Reasons why you push people away?

Manners73 wrote:I know that I push people away. I just like doing it. It makes me feel more in control.

Used to do this routinely and recreationally, 100% of the time, until my Sicilian/Calabrese New Yawker friend, John, told me, "(Cholls), you turn, and when you turn against me, it's gonna hurt.".

Well, this wonderful, self-destructive, insanely creative smoker friend, John, is one of only a handful of people I've ever truly loved. To the core. When he dies (I'm convinced he's trying to slowly kill himself, married as he is to a supah-ambitious, social-climbin' HR representative (you heard that right) who used to prep canvases for Frank Stella), a crazy light will go out in the world. One of the finest lights ever.

I will have a much harder time denying the dead weight.

A Russian guy I met pushed me away a year or two ago, and the comeuppance actually felt good. He seemed shocked at how well I took things. Either you understand the depth or you don't.

I've got a lot of NPD "qualities". For what it's worth, I was surprised to find this (although most here are probably already familiar with the ideas being presented):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_withdrawal#Schizoid_withdrawal

I guess i do, it happens automaticly but my main reason to push people that i need away is that they misunderstand the relationship and think we are closer than i am, also with people that were closer to me i push away in every interaction, when its group interactions i try to stop the group from talking about personal things or opinions because it bores me i dont care what anybody thinks or likes, i'd rather be at home than sit through this, so in that case i push because i dont see a reason to stay, why suffer when i dont have to.

And with random interactions i try to be unapproachable, i have one word answers, if still someone approaches me i kind of decide at the first few seconds if he ever has a chance that i'd talk to him, most of the time he doesnt, personal involvement is irrelevent (if i see said person daily or watever)

I don't think this is perfectly on topic, but it just happened yesterday and I wanted to put it "somewhere."

Friend of mine from years and years ago, around college era, keeps calling me on game chat things. Relatively infrequently, and usually I have to tell him I'm going to work or something, but I'm not too particularly perturbed.

One day he calls me on a different gaming service than usual, and apparently he doesn't even know it's me. He's just contacting this account out of the blue and chatting it up, and I'm only typing to him but he's talking via the voice thing. And looking at what games I play. And I'm not aware he doesn't know it's me at first. And I make some comments like how do you not realize I played blah?

Well this christmas I went on a bit of a bender, very painful, and he chats me up and we talk and I'm more chatty than usual. I've known his life is not going good, but it's all really his own fault. He has always lived by some weird hedonistic lifestyle of extreme laziness, sleeping with anything he can get a chance with, smoking a lot of weed, and running out on anything difficult. Quit the Navy. Gets fired from or quits every job. Blah blah blah. I tell him I just want to keep playing my games, and if he wants to hang out with me, he should just play that game. He says he has no money. I say "I'll just buy you some game time for christmas, it's not a big deal. If you want to play you can play. Up to you." I do so. He plays some.

Meanwhile his conversations with me are all gross. As I mentioned, I was heavily intoxicated, and I said I was really disgusted with myself, how my skin felt, how I smelled, etc. And he was way too personally interested in it in a way that maybe is his sense of humor, but it creeped me out. He also was telling me things like he visited a mosque and "those people are different" and I told him don't go around messing with other people's religions...

So he plays for 3 days, and he is constantly wanting my attention, and I'm really busy because I have a million things I need to do as I recover from that bender, go to work, and play this game very seriously. But not just that, he has to constantly be insulting me and saying $#%^ in this guild-space about how I am not as competent at this game as I think I am (when he hasn't played with me in years and these people all depend on me regularly).

At one point he starts asking what kind of guild it is and I say "mostly an adults with jobs and kids kind of guild". He then asks if there are any single women and I say, "I don't know, I don't really worry about that kind of thing." Then he says "I'll find them out." And I tell him that we are not that kind of guild, we don't have that kind of drama, we're here to play the game and have a good time. And also anything racist or offensive in general or whatever is not welcome here. We're here to play the game, hang out about the game, etc.

And the constant berating of me doesn't bother me as a one-off thing. "Ha ha, you suck." But what he doesn't get is in this guild and on this server I have a very good reputation. People are super happy to get me in a group. I never create drama. I'm a little bit funny. I've got some minor memes going on about me, all in a good-natures way. Gaming for me is where I get to be kinda normal cause I can take it at my pace. All I ever want to do is game.

He has to keep beating that bush though. I think it's because, all things considered, my life worked out alright and he is feeling really really down on himself. He told me at one point that he feels too stupid to do the things he wants to do. I think maybe he always thought he was "better" than me or something, though I guess I wasn't aware of it. Or something else. I couldn't totally figure him.

On day 3 I demote him to our "time out" rank for all of 1 minute after a comment insulting me, which got various hoots and hollars from my guildmates. Then I promoted him back. And the guild is used to this, we had it happen twice in a night tonight. It's mostly used for things like "oh no Jerry bought all the herbs on the AH before I could!" and it's the most minor of hazing. But after he had insulted me hundreds of times over a couple days and constantly seemed to want my attention and to voice chat, I did this one thing. Then, for reasons I won't speculate at specifically, he quits the guild. Later that night he tries to voice chat me again and I just ignore it. He hasn't logged in this game since, but other games, so I wish him well. If he wanted to just play the game, I'd be glad to play with him, but I don't want to feel like I'm being used as someone's punching bag/ego nurse/attention object/etc.

Ashlar wrote:I don't think this is perfectly on topic, but it just happened yesterday and I wanted to put it "somewhere."

Friend of mine from years and years ago, around college era, keeps calling me on game chat things. Relatively infrequently, and usually I have to tell him I'm going to work or something, but I'm not too particularly perturbed.

One day he calls me on a different gaming service than usual, and apparently he doesn't even know it's me. He's just contacting this account out of the blue and chatting it up, and I'm only typing to him but he's talking via the voice thing. And looking at what games I play. And I'm not aware he doesn't know it's me at first. And I make some comments like how do you not realize I played blah?

Well this christmas I went on a bit of a bender, very painful, and he chats me up and we talk and I'm more chatty than usual. I've known his life is not going good, but it's all really his own fault. He has always lived by some weird hedonistic lifestyle of extreme laziness, sleeping with anything he can get a chance with, smoking a lot of weed, and running out on anything difficult. Quit the Navy. Gets fired from or quits every job. Blah blah blah. I tell him I just want to keep playing my games, and if he wants to hang out with me, he should just play that game. He says he has no money. I say "I'll just buy you some game time for christmas, it's not a big deal. If you want to play you can play. Up to you." I do so. He plays some.

Meanwhile his conversations with me are all gross. As I mentioned, I was heavily intoxicated, and I said I was really disgusted with myself, how my skin felt, how I smelled, etc. And he was way too personally interested in it in a way that maybe is his sense of humor, but it creeped me out. He also was telling me things like he visited a mosque and "those people are different" and I told him don't go around messing with other people's religions...

So he plays for 3 days, and he is constantly wanting my attention, and I'm really busy because I have a million things I need to do as I recover from that bender, go to work, and play this game very seriously. But not just that, he has to constantly be insulting me and saying $#%^ in this guild-space about how I am not as competent at this game as I think I am (when he hasn't played with me in years and these people all depend on me regularly).

At one point he starts asking what kind of guild it is and I say "mostly an adults with jobs and kids kind of guild". He then asks if there are any single women and I say, "I don't know, I don't really worry about that kind of thing." Then he says "I'll find them out." And I tell him that we are not that kind of guild, we don't have that kind of drama, we're here to play the game and have a good time. And also anything racist or offensive in general or whatever is not welcome here. We're here to play the game, hang out about the game, etc.

And the constant berating of me doesn't bother me as a one-off thing. "Ha ha, you suck." But what he doesn't get is in this guild and on this server I have a very good reputation. People are super happy to get me in a group. I never create drama. I'm a little bit funny. I've got some minor memes going on about me, all in a good-natures way. Gaming for me is where I get to be kinda normal cause I can take it at my pace. All I ever want to do is game.

He has to keep beating that bush though. I think it's because, all things considered, my life worked out alright and he is feeling really really down on himself. He told me at one point that he feels too stupid to do the things he wants to do. I think maybe he always thought he was "better" than me or something, though I guess I wasn't aware of it. Or something else. I couldn't totally figure him.

On day 3 I demote him to our "time out" rank for all of 1 minute after a comment insulting me, which got various hoots and hollars from my guildmates. Then I promoted him back. And the guild is used to this, we had it happen twice in a night tonight. It's mostly used for things like "oh no Jerry bought all the herbs on the AH before I could!" and it's the most minor of hazing. But after he had insulted me hundreds of times over a couple days and constantly seemed to want my attention and to voice chat, I did this one thing. Then, for reasons I won't speculate at specifically, he quits the guild. Later that night he tries to voice chat me again and I just ignore it. He hasn't logged in this game since, but other games, so I wish him well. If he wanted to just play the game, I'd be glad to play with him, but I don't want to feel like I'm being used as someone's punching bag/ego nurse/attention object/etc.

Literally, I've gotten that feeling the few times I've tried reading anything by Hunter S. Thompson



Thank you for sharing your Christmas story.

Because your friend sounds just like me throughout my twenties. It's a trip having survived being that way and then hearing the other side. And the tendency to relapse is ALWAYS there.

Reading your post was sobering.

As the Wikipedia says, "Personality disorders are a class of mental disorders characterized by enduring maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts...".

I wonder whether your friend was molested as a child, or was at the very least made a codependent by a primary caregiver.

Some of the appeal you hold for him may resemble part of the appeal my schizoid friend holds for me. You embody many of the qualities he lacks but would benefit from cultivating. Perhaps, one day, when he hits rock bottom and realizes that he must interact differently with the world, you may well serve as the closest thing to a role model he's ever had.

Cholls wrote:...Perhaps, one day, when he hits rock bottom and realizes that he must interact differently with the world, you may well serve as the closest thing to a role model he's ever had.

I tried to edit the above bit, but it was too late. What I meant to say was that the memory of how you comport yourself might eventually help your friend to surmount his current state.

He may learn; he may not. It's his call. I apologize for talking out of turn but, as I said, I was like your friend.

Where did caged go?

I don't think I normally unjustifiably push people away; however, I recently did something like this.
I made causal friends with a peer who I have a lot of differences with but our interactions were often quite enjoyable.

Our differences and everything that I found not valuable in her got louder the more other stressors, retraumatization and grief came up in my life last fall - and I no longer saw much benefit or "pay off" to the friendship.

I displaced some of my stress and grief onto her.
She was surprised, concerned, hurt, yet tolerant.
Seeing her patience/tolerance showed me that she really did have some level of value in the friendship.
^
Especially since most women are miserable ######6 bitches.

So I started backing off further and further and further.
I'm completely distant now. We only talk if we're at the same place at the same time and even then, I still do my best to avoid her (and all my peers in this situation).
Polite though and cordial with her.

Part of it is I'm ashamed that of all people I could get like that with, it had to be with one of the fair and few inbetween females that aren't @@@@@@@.
I'm never the person to be "that person"
I'm the one who ######6 hates "that person"

Part of it is I've forgotten how to be the more dysfunctional person within a dynamic. I have too much pride to be the more dysfunctional one.

Part of it is I can't guarantee I won't be an bitch right now and I don't want to have to take others into account.

The last reason is maintaining the friendship is too much work, and as valuable as she's shown her behavior to be, there's still not enough payoff (at least for now) - I place some moral judgement on myself for this.

I like when they're all at a distance.
I feel like I can breathe again.