General Relationship Thread

FEED ME A CAT.

"I forgot to charge you for my services and I can't, in good conscious, offer them without giving you the price upfront."

Exactly, as an introvert, I can't afford to lose that many friends. It's hard enough making any in the first place. Funny thing is, none of them share my love of otome games, manga, anime IRL. We don't have much in common in that respect, but I get along fine with them and they're nice enough.

I always worry I'll sound like a bitch when I reject people, though : /

Work is killing me right now (so busy that I even get work dreams) that I could probably use it as an excuse if I had to.

I remember work dreams.
Most unsatisfying "sleep" to ever experience.

Totally understand about the losing friends thing, but I mean. Sometimes, there are people that just aren't worth having in your life. Would you rather have a bunch of people around that are a constant strain on you and your well-being? Seems a touch masochistic to me. You gotta realize that having just a few valuable friends is much more important than countless "friends" that don't actually qualify as friends. It's possible to be friends with people that you don't have a lot in common with, but as long as both persons involved are there for each other while still being able to tend to themselves, then it's all good. On the flip side, if you have a lot in common with someone, but they are very much TAKETAKETAKEGIMME in the "friendship", then it's not worth maintaining.
It's not.
It's not.

Work dreams aren't that bad, you could be having dreams about posting on BF and not getting any likes. Not even from Elyscape or Soli-chan. WHERE IS YOUR SELF-ESTEEM GOD NOW?

That actually sounds like you have to. If you are already that stressed out adding more is not a good idea.

It dies a little bit more every time I fail at work. Which is to say...almost everyday.

Maybe, I'm sleep deprived but I can't fall asleep and don't want to resort to pills. And if I'm going to be just lying in bed, unable to sleep, then I guess helping someone else isn't such a bad way to spend it instead. I feel like I'm not naturally "a good friend" because of my poor social cues, so I have to offer value in other ways. I'll stick to my guns this time though > _ <

That is exactly the kind of self-deprecating attitude that manipulative people will use to take advantage of you. I get where you're coming from, but a pervasive feeling of being 'not good enough' coupled with a reluctance to draw and maintain boundaries are what lead to these unhealthy situations. You have the control here.

I probably mention this too often and I apologize if I'm reading your posts wrong, but I'd read up on patterns of codependency - specifically the compliance, low self-esteem, and avoidance patterns - and see if any of that sounds familiar or applicable in your situation.

I'd just recommend not brooding so much, and to be a bit more selfish. I learn this anew every day. For context (and I have posted that before) I developed some stress related illness two years ago, at a time when I started being responsible for a few people at work. Absolutely not their fault, I was just stressing out all the time since I felt like I let them down, every day. Sleep deprivation was a rather late alarm signal that I ignored at the time. I really suggest relaxing - introverts (like you and me) will often think that they do not "get" other people, but when interviewed will many times have far keener insight into other peoples mindset than extroverts. Which is obviously a generalization, but it does tell you that most likely it is only self-doubt that stresses you out. So, relax and be a bit selfish ! It works wonders !

I think I mentioned it in this thread before but it's worth reading up on the Ben Franklin Effect if you are worried about disappointing people by not doing them favours:

In slightly longer words, people who get exploited (by doing unreciprocated "favours") often come to be viewed with contempt by the people who exploit them as they attempt to resolve the cognitive dissonance between why they are treating someone like shit and their original friendly opinion of them. By contrast the people who do favours for other people often come to believe that the person they are doing favours for must be their friend/a good person because otherwise they wouldn't be doing them so many favours.

The healthy way to respond to this of course is to make sure you maintain a rough balance of give and take with your friends, but a cynical mastermind might note that if you want to keep a large stable of friends, and are very, very lazy, then getting other people to do all your work for you has good odds of working. Unfortunately, what never works is continually doing unreciprocated favours for other people, you'll do loads of other peoples work they'll take the credit and then they'll just hate you for it afterwards.

Really good point. People with low self-esteem and/or a people-pleasing inclination are likely to accept the doing of those favors as endearing to the person requesting them, while the person requesting them is actually having the opposite reaction.

Somewhat related: the reciprocity phenomenon in social psychology may be worth reading about.

In totally unrelated news...

Pervocracy (NSFW for various reasons common to sex bloggers) wrote a blog post about a talk at UChicago about (my awkward phrasing) intentionality in sex and relationships. It's worth reading. Not just the post; the whole goddamn blog.

That blog post:
"But the things I want to share with you aren’t really about having kinky sex or having multiple partners..."
Then sixteen paragraphs about how her poly relationship is working out.

Negotiation/Communication: shockingly, it's useful for monogamous relationships and non-kinky sex?

But what if open communication is your kink?

I'm getting a semi already!

I can see it now: "Oh.. oh.. god.. yes... tell me about your feelings... oh, yeah... tell me about your childhood.. YES! YES! Sibling issues! OHHHHH---"

You laugh, but I know people with an honest-to-God consent/negotiation fetish. And those people, by and large, have partners who share it. There is someone out there for everyone, which is rather (read: entirely) heartwarming.

"You like murdering people? I like being murdered! Oh wow, this is so great!"

cockles of my heart just so toasty

90% of why Aeon has gone dark (even for weekend gaming): I'm in a stable relationship again.

Translation: seeeeeeeeeeeex and snowmen.

The other 10%: MAD AT ALL OF YOU FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.

Awesome news, chum!

I didn't realize I was on the Hardy Boys forum!

I say, old bean, jolly good show!

There's a song by Rammstein called "Mein Teil." It's based on a true story of a guy with a cannibalism fetish who hooked up with a guy who wanted to be eaten. Ah, Germany...

Aeon221! I missed you, for some bizarre reason. Congrats on getting a significant other!

Welp, it seems like my counter proposal was rejected, so free from that. Why do I still feel guilty somehow? Arghh...this always happens.

I've heard of the Ben Franklin Effect ; the more you do favours for people, the more they resent you. And the more you get other people to do favours, the more they like you. But I always feel like I owe them as the person receiving the favour. I don't resent them, just feel the fact that I consider myself in their debt.

Oh yeah, well, 10% of us are mad at you for no reason. I don't know who that 10% is, but whatever. Also, your mom.

It was nice having a break at first, but then I missed you :(

Just means you are a nice person. But 'feel' is the keyword here - you aren't. As long as you keep that in mind everything is fine.

Edit: Oops. Removed mistake, sorry.

That's funny...I forgot he existed until just now.

But...ummm....grats on the relationship!

STOP BEING MAD AT US AND COME BACK. YOU ARE REALLY COOL AND I MISS YOUR POSTS.

Edit: Oh yeah, and:

In that order?

If he's having sex with snowmen he probably is really cool. Also not a good place to get frostbite.

In that case: awesome news, assbutt.

See, we made a snow bulbasaur.

It was supposed to be a world turtle but my hands got cold.

Also in picture, me with my hands down my pants (I edited most of me out, you can just see the feet).



Yes, I'm so good I got into my own pants.

edit: My dad accused us of making a giant snow boob when I sent him the picture.

Oh yeah, I was going to give OtomeGamer advice on getting people to not ask him for help!

You mind if we take a rain check? I'm kind of tired.

Oh God

For many, many years (and many relationships) the forum that I was posting on (then Qt3, now BrokenForum) was not a forum frequented by my significant other.

Changing habits of thought is harder than changing habits of action. I still find myself writing relationship-related posts in my head as though I were pseudonymous, then catching myself doing it and what the hell, brain.

Mazel tov!