Well, so much for love.....

[solarion]

One way or the orther you're going to see to it that it's my fault, aren't you.

Look at how you chose to word that sentence.

I am not "seeing to it that it's your fault", it doesn't affect me one way or another, as I've nothing to gain or lose here. I am not making you into a victim or keeping you a victim, you're doing that on your own...sir.

[tampitump]

Look at how you chose to word that sentence.

I am not "seeing to it that it's your fault", it doesn't affect me one way or another, as I've nothing to gain or lose here. I am not making you into a victim or keeping you a victim, you're doing that on your own...sir.

This made me laugh so hard I 'bout coughed a lung up with this strep throat I'm having now!

My response is, no I'm not volunteering for these scenarios to be like this. I've given my best effort on just about every occassion to be confident and sociable. That's the reason for the puzzlement and for me being here. It doesn't add up to me. I blamed myself for years, but now I've retracted that. I nolonger blame myself entirely. Well, at least not my attitude in social settings. I don't know what to blame now.

[basilandthyme]

You might be giving your best effort, but perhaps you're still missing the mark. Or coming in somewhere sideways of the mark. This is yet another reason that professional help may be of use - a person who can tell you where it's going wrong.

However, it's also worth realising that some others can be rude and it's not about us. The girl who put her hand in your face - there's just no excuse for her behaviour. Even if you *were* being obnoxious (I'm not assuming this is the case) she should have least said "will you quit with the X discussion".

When I'm out with my friends, we always take care to make sure each person in the group is involved in conversation. With my husband's friends, it's survival of the fittest with people breaking in to their own private conversations and completely ignoring a person sitting next to them or across the table. (Sound familiar?) I think this conversation style is rude, but hubby seems to think it's normal. Because his friends do this, I just try and hang out with people who include all in their conversations.

[Wakeup]

This made me laugh so hard I 'bout coughed a lung up with this strep throat I'm having now!

My response is, no I'm not volunteering for these scenarios to be like this. I've given my best effort on just about every occassion to be confident and sociable.

See... that's why you need therapy or to hire a Life Coach... Your "best effort" is either not the right kind of "effort" or it's tooooooo much of an effort and it becomes off-putting. You need professional guidance in one form or another.

When you do the same thing over and over again and expect different results... well to Einstein you are displaying insanity. To me, you're volunteering to get the same results you've always gotten.

[solarion]

This made me laugh so hard I 'bout coughed a lung up with this strep throat I'm having now!

You're welcome.

Streptococcus is that still a thing? Jeepers, you can get fish antibiotics without a doctor's "permission" that'll make those bugs dead for about what a nasty big mac costs.

[TheEvilJester]

That is not for you, me, or the OP to decide and at any rate cannot be altered...so why waste energy worry about it?

I definitely agree with not wasting energy worrying about it. All I'm saying is, yeah, there's no debate that something like that (at least assuming there is nothing missing from the story we were given) is 100% unacceptable, and it is my personal opinion that the world would be a much better place with a few less people like that crawling around getting their scum everywhere. I also think sometimes the attitude of "Why let it bother you? Just ignore them" is short-sighted, unhelpful, and unfair. No matter how much you may tell yourself things like "Well, F her then! She's a loser and if she can be that rude she's somebody I don't want in my life anyway...." No matter how much you may know it isn't worth a second thought.... $h*t like that hurts. It hurts your feelings. Even if just a very little bit, it still hurts. For those of us like myself or tampitump who have lived with this kind of crap our whole lives, it hurts even worse because it just reinforces the negative images we have of ourselves that we fight so hard to get over.

Honestly, sometimes I think it is healthy to just be honest with yourself and get P*$$ED the Hell off. Mind you, OF COURSE, I'm not saying you waste energy dwelling on it too much, or that you actually do or say something to her in revenge. I think you let it go, forget this sorry excuse for a human being, but I think you allow yourself to be angry. You allow yourself, for just a little while to think in your own mind "Who the Hell does she think she is to treat me like that?!" (Personally, in my case that involves imagining all manner of torturous things she deserves to have happen to her, but I'd never waste my time or freedom to actually do.) THEN you let go.

Like the Terminator once said. LOL! Anger is more useful than despair. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I disagree with your attitude of why let it bother you. That IS the right attitude to take. It's just, sometimes it DOES bother you, and you can't help that. So, better to deal with it healthfully to your own self, get over it, and THEN move on.

Anyway, responding now to the rest of this thread.

I could be wrong, but I don't think anybody is meaning to make this your fault. This is NOT your fault. Trust me, I know from experience that when this has been your life, it can be hard not to just come to expect it. Without really meaning to, and without realizing your are doing it, you start reinforcing it yourself. The problem is you need to realize what you may be doing that is reinforcing these things to keep happening to you (albeit, unintentionally) and learn how to stop. Believe me, even that won't instantly fix things, and that is specifically because this ISN'T your fault. It will just erase the things you may not realize you are doing that are turning people away, so that you can better recognize when people around you just aren't good people. In turn, that will make it easier to find the good people.

I think the fact that you are here at least shows that part of you wants to do something to fix this. At least that is something. So, fight for yourself. You don't deserve to have to live like this. You deserve to be happy. If you give up, how is that ever going to happen? If there is even a chance, isn't that chance worth fighting for with everything you have? If a professional can help you achieve that, why not give them a chance? You seem rather set on not seeking help. I wish you'd reconsider, but if not that is your decision. But, at least do something to fight for yourself. I don't know what that would be. It is different for all of us. But, you don't deserve to live like this, so why let the rest of the world tell you that you don't have a choice. You DO have a choice. So, go TAKE your piece of the pie.

[solarion]

Yay, my sentence inspired a book. lol

I also think sometimes the attitude of "Why let it bother you? Just ignore them" is short-sighted, unhelpful, and unfair.

I don't. At. All. What other attitude is there? You'll never ever figure out exactly why *that* girl behaved in *that* fashion at *that* moment...so who cares? Maybe her dog was hit by the garbage man earlier that day. Maybe the OP reminds her of her ex BF that dumped her an hour prior...who knows. The only thing I am sure of, based on the information provided, is that it had little or nothing to do with the OP. Any other extrapolations are meaningless ego/expectation games and accomplish nothing productive.

[laura alexandra]

find out about your boyfriend here

sendquiz.com/show/46271/can-we-guess-whether-you-are-a-type-of-a-person-who-is-faithful-with-love-or-on-the-contrary-q1

[TheEvilJester]

Yay, my sentence inspired a book. lol



I don't. At. All. What other attitude is there? You'll never ever figure out exactly why *that* girl behaved in *that* fashion at *that* moment...so who cares? Maybe her dog was hit by the garbage man earlier that day. Maybe the OP reminds her of her ex BF that dumped her an hour prior...who knows. The only thing I am sure of, based on the information provided, is that it had little or nothing to do with the OP. Any other extrapolations are meaningless ego/expectation games and accomplish nothing productive.

LOL! Oh, in fairness only half of that book was in response to your bit. ;-) Plus, if you consider THAT a book, you haven't been around here long enough. LOL! I can WRITE.

Here's the thing, though, solarion... I don't think what you are saying is really all that different from what I am saying. I do agree you shouldn't waste time dwelling on why would somebody do that to you. Again, you are correct. Without being a mind reader, you would never be able to answer that question. All I am saying is that it isn't always as simple as just saying "Oh well. No sweat off my nose." It isn't always as simple as just moving on and forgetting it. Sometimes, no matter how much you intellectually know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.... No matter how much you know that person isn't worth a millisecond of your thought.... You can't help that it still hurts, and you can't help that it continues to bother you even when you know you should just let it go. When that sort of $h*t becomes basically the story of your life, it gets very hard to just "turn the other cheek."

So, trying to just ignore it completely and brush it off starts to become more a case of shoving it in an over-stuffed closet rather than a case of actually letting it go. Eventually, that closet is going to explode and pour out all the crap you've been trying to close up in there. Sometimes, it is actually healthy to just allow yourself to be angry..... constructively angry, that is. NOT destructively angry. In other words, not angry enough to do or say something stupid to the person/people who have wronged you. Not angry enough to hurt anybody, or cause property damage, or anything crazy like that. I'm just saying, angry enough to stew a little bit and think "That person really has some f-ing nerve to treat me like that!" (These days, I throw my anger into my workouts and it feels AWESOME.)

Believe it or not, sometimes it can be healthy for you to get your anger out in small, constructive doses. Take it from somebody who knows from experience. Bottling it up is not a good idea, and is not healthy.

Anyways, blah blah blah. You guys know me by now. I could go on and on. To sum up, I do very much agree with the attitude of letting it go. I am just saying I know from experience that it isn't always as easy as just "letting it go." Sometimes it just gets to be too much and you need to let it out a little. It's just about learning when and how to let it out in a healthy way so it doesn't eat away at you, but you also don't blow up at somebody.

In many ways, I think this may be part of what is happening to Tampitump. This kind of unacceptable treatment has become so commonplace to him that he is beginning to almost expect it. So, instead of being constructively angry and realizing, to Hell with that person, he does NOT deserve that, he's allowing it to eat up at him and start to make him believe he does. It becomes a vicious cycle that can feel impossible to get out of if you don't fight for yourself.

[solarion]

You can't help that it still hurts.

That's just it though. How does a simple hand gesture and a couple words from an otherwise complete stranger upset someone? The answer is, that it's not about them, it's about yourself. It's a sore point for you(and/or our hero the OP) because you(and he) question your own worth. So when someone behaves rudely, such as waving a dismissive hand at you, you assume they're motivated by their assessment of your worthiness...when that may not be the case at all. Perhaps they're just unpleasant people or having a horribad day and are behaving uncharacteristically self-involved.

While bottling up anger is not good, figuring out why you're upset at all and letting it go when it's beyond your control is even better in my experience.

[TheEvilJester]

Ah. And here I think we ARE saying exactly the same thing. That is exactly what I am saying as well. If we were talking about an otherwise typical person it would be different. Say I'm Johnny Normal-Guy. I've got a nice, healthy self-esteem and have never really had much problem making friends, having girlfriends, etc. Then, this same exact thing happens to me. It sucks, but after like a millisecond, I move on and I sincerely couldn't give a crap.

On the other hand, now say I'm Billy Introvert. I'm ridiculously shy, and to make matters worse, I've been teased, bullied, and ostracized my whole life. Despite my best efforts (which, as shy as I am, it was so much harder to make the effort) I'm always treated like an outsider. The same thing that Johnny Normal-Guy brushed off like it meant nothing.... it really bothers me. It hurts my feelings and, try as I might to just forget it, it gets me down. It becomes harder and harder not to start believing I just deserve that kind of treatment. Becomes harder to believe I deserve to be happy. Things like this happen to me all the time. It isn't like just one isolated incident. It becomes harder and harder not to be affected by it all.

Again, hence why sometimes I think it is better to let the anger out in small, healthy doses. Like I said, sort of taking an attitude like "How DARE somebody have the audacity to treat me like that. I DON'T deserve that." You see how the Terminator is right? Anger is more useful than despair. Instead of thinking things like "Why am I such a loser? What do I keep doing to deserve this?" You are instead focusing on thoughts like "I DON'T deserve this, and I'm going to stop letting people like that effect how I feel about myself."

You can only brush stuff off for so long before it gets to be too much. The trick is A) Realizing that you DON'T deserve to be treated that way and B) Learning to avoid people like that and surround yourself with positive people who really do deserve to be breathing the same air as the rest of us.

Otherwise you fall into a trap where you just believe you deserve the poor treatment you receive, so you carry yourself (without really realizing it) in such a negative air that people continue to treat you poorly. Vicious cycle, that. It's all about breaking that cycle.

[solarion]

I've never met this "Johnny Normal-Guy" character, but I see your point. I take your point to be that we're looking at this from two different perspectives and that does seem to be the case. Perhaps for our perspectives to converge, in your analogy, you'd have to empty your closet and keep it that way for some while to see how futile it is to put things in there in the first place.

[tampitump]

The person was belittling me and being rude. It's not fair just to call it a "hand gesture". And stop calling me the "hero". The smart-assery is not very flattering of you. You are also belittling me by saying that.

I came here to just vent about my problems. No specific goal in mind or purpose. I have no desire to have a relationship and that's the God's honest truth. I'm asking these questions here because I'm simply puzzled as to why I've always been treated this way, both by women and many others. Many instances seemed to me to be no fault of my own. However, I could be wrong. There have been certain characteristics of myself I've noticed shine in public that aren't good and I have worked to overcome them. The scenarios I've given you have involved me behaving normal and confident in social situations. I have many more I could tell of too. That's it.

[solarion]

The person was belittling me and being rude. It's not fair just to call it a "hand gesture".

So what? Doubtless we could all come up with a few stories. Heck, I was once flipped off in rush hour traffic. People can be self-involved jerks...you don't have to build your life around it.

[tampitump]

Who says I'm building my life around it? All I said was that this particular event was unkind and unconventional for most people in social situations. It upset and confused me. Getting flipped off in traffic is much more expected and far less hurtful than being harshly rejected and ostracized in social situations. Especially when there's no apparent explanation to why these people hate you so much they would go to such extremes to keep you away from them. The girl certainly did not appear to be havig a bad day when I first walked up. But then again, it's possible my perception of reality is distorted or perhaps markedly different conpared to everyone else and maybe she was actually very upset and sad. That's the only theory I can come up with, maybe my perception of reality is so vastly different that I see a totally different picture of reality than others. That would explain so many things that have happened in my life. Like when I get a haircut and it looks fine and normal to me but everyone else tells me it looks crazy or strange. Stuff like that, it's always seemed to happen to me. It's gotten to the point where I just don't worry about what to think, I just do whatever seems right to me.