Introspection. Feh.
Oct. 19th, 2005 03:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aquabeanFrom an email conversation with someone who might actually recognize it when they see it. Cleaning out my inbox and it was discovered... sometimes I say these things that are applicable in so many ways, to so many things.
At some point along the line we decided that even friendship is inherently selfish. There are those who feel that people take part in relationships because we care about them when really, you and I feel that we do it because we want them to care about us.
This isn't to say we don't care. We do. It's simply that often times our ability -- desire? -- to care is directly proportional to the amount we perceive others care for us. Because we admit we're unsure of our relationship to the rest of the world, to the people around us, we then view all attention directed our way, with inherent suspicion. We don't trust our own feelings for others, we certainly can't trust their feelings for us.
At some point along the line we decided that even friendship is inherently selfish. There are those who feel that people take part in relationships because we care about them when really, you and I feel that we do it because we want them to care about us.
This isn't to say we don't care. We do. It's simply that often times our ability -- desire? -- to care is directly proportional to the amount we perceive others care for us. Because we admit we're unsure of our relationship to the rest of the world, to the people around us, we then view all attention directed our way, with inherent suspicion. We don't trust our own feelings for others, we certainly can't trust their feelings for us.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-25 02:51 am (UTC)I use to have this paranoid fear that I was the girl who no one liked, but who no one wanted to hurt by telling her to leave. You know. The one who no one really cares if she sits at the lunch table, or if she talks to you in class, but it's annoying to have to spend time with her outside. I dealt with it by appreciating any time people wanted to spend with me, but never pressing for anything more. So I'd talk to them, go to movies, go to lunch, have phone conversations, etc, etc, but I'd never intiate anything myself, because I didn't want them to feel like they had to say yes. I got over it, mostly, when I realized that acting that way was actually losing me more friends than it was keeping, since everyone thought I didn't like them. But I spent too many years doing it to be entirely over it; I still hardly ever will start an IM conversation or a phone call, and I pretty much never start conversations with people I don't know.
So, um, yeah. Heh. I totally know where you're coming from.