Haha, I like the feeling of being a theoretical person! :P If I may toot my own horn, I'm a foul-weather friend, who sticks by people in the rain. My friends & intimates frequently remark that they can open up to me. And I respond that reducing their suffering feels equally fun as increasing pleasure. Sometimes more so, since the usual pleasures get dull, and fixing suffering tends to lead to more adventure & self improvement
(I mean, you can make pleasures adventurous, like playing hide-and-seek across Italy, leaving clues. But how fun can it really be — pleasure amidst poverty?)
And thus, people love me to an extent that (I imagine) few people get loved. The pay's awful... but you can do similar to solve rich people's problems in exchange for money
Hey, I do like that you're confident, don't be afraid to say you like yourself if you do! I like myself a lot too. Even though I have flaws that I know I want to fix, the best way to go about it is not to self-pity or self-hate, because people with self-confidence show a better propensity for improvement. I guess that's why I have little patience for people that don't like themselves, because in doing so they are sabotaging their own improvement. I understand that it's not that easy to like one's self...
(I have been there before, and I only stopped because a friend pointed out that lots of people wanted me, so I was being really irrational... but I don't think people typically have that experience and are able to get out of it as easily as me. I had the typical adolescent glow up. You would have major trust issues if you've gone from being ugly to "pretty"... I used to always get bullied by men, but they suddenly started acting like I was so interesting and paying positive attention to me.) Honestly I'd love to continue talking about gendered issues with you if you were interested, I think a male perspective of this experience would be enlightening. I don't know if you do, but your other post suggests that you've read a lot of anthropology books. I've never read an ounce of Hooks yet, even though I intend to. But I have read Graeber, Diamond (unfortunately), Douglas, Marx, Weber, and some key intro texts.
Suicide by Emile Durkheim is a keystone I believe, and I think it'd be fitting if you'd want to read smth like that together? But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Apologies, I'm a bit excited to meet social scientists.
I have had much of the same experiences, but I become resentful when they become too attached to me. They love me, but I don't love them an ounce because I see them more as a patient than a friend. Doesn't it get lonely? Always being there for people, and them not being able to be there for you because they don't have the developed emotional maturity? How do you still consider them friends? Maybe our experiences with those people are different, but when I confide in the friends that I help, they often can't offer me any of the support in return, and I have to deal with everything myself. I've gotten so burnt out from all this that I've basically shut off my empathetic language and comfort at this point. Which means I'm not even helping anymore, even though they continue to seek it. I can't deal with people's rumination cycles anymore and have retreated myself into isolation and academia by choice.
I don't want to be loved anymore, I want to be able to love someone again. And I love none of the people I one-sidedly help. It's barely even help anymore, because I don't give them emotional support anymore, as a subconscious way to create distance. I miss him, my most valued friend. He would help me a lot, and I would try to be there for him the same, even though I couldn't solve the problem that made him ctb. That was the only time I could experience mutuality in that type of friendship. It was the ultimate emotional intimacy, helped by the fact that ctb was a key issue in my life back then, which I could only confide in with him. I chose wrong not to die with him. When he died, I felt so empty, but my friends weren't helpful, and it wasn't like they didn't try. But they were awfully bad at it, save for one. I can't even express that their support wasn't helping, because if I do so they'll get fucking insecure and then they'll have another issue that I'll have to reassure them about. Which means negative progress for them.
That last sentence... are you soliciting people for pay? LOL. How do you do that? I'm only asking because I'm curious. I can't have that type of dynamic with anyone unfortunately, because I'm part of the bourgeois myself. And I've learned not to anyways, because often men do things for me expecting something back. There's no generosity for generosity's sake with them.
So, I
wrote up what I greatly value from someone in a relationship
I do like your points overall, but I disagree with the last point. A shitty person that has a great relationship with you, again only from my experience, causes extreme burnout. Call me out if you think my view of those people are wrong though, sometimes I can get really pretentious and stuck up as a result of bourgeois, classist upbringing. I'm trying to work on it, but identifying it when it happens is the hard part.
From my perspective, fixing someone's problems allows us to bond in shared struggle & insinuate ourselves into each other's lives. We practice
teamwork — gaining info on how we act in difficult situations. Do we preempt mistakes? How do we fix mistakes that we didn't preempt?
This gives me a full read on their yellow & red flags, often rapidly. Giving me enough information on how to treat them
I don't understand how you can see it as something shared. I love seeing how they behave, because I can crossreference it with my biological and sociological knowledge and find fascination in how those things I've read from books occur in real life. But I don't see their problems as relatable, and therefore they're not shared. It's difficult for me to apply my textbook knowledge to me efficiently too. People can analyze the external world much better than themselves. It's so easy to understand the way Friend A thinks of human relations as reflective of Graeber's theory of "the moral grounds of economic relations" for example, but I personally don't have never shared the view, as an anti-capitalist.
I actually do enjoy being sad — in a cathartic way. BUT! Generally, when I help someone, there has to be a solution, and they have to take clear brave steps towards it. The person you responded to said "I believe I could overcome my traumas with her help." Now, you didn't ask why they think that — Yone, could you please elaborate? — but it's indeed plausible, since I've helped people do just that in relationships
What do you say when people said that they're tried everything, but it hasn't helped? And that now they just want emotional support? I'm not built for doing that a lot, really. I was just thrusted into the role of giving people emotional labor because of my gender. In my experience, I've been that person before, where I just wanted support and no improvement because it didn't work. And that's true. It didn't work. So I had given up. And I was just using others as a crutch to feel less miserable until my death date. Like a leech. I'm better now, but seeing how that was my thought process back when I did have that line of thinking, I'm really wary of people who tell me that they want emotional support AND that they've tried everything.
If you're curious about how I got out of that, I met my almost-ctb partner (the one I said was my most-valued friend), and he told me that he wished that he could live, if he even had the chance. He didn't, because he had tried every treatment from every professional out there--back then I also thought he had nothing left, but after his death my view had changed and I no longer believe professional treatment is the only way and that we had both valued it too much as the only path to get better. He thought I was lucky. I was touched, because knowing someone on a personal level who wanted what you had is different from knowing about it theoretically. His words pretty much helped me cure my depression overnight. I had negative thoughts, but immediately brushed them away and paid no mind to them, replacing them with the want to be cured. My life is still not very good because of what happened while I was depressed, but that's okay. I will push through despite that setback. He was just an internet stranger, but he changed my life irrevocably because I was supposed to be dead by now (I did seek him as a ctb partner after all) and now I'm alive. Something about the connection was just instant, and I can't describe why his words and recovery advice awakened something in me that nobody else did, but it did nonetheless. I don't think I will ever be able to love someone as much as I loved him, because a would-be ctb partner that saves your life is kind of a once in a lifetime thing. That's also another part of why I'm so impatient with people who are struggling like that, because for me to stop being depressed, all I had to do was to stop paying attention to my negative thoughts and pain. My experience tells me that to stop being depressed it's really just that easy, even though I know logically that my experience is very atypical.
My apologies, you're right that I should've asked if I had cared to understand them. I admittedly didn't because I didn't intend to interact with them again, only replying to express my opinion on that idea. Tbf, not every disagreement with someone is for the purpose of helping them improve or the want to be persuasive and change their mind haha. I mean, isn't a person who has experienced something more qualified to talk about whether or not the experience is worthwhile rather than someone who is not? I get that it does come off as the person not valuing it enough. Because they are able to obtain it, so if they are single it's single by choice. And said person who says that it's very important doesn't have it not-by-choice.
But yes, that said, your position is closer to the Redpill community, which does advocate you fix yourself & provide value, so you can pull high-quality and/or multiple gals. Because (maybe depending where you live) most women are consumerist pleasure-seekers who want a strong, daring man who's got their shit together. They may value loyalty & kindness — but often at a much lower priority than (say) status
Personally though, I prioritize caring about those who care about others. So, if a guy wants a (rare) gf who values morality over Instagram pleasures — I would advise him to practice helping others. And develop his intellect by teaching others. And even then, since a quality gf's rare, there's no guarantees. But at least that's another path to dragging yourself out of your traumas: helping others. Becoming a lovable person, a person who can
genuinely love even himself
Wow, I didn't know my opinion could be close to any right wing community, that's funny haha. I'd say it's more accurate that most women want all three at once. They won't just settle for status without the other two with it. I thought that status was preferred, but optional though. But again, maybe that's just me, as a bougie asshole who doesn't perceive many people as higher status than me. I haven't read any reputable books about this, so I can't say what the average woman is actually like and am just pulling from opinion. I actually hate people who are interested in gaining more 'status' though because I don't believe a better society should have hierarchy, and have embraced some Marxist beliefs. Even though I don't identify as a Marxist because of some other beliefs. It's hard for us to imagine since we grew up in societies with hierarchy, but many societies have existed without hierarchy just fine.
I haven't thought of that, but it intuitively makes so much sense! That you can approach the self-hatred problem from outside-in rather than inside-out! I admittedly am terrible at coming up with my own ideas, which is why I read so many books.
I recall you mentioned in another thread that you're on the asexual spectrum?
Yep, I'm on the asexual spectrum so perhaps I can't speak for sexuality. Sex makes me act and feel silly and laugh more than anything pleasurable, and I do mean silly in a good way. But I'm not aromantic, and I have felt strong romantic attraction towards my partners. I do fall in love, and I will admit that I think I fell for my friend that I never had a romantic relationship with, but I would say that doesn't fall under "romantic" because our attitudes towards one another were purely under the relation of friendship. Not that I wouldn't have wanted to have more than that, but even as is it was already enough, the friendship was better than any romantic relationship I've ever had.
Many thanks for the good-spirited response, I did enjoy reading an alternate perspective of what it's like to help someone out.
but I hope she's able to overcome them, and that you guys find your peace 
