

My sarcasm senses are tingling.


Everyone needs to rant sometimes, right? Well that was my rant. I'm not some psycho crazy paranoid girlfriend.


I just took some time to let my thoughts go. I think everyone should.

 

I so do this!

If I can't sabotage it through photoshop; I usually just seduce her while he's in the other room. It's well worth an ass kicking to make sure your friends aren't happier than you. That can really make you miserable.

Plus, we just have a couple beers, I point out "bros before hos" and then we go egg her house or steal her dog or something.

It was a good rant. It really was. I read most of it, I think.

But you shouldn't ruin all of this self-exploration by denying your craziness right after getting it out there.

 

I promise you this, all that worldview will bring you is cutting out a lot of great people before you give them a shot.

 

Well you guys are picking on one part of my rant, in which, I never even mentioned them photoshopping my face or anyone's face onto fat people. So please keep in mind that I never said that I firmly believe his friends are out to get me.


For a site that's supposed to be welcoming and non-judgemental, quite a few people aren't apparently. I thought this was a Free Speech forum.

Yeah, I know. Which is why I'm trying to break it down. I'm better around his friends, I'm not all tensed up and uneasy anymore. That stuff I said above was actually things I did a little while ago. Since then, I've been trying to be more easy-going and friendly.


I know that not all people are like what I said above, trying to get what they want and not caring who they step on to get it.

 

But only by 2 paragraphs at most at a time

Its comforting to know then, that there is at least one out there

 

It's long, I know. That's why I also referred to it as rambling. I got a little carried away. I would have cut parts out to make it shorter, but on a site that is made up of a lot of people typing, I didn't think reading would be that much of an issue.


Still a little lengthy though. Shorter posts are better within reason. Noted.

 

Indeed.

 

That's how you do it. And you bring the camera. :2thumbsup:

 

*I repp'd your rant

Never got the emotional distance thing. It's very interesting. I find people that do it naturally, interesting too -- like, don't you get bored? What kinds of interactions do you really have with people? Chit chat bores me enough as it is.

Power and an asshole-front and all that ish is pretty interesting to me atm. Wonder how it all works.

 

You need to get a hold of yourself. He needs more that just you in his life, and if you are decent to his friends they might actually like you, instead of thinking that you are a psycho and advising him to turf you.

If he can't go off by himself with others, how can he miss you?

 

I am like you in many ways. I don't necessarily trust many people and I keep people at arms length.

But, I do give people a chance and as long as I don't read them as bad people or someone that I don't wanna be involved with (which does happen now and again), then I'll have a conversation with them and get a further understanding of the type of person they are.

If there is one thing I've learned in this life, its that life is really too short to be worrying about who to trust and who not to trust in this world. I don't necessarily go telling my whole life story to every person I know, but I do feel that everyone deserves a chance. You never know what you can learn from a complete stranger that has an amazing story to tell.

 

Well I don't remember saying that I don't let him go out on his own, but he does. Especially now because I've been staying with my mom to help her. He hangs out with people all the time. I can't tell you how many times he's gone disc golfing with an ex girlfriend of his. Not alone, obviously. And he isn't always disc golfing with her, he goes with his coworkers a lot too. He definitely has a life outside of me and I haven't tried to take it away.

I seem to have given people the wrong impression of myself, lol.


I don't hiss at people I don't know or trust when they try to talk to me. I'm not someone that hands my trust to a new friend on a silver platter and then takes it back when they do something to prove they don't deserve it. My trust is earned.


But I am working on it because it's impossible to earn someone's trust when twy won't give you a chance. Which I've found is basically what I do. So I'm trying to give people a chance, get to know them, and see how they treat the people around them before letting them in my "inner circle".



I do understand and appreciate your input though.

 

No no no! I wasn't saying that you are this evil horrible person that just stops trusting people.

I was saying that I also don't trust right away...people have to earn trust with me, too.

but the point I was getting at was to do exactly what you say you are trying to do-give everyone a chance unless they give you the impression that they aren't someone you'd want to know or be close to.

But yeah, don't just let every person you meet into your "trust circle." I have friends that do trust way too easily and I see them get walked all over...whereas I keep my distance and spend short amounts of time with people before beginning to trust them.

 

unless you want to make a joke about a post apparently...

 

But you make the joke at the poster's expense. That's the problem.


It was unnecessary.


I believe there's a saying that goes something like this: If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.

 

kind of at your expense, but not really. and they were kind of making a point at the same time.

nothing posted here is necessary.

if people ONLY said nice things, life would be boring as hell and a lot more mistakes and bad decisions would be made.

anyway, the only real point to my post was that it's kind of hypocritical to pull the free speech card to say that someone shouldn't be allowed to say something that you don't like.

 

My answer reflected what I gathered from your post. It sounds like you're clingy and threatened by his friends.

I don't see where I'minmyunderwear posted a joke at your expense in this thread.

 

I have clingy tendencies, but I don't act on them.


And I wasn't saying I'minmyunderwear posted a joke, they were referring to previous people that posted who were making a joke. When I said "You make the joke at the poster's expense", I wasn't specifically referring to I'minmyunderwear.