Do you feel socially obligated by friendly people.

I've been treated mean by most butch or masculine men yet anytime a friendly butch guy is nice to me(like my mechanic) I feel obligated to take back some of my cursing out of the male gender in order to defend him.

This happens a lot with women too, if I'm being treated like crap by most girls and it's causing me to withdraw. I still feel the obligation to be nice to the select few women who are nice to me. I feel however that it's killing me, I'm tired of the few nice people I meet out of hundreds of assholes making me feel like I've done something wrong to them by not speaking or socializing much.

If they really want someone to blame for my reserved behavior, blame their friends and cohorts for god sake.

Hi dxp,

Instead of being surprised each time you encounter a nice person, try to anticipate the fact that nice people do actually exist. This way, you will be less surprised when you meet one and can reduce your urge to suddenly forgive all of the other bad people out there for being bad. Basically, assholes exist, and we will meet them most days of our lives. However, all you must do is tolerate them on as little a level as possible and, once they are no longer in your 'zone', simply stop caring about them and just get on with things.

Kevin