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The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone k

The article talks about his ability to be friendly to strangers but abusive to his long term acquaintances. I have observed this pattern and curious if anyone knows what drives this? My personal theory is that you have some sort of obligations to long term acquaintances but you owe nothing to strangers on the trail. It's this feeling of obligation that leads you to resent people over time.

alfl 6y ago
Could be politeness as a response to social uncertainty followed by aggression once things are more clear. Like how some people fight with loved ones because they can’t just walk.
bagacrap 6y ago
It's a trademark of sociopathy to be superficially charming.
lolbrels 6y ago
I think introverts have a tendency to shut down when relationships get too involved and outside of their comfort zone. Shallow acquaintances are usually just to make an impression and there are no pre-conceived notions so it's easier to be more comfortable having a quick interaction with someone you'll never see again. Maybe because it feels fresh and there isn't any baggage. I didn't particularly like the ex-girlfriends responses regarding him because I think speaking ill of the dead is lame when they aren't there to give their side of the story. Also, it sounded like she has issues of her own - which for someone who is already suffering with mental illness, trying to care for another person who also has mental illness is just a fool's errand. But often time these sort of relationships happen where there is so much negativity but due to illness both parties continue with it despite that.
at-fates-hands 6y ago
Agreed. Its the idea that the more you learn about people and have to be around them, you start to judge them and then realize they aren't like you, so you push them away and crater relationships on purpose so you can be alone and unencumbered by other people's problems. It sounds to me like he did just that. Easier to have short-term relationships and human contact when you need it, but not long enough where you start to get bitter about having to continue being around people you don't like. He created a world that seemed to fit his personality better than what he had been doing most of his life. It must have been beneficial in some way if he continued doing it for so long.
- tppiotrowski 6y ago
  > But soon he started to clam up and shut her out. “If something upset him, he would stop talking to me completely. Which can be lonely when you share a 500-square-foot apartment,” she says. You definitely get the sense that he just wanted to be alone at times. Hard to do that when you're in a long term relationships because you have to adjust to some else's schedule. Easier when your acquaintances are short-term.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    And still no reason to treat people like crap, as he apparently did.
polishdude20 6y ago
Could be the fact that strangers don't know you so they can't judge you. Your long term friends and family know you possibly better than you do. Being around friends and family can be a great way to learn about yourself. The problem is, some people see themselves and hate it.
typefourpd 6y ago
This is indicative of a personality disorder. My father had BPD and behaved this way. My mother was borderline and behaved this way. People like this do not behave abusively towards their loved ones all the time, it's pretty on-and-off. The loved one is typically a dependent or avoidant. They remain in the relationship because they need the positive affirmations, and healthy people do not want to be with a dependent or avoidant. So, no choice but to suffer the negativity also. It's clear that this man developed a personality disorder as the result of suffering abuse as a child.
- tartoran 6y ago
  > It's clear that this man developed a personality disorder as the result of suffering abuse as a child. I'd say that is pretty hard to tell from the hearsay and all these are just speculations, which are okay. We're learning more from these conversations anyway.
  - typefourpd 6y ago
    Thank you for your gentle and respectful method of disagreement. I agree that my assumption was based on hearsay. Fundamentally, I don't believe that children who are loved and protected by their primary caregivers shoot themselves in the stomach in an attempt to die.
    - tartoran 6y ago
      You're welcome. Mental health is a very misunderstood topic because it is something we cannot directly peer into and the stigma associated with mental health makes people hide it very well. It is possible to have a who child goes off the rails in a very nurturing and a generally normal family. I've seen cases where one of the many siblings gets to become a sociopath and the family never understands why and they continue to be normal and consistently try to get their sibling back on track. It is clear that abuse in the family doesn't always play a role. But quite often it does and while mental health has a hereditary component, a bad environment only makes things worse. I recommend Ramsay's movie 'We need to talk about Kevin' to make an idea of how wrong it could go. Surely, it is a movie but it's not too far from reality.
fsckboy 6y ago
there is a broad class of psychological problems called "personality disorders" and they're basically "spectrum" disorders, there's no one size fits all diagnosis for anybody, and even skilled practitioners go through a tricky and time consuming process of diagnosing patients directly, i.e. we can't diagnose him from here based on 2nd hand information, and especially because we are not skilled practitioners. wrt your "personal theory" (sense of obligation leads to resentment), that's too simplistic, but for the sake of argument, let's say you are on the right track, here's how to improve your understanding of personality disorders: all people feel the resentment of obligations to those close to them. That part is actually the normal part. The question is, why doesn't the person with this disorder (we are hypothesizing) feel the other positive parts of a close relationship that help a better adjusted person feel in balance, and then take the normal resentment of obligations in stride.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  This doesn't apply to all personality disorders. Schizotypal and paranoid personality disorders do not have this behavior at all.
losteric 6y ago
Perhaps some form of social anxiety or avoidant attachment? It's easy to be friendly (or an asshole) in brief superficial interactions, but longer interactions lead people to intimacy that some find undesirable... fear of rejection can present as hostility (essentially proactive rejection).
forgetfulness 6y ago
Reading the article he was someone who was prone to neglect people close to him. I wouldn't look for an explanation that applies to everyone for that behavior. I've known people closely people like that, there's a selfishness to their lack of acknowledgement of others' needs and wants, but it's more of a drive to do that than a reaction to their existence; if and when they have nobody else to hollow out with their negativity and neglect, they'll turn it on themselves, and over time there will be just less and less of themselves. Notwithstanding that they can be charming on a superficial level. There's lots of ways people can have that pattern of being a completely different beast to strangers than to intimate partners in a bad way. Say on the other end the ones that make their whole world about you, but that specially means that every single bad feeling of theirs will be offloaded or straight up blamed on you.
jgilias 6y ago
I believe it's called a mask. People with some personality disorders gradually develop a sort of behavioral mask to wear in public in order to fit in into the wider society and be able to achieve one's goals. However, having it 'on' is apparently taxing, so it comes off around people who are in one way or another part of some inner circle for whom there's no point to pretend.
- kayodelycaon 6y ago
  That’s what I call it. I’ve been hiding being bipolar since I was nine years old. I had a significant personality change after a psychotic break and most people don’t think I’ve changed. I know I have.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    How do you know you've changed and it's not just the perception of how you see yourself post the event? Did you change your thinking patterns as well? If you're uncomfortable to share that's more than okay and very understandable.
    - kayodelycaon 6y ago
      Love to. I’m a card-carrying member of the Over-sharers Club The way I think and care about people has changed. I no longer care what people think about me. At the same time, I have a depth of compassion and empathy I couldn’t have had before. I have no obligation to anyone. This lets me choose to care about someone without getting unnecessarily attracted. As a result, I can share my love and support freely without worrying about people taking advantage of me. I have no guilt showing people the door. As a result of this, my motivations have changed. To use a metaphor, I see myself as a light in a dark world. My goal is to make everyone’s day a little better. I’m not some kind of savior, though I have saved lives. I’m just a “good person” trying to do “good things”. My interests have changed in odd ways. I’d never have written erotica but sex is far more interesting to me now. This isn’t a result of me being repressed. I’ve always been asexual and been hypersexual since I was nine. But now I’m deeply exploring sexuality in my writing. The last one is both odd and the most fundamental to my being. Just take it at face value. I had a deep, spiritual connection with wolves from six years old until my break. That connection was a core part of me and without it, I wouldn’t have known who I was. That connection is gone and I really don’t care about it. As far as I’m concerned, it was delusional thinking. I no longer have the spirituality that was such a part of me. There is only the rational world now. (Side note: My faith in God had always been rational, not emotional or spiritual.) If I had to guess, I think sexuality took the place of spiritually in my brain. It’s quite possible I haven’t changed as much as I think, but the world inside my head is so vastly different, I can’t understand the person I was before.
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
He wasn’t abusive to his roommate or coworkers, so the divide wasn’t stranger/close acquaintance. Sorry to spell it out, and I don’t expect any sympathy for it, but the pattern was man/woman.
- tartoran 6y ago
  I highly doubt the pattern was as you put it man/woman. That pattern seems to indicate that he was more abusive to people who were closer to him.
nineplay 6y ago
It is sadly typical and can result in something a friend of mine experienced. She left her husband, told friends that he was abusive, and the general response was "Him? But he's such a great guy! You must be lying." ( Fortunately for her, the friends who attempted to console him pretty soon noticed how violent he got when he talked about her. When he threw a glass at the wall at a friend's apartment, she started getting a lot of apologies. ) It's almost an adaptive behavior. If they were violent to strangers, they wouldn't have long term acquaintances.
S_A_P 6y ago
Maybe this is oversharing, but maybe not. I have shades of this in myself. I have a much smaller friend group than many folks and a cynical take on most peoples motivations. I can say that some of why I feel this way is just "how Im bent" and some is from childhood experiences of having my trust betrayed or my naivety taken advantage of. Throw in a bit of unpredictable mom behavior and I generally dont want to owe anything to anyone. When I first meet people Im more than happy to share, give of myself, etc. Usually I will either feel that gestures are not reciprocated, or taken for granted, so I pull back. Ive wondered if I feel like Im expecting too much of my generosity and I think Ive been guilty of that before. At this point though I think I have reflected enough and changed to where this is not the case. Long term- I feel like being social requires me to "be on" which is exhausting to me. I would rather only see people when I can be decent company so I end up seeing people much less than more socially adept folks...
- adamc 6y ago
  You might just be an HSP: https://www.amazon.com/Highly-Sensitive-Person-Thrive-Overwhelms/dp/0806540575/ https://www.amazon.com/Highly-Sensitive-Person-Thrive-Overwh... I've had this problem in many contexts. Some of it stems from childhood circumstances, but it's also that I often read people better than they seemingly know themselves, i.e., noticing anger that they don't think they have. This can cause a lot of stress.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
    From the about portion of that, it mostly reads like symptoms of people with Schizoid Personality Disorder or Avoidant Personality Disorder. While it can be a good survival trait in the grand scheme of things, culturally in the US it's as useful as being born poor.
    - adamc 6y ago
      It's pretty different. My kid had it, and there were some things we did early to help him study, but nothing like either of those disorders. It's more tied to very high empathy. However, you do have to learn how to avoid taking on other people's emotional burdens.
adamredwoods 6y ago
There could also have been some trauma/abuse with parents/family. The author of the story seemed to suggest something happened between him and the father.
elmomle 6y ago
I think it comes from liking people a priori, but having a habituated expectation that the people we know will take from us (our happiness, our time, etc.)--so that one can't feel safe to be oneself with those one knows. IMO this expectation typically comes from childhood and can best be mitigated via mindfulness.
zajio1am 6y ago
Seems to me that there are two factors: 1) If you are weird, then you have mismatched expectations about relationships (and other social obligations) than majority society. Not providing something that is expected would be 'neglect', while expecting something that is not provided would be 'entitlement'. Social rules with strangers or casual acquaintances are much simpler. 2) Being in some kind of deep relationship means emotional stakes are higher. Perceived violations due to (1) causes higher emotional damage if they are from someone near than someone distant.
nemonemo 6y ago
My theory about what might have governed his behavior: boredom. He was designing a game, which is a system designed to mitigate the boredom issue. Knowing people better could make them boring to one's eye -- there are familiar patterns, and not much interesting new patterns developed. Nature has a lot of interesting new patterns.. but maybe he eventually got bored out of that too.
Neil44 6y ago
Need for approval maybe. Skilled at getting approval from strangers. Once in a relationship that disappears.
throwstranger 6y ago
From experience, I would explain it by an inability to accept others, which could be traced to perfectionism and low self-esteem. With long term acquaintances, you start to notice imperfections. If you have a low self-esteem, you could develop this peronality where you are constantly judging others, and trying to control and make them perfect, because they are part of your life. This could have been caused by constant criticism received during childhood, or abusive parents who were themselves perfectionist in treating you, and didn't show enough acceptance, pride and love.
ksdale 6y ago
I think there may be an element of survivorship bias at play. There's kind of a 2x2 you can draw where people can be publicly/privately kind/abusive. People who are kind all the time (or at least, not abusive all the time) are unremarkable, I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind, and people who are both publicly and privately abusive are way more likely to end up in prison, or homeless, or otherwise away from people. So that leaves us noticing the strange pattern of people who are publicly kind and privately abusive. It's like, the most remarkable pattern that's actually present for us to remark upon.
- throwaway713 6y ago
  > I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind Gordon Ramsay perhaps?
  - Frondo 6y ago
    I've watched a lot of his shows and have developed a kind of celebrity respect for him, enough that I've gone on and read interviews with him and with people in his orbit (like the restauranteurs featured on his shows.) Turns out a lot of people say he's actually far kinder than you'd think, off-camera, to all the people he's seemingly abusive to! All the yelling and vitriol is kind of a spliced-down highlights reel, is the impression I've gotten, the stuff that makes for good tv. It's there and it's real, but it's a smaller part of a guy who's generally nice and genuinely cares about the people on his shows. Good suggestion though.
- tekromancr 6y ago
  I think you can find people who are publicly abusive and privately kind in online communities. I just finished listening to a podcast called My Year in Mensa, which centers around an unmoderated Mensa facebook group, and the author's interactions with them. As you can imagine from an unmoderated community, it sucks and a lot of people say shitty things there. A common refrain the author heard from people defending the group is "They're the nicest people in real life!", which may absolutely be the case, but publicly, they are presenting abusive versions of themselves.
dspillett 6y ago
Or it could be novelty in the new people overpowering any more negative thoughts. The novelty falls off leaving the other to show through.
rel-throwaway 6y ago
I struggle with this in my personal life. To most friends and acquaintances I can be friendly, personable, interesting, and engaging when we meet. But at home, with close family, and especially with my wife I struggle to be that person. My default state is that I mostly want to be left alone. All the people closest to me seem to want something -- time, attention, help, emotional support etc. none of which I seem to need from anybody else and leads to annoyance and resentment on my part. It doesn't help that I have a particularly stressful job managing a large team with silly interpersonal issues and politics that I have to deal with. My wife and I have our good moments, are good parents (I think), but day to day is such a struggle. It is constant cycle of me wanting to be left alone and her wanting something or the other from me and getting annoyed that I show reluctance to do it leading to resentment on both sides. Not sure how to fix it or where to turn to for help. I am not an angry person and I don't physically yell or hurt her but she has said that me being reluctant with most things is a form of emotional abuse, which after reading this concerns me and is cause for introspection.
- throwaway6299 6y ago
  How strange, just created an account to say that I am the same way and was thinking about this a lot last night. (Although, I don’t think I am emotionally abusive, as I feel my spouse demands things that are entirely unreasonable, like frequently asking me to leave work in the middle of the day to come help with something or buying a house and dog when we had less than $1,000 in our account). All I wanted my whole life was a happy family with a happy relationship like my parents had. That didn’t happen and now all I want is to be left alone, and it’s like everyone wants something from me but I don’t need or want anything from them. I have a great job now, so the only thing I look forward to each day is hopefully reaching financial independence before I’m 40. At least then I can “buy” some alone time.
  - demadog 6y ago
    She’s likely wanting your presence and testing your loyalty or something? Definitely would help to see a couples therapist but if not, I think setting clear boundaries - like work time is work time - but also scheduling time together would put her at ease and prevent random requests.
brobinson 6y ago
"Familiarity breeds contempt"?
cgriswald 6y ago
I had an ex that was sort of like this. She wasn’t necessarily abusive, but she needed everyone to like her and the people that already did she didn’t have to do anything to impress. I interpreted it as a deep insecurity resulting in really fake behavior: a mask as a sibling poster said.
a2tech 6y ago
I think its easy to lice in a shell you create for yourself 10-12 hours a day. Its harder to live that life with people you're around all the time. My Dad for instance was well liked at his job and in the community. As soon as he left work and those people behind the smiles and jokes stopped and he was just mean and quiet with a temper that was never far from reach. I think the person he was at work was the person he wanted to be, but the person he was with us was his true self. Its either that or he truly hated my mother, my brother, and myself.
josepmdc 6y ago
I think it's because when you spend a lot of time with someone, you start to notice all of their annoying quirks you don't usually see when you just met them. So after a while you start to get tired and annoyed of them, and the way to deal with it is with anger.
foobiekr 6y ago
That theory really seems sensible to me.

alfl 6y ago

Could be politeness as a response to social uncertainty followed by aggression once things are more clear. Like how some people fight with loved ones because they can’t just walk.

bagacrap 6y ago

It's a trademark of sociopathy to be superficially charming.

lolbrels 6y ago

I think introverts have a tendency to shut down when relationships get too involved and outside of their comfort zone. Shallow acquaintances are usually just to make an impression and there are no pre-conceived notions so it's easier to be more comfortable having a quick interaction with someone you'll never see again. Maybe because it feels fresh and there isn't any baggage. I didn't particularly like the ex-girlfriends responses regarding him because I think speaking ill of the dead is lame when they aren't there to give their side of the story. Also, it sounded like she has issues of her own - which for someone who is already suffering with mental illness, trying to care for another person who also has mental illness is just a fool's errand. But often time these sort of relationships happen where there is so much negativity but due to illness both parties continue with it despite that.

at-fates-hands 6y ago

Agreed. Its the idea that the more you learn about people and have to be around them, you start to judge them and then realize they aren't like you, so you push them away and crater relationships on purpose so you can be alone and unencumbered by other people's problems. It sounds to me like he did just that. Easier to have short-term relationships and human contact when you need it, but not long enough where you start to get bitter about having to continue being around people you don't like. He created a world that seemed to fit his personality better than what he had been doing most of his life. It must have been beneficial in some way if he continued doing it for so long.

tppiotrowski 6y ago
> But soon he started to clam up and shut her out. “If something upset him, he would stop talking to me completely. Which can be lonely when you share a 500-square-foot apartment,” she says. You definitely get the sense that he just wanted to be alone at times. Hard to do that when you're in a long term relationships because you have to adjust to some else's schedule. Easier when your acquaintances are short-term.
- hef19898 6y ago
  And still no reason to treat people like crap, as he apparently did.

polishdude20 6y ago

Could be the fact that strangers don't know you so they can't judge you. Your long term friends and family know you possibly better than you do. Being around friends and family can be a great way to learn about yourself. The problem is, some people see themselves and hate it.

typefourpd 6y ago

This is indicative of a personality disorder. My father had BPD and behaved this way. My mother was borderline and behaved this way. People like this do not behave abusively towards their loved ones all the time, it's pretty on-and-off. The loved one is typically a dependent or avoidant. They remain in the relationship because they need the positive affirmations, and healthy people do not want to be with a dependent or avoidant. So, no choice but to suffer the negativity also. It's clear that this man developed a personality disorder as the result of suffering abuse as a child.

tartoran 6y ago
> It's clear that this man developed a personality disorder as the result of suffering abuse as a child. I'd say that is pretty hard to tell from the hearsay and all these are just speculations, which are okay. We're learning more from these conversations anyway.
- typefourpd 6y ago
  Thank you for your gentle and respectful method of disagreement. I agree that my assumption was based on hearsay. Fundamentally, I don't believe that children who are loved and protected by their primary caregivers shoot themselves in the stomach in an attempt to die.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    You're welcome. Mental health is a very misunderstood topic because it is something we cannot directly peer into and the stigma associated with mental health makes people hide it very well. It is possible to have a who child goes off the rails in a very nurturing and a generally normal family. I've seen cases where one of the many siblings gets to become a sociopath and the family never understands why and they continue to be normal and consistently try to get their sibling back on track. It is clear that abuse in the family doesn't always play a role. But quite often it does and while mental health has a hereditary component, a bad environment only makes things worse. I recommend Ramsay's movie 'We need to talk about Kevin' to make an idea of how wrong it could go. Surely, it is a movie but it's not too far from reality.

fsckboy 6y ago

there is a broad class of psychological problems called "personality disorders" and they're basically "spectrum" disorders, there's no one size fits all diagnosis for anybody, and even skilled practitioners go through a tricky and time consuming process of diagnosing patients directly, i.e. we can't diagnose him from here based on 2nd hand information, and especially because we are not skilled practitioners. wrt your "personal theory" (sense of obligation leads to resentment), that's too simplistic, but for the sake of argument, let's say you are on the right track, here's how to improve your understanding of personality disorders: all people feel the resentment of obligations to those close to them. That part is actually the normal part. The question is, why doesn't the person with this disorder (we are hypothesizing) feel the other positive parts of a close relationship that help a better adjusted person feel in balance, and then take the normal resentment of obligations in stride.

TeaDrunk 6y ago
This doesn't apply to all personality disorders. Schizotypal and paranoid personality disorders do not have this behavior at all.

losteric 6y ago

Perhaps some form of social anxiety or avoidant attachment? It's easy to be friendly (or an asshole) in brief superficial interactions, but longer interactions lead people to intimacy that some find undesirable... fear of rejection can present as hostility (essentially proactive rejection).

forgetfulness 6y ago

Reading the article he was someone who was prone to neglect people close to him. I wouldn't look for an explanation that applies to everyone for that behavior. I've known people closely people like that, there's a selfishness to their lack of acknowledgement of others' needs and wants, but it's more of a drive to do that than a reaction to their existence; if and when they have nobody else to hollow out with their negativity and neglect, they'll turn it on themselves, and over time there will be just less and less of themselves. Notwithstanding that they can be charming on a superficial level. There's lots of ways people can have that pattern of being a completely different beast to strangers than to intimate partners in a bad way. Say on the other end the ones that make their whole world about you, but that specially means that every single bad feeling of theirs will be offloaded or straight up blamed on you.

jgilias 6y ago

I believe it's called a mask. People with some personality disorders gradually develop a sort of behavioral mask to wear in public in order to fit in into the wider society and be able to achieve one's goals. However, having it 'on' is apparently taxing, so it comes off around people who are in one way or another part of some inner circle for whom there's no point to pretend.

kayodelycaon 6y ago
That’s what I call it. I’ve been hiding being bipolar since I was nine years old. I had a significant personality change after a psychotic break and most people don’t think I’ve changed. I know I have.
- tartoran 6y ago
  How do you know you've changed and it's not just the perception of how you see yourself post the event? Did you change your thinking patterns as well? If you're uncomfortable to share that's more than okay and very understandable.
  - kayodelycaon 6y ago
    Love to. I’m a card-carrying member of the Over-sharers Club The way I think and care about people has changed. I no longer care what people think about me. At the same time, I have a depth of compassion and empathy I couldn’t have had before. I have no obligation to anyone. This lets me choose to care about someone without getting unnecessarily attracted. As a result, I can share my love and support freely without worrying about people taking advantage of me. I have no guilt showing people the door. As a result of this, my motivations have changed. To use a metaphor, I see myself as a light in a dark world. My goal is to make everyone’s day a little better. I’m not some kind of savior, though I have saved lives. I’m just a “good person” trying to do “good things”. My interests have changed in odd ways. I’d never have written erotica but sex is far more interesting to me now. This isn’t a result of me being repressed. I’ve always been asexual and been hypersexual since I was nine. But now I’m deeply exploring sexuality in my writing. The last one is both odd and the most fundamental to my being. Just take it at face value. I had a deep, spiritual connection with wolves from six years old until my break. That connection was a core part of me and without it, I wouldn’t have known who I was. That connection is gone and I really don’t care about it. As far as I’m concerned, it was delusional thinking. I no longer have the spirituality that was such a part of me. There is only the rational world now. (Side note: My faith in God had always been rational, not emotional or spiritual.) If I had to guess, I think sexuality took the place of spiritually in my brain. It’s quite possible I haven’t changed as much as I think, but the world inside my head is so vastly different, I can’t understand the person I was before.

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

He wasn’t abusive to his roommate or coworkers, so the divide wasn’t stranger/close acquaintance. Sorry to spell it out, and I don’t expect any sympathy for it, but the pattern was man/woman.

tartoran 6y ago
I highly doubt the pattern was as you put it man/woman. That pattern seems to indicate that he was more abusive to people who were closer to him.

nineplay 6y ago

It is sadly typical and can result in something a friend of mine experienced. She left her husband, told friends that he was abusive, and the general response was "Him? But he's such a great guy! You must be lying." ( Fortunately for her, the friends who attempted to console him pretty soon noticed how violent he got when he talked about her. When he threw a glass at the wall at a friend's apartment, she started getting a lot of apologies. ) It's almost an adaptive behavior. If they were violent to strangers, they wouldn't have long term acquaintances.

S_A_P 6y ago

Maybe this is oversharing, but maybe not. I have shades of this in myself. I have a much smaller friend group than many folks and a cynical take on most peoples motivations. I can say that some of why I feel this way is just "how Im bent" and some is from childhood experiences of having my trust betrayed or my naivety taken advantage of. Throw in a bit of unpredictable mom behavior and I generally dont want to owe anything to anyone. When I first meet people Im more than happy to share, give of myself, etc. Usually I will either feel that gestures are not reciprocated, or taken for granted, so I pull back. Ive wondered if I feel like Im expecting too much of my generosity and I think Ive been guilty of that before. At this point though I think I have reflected enough and changed to where this is not the case. Long term- I feel like being social requires me to "be on" which is exhausting to me. I would rather only see people when I can be decent company so I end up seeing people much less than more socially adept folks...

adamc 6y ago
You might just be an HSP: https://www.amazon.com/Highly-Sensitive-Person-Thrive-Overwhelms/dp/0806540575/ https://www.amazon.com/Highly-Sensitive-Person-Thrive-Overwh... I've had this problem in many contexts. Some of it stems from childhood circumstances, but it's also that I often read people better than they seemingly know themselves, i.e., noticing anger that they don't think they have. This can cause a lot of stress.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  From the about portion of that, it mostly reads like symptoms of people with Schizoid Personality Disorder or Avoidant Personality Disorder. While it can be a good survival trait in the grand scheme of things, culturally in the US it's as useful as being born poor.
  - adamc 6y ago
    It's pretty different. My kid had it, and there were some things we did early to help him study, but nothing like either of those disorders. It's more tied to very high empathy. However, you do have to learn how to avoid taking on other people's emotional burdens.

adamredwoods 6y ago

There could also have been some trauma/abuse with parents/family. The author of the story seemed to suggest something happened between him and the father.

elmomle 6y ago

I think it comes from liking people a priori, but having a habituated expectation that the people we know will take from us (our happiness, our time, etc.)--so that one can't feel safe to be oneself with those one knows. IMO this expectation typically comes from childhood and can best be mitigated via mindfulness.

zajio1am 6y ago

Seems to me that there are two factors: 1) If you are weird, then you have mismatched expectations about relationships (and other social obligations) than majority society. Not providing something that is expected would be 'neglect', while expecting something that is not provided would be 'entitlement'. Social rules with strangers or casual acquaintances are much simpler. 2) Being in some kind of deep relationship means emotional stakes are higher. Perceived violations due to (1) causes higher emotional damage if they are from someone near than someone distant.

nemonemo 6y ago

My theory about what might have governed his behavior: boredom. He was designing a game, which is a system designed to mitigate the boredom issue. Knowing people better could make them boring to one's eye -- there are familiar patterns, and not much interesting new patterns developed. Nature has a lot of interesting new patterns.. but maybe he eventually got bored out of that too.

Neil44 6y ago

Need for approval maybe. Skilled at getting approval from strangers. Once in a relationship that disappears.

throwstranger 6y ago

From experience, I would explain it by an inability to accept others, which could be traced to perfectionism and low self-esteem. With long term acquaintances, you start to notice imperfections. If you have a low self-esteem, you could develop this peronality where you are constantly judging others, and trying to control and make them perfect, because they are part of your life. This could have been caused by constant criticism received during childhood, or abusive parents who were themselves perfectionist in treating you, and didn't show enough acceptance, pride and love.

ksdale 6y ago

I think there may be an element of survivorship bias at play. There's kind of a 2x2 you can draw where people can be publicly/privately kind/abusive. People who are kind all the time (or at least, not abusive all the time) are unremarkable, I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind, and people who are both publicly and privately abusive are way more likely to end up in prison, or homeless, or otherwise away from people. So that leaves us noticing the strange pattern of people who are publicly kind and privately abusive. It's like, the most remarkable pattern that's actually present for us to remark upon.

throwaway713 6y ago
> I'm not sure there are many people who are publicly abusive and privately kind Gordon Ramsay perhaps?
- Frondo 6y ago
  I've watched a lot of his shows and have developed a kind of celebrity respect for him, enough that I've gone on and read interviews with him and with people in his orbit (like the restauranteurs featured on his shows.) Turns out a lot of people say he's actually far kinder than you'd think, off-camera, to all the people he's seemingly abusive to! All the yelling and vitriol is kind of a spliced-down highlights reel, is the impression I've gotten, the stuff that makes for good tv. It's there and it's real, but it's a smaller part of a guy who's generally nice and genuinely cares about the people on his shows. Good suggestion though.
tekromancr 6y ago
I think you can find people who are publicly abusive and privately kind in online communities. I just finished listening to a podcast called My Year in Mensa, which centers around an unmoderated Mensa facebook group, and the author's interactions with them. As you can imagine from an unmoderated community, it sucks and a lot of people say shitty things there. A common refrain the author heard from people defending the group is "They're the nicest people in real life!", which may absolutely be the case, but publicly, they are presenting abusive versions of themselves.

dspillett 6y ago

Or it could be novelty in the new people overpowering any more negative thoughts. The novelty falls off leaving the other to show through.

rel-throwaway 6y ago

I struggle with this in my personal life. To most friends and acquaintances I can be friendly, personable, interesting, and engaging when we meet. But at home, with close family, and especially with my wife I struggle to be that person. My default state is that I mostly want to be left alone. All the people closest to me seem to want something -- time, attention, help, emotional support etc. none of which I seem to need from anybody else and leads to annoyance and resentment on my part. It doesn't help that I have a particularly stressful job managing a large team with silly interpersonal issues and politics that I have to deal with. My wife and I have our good moments, are good parents (I think), but day to day is such a struggle. It is constant cycle of me wanting to be left alone and her wanting something or the other from me and getting annoyed that I show reluctance to do it leading to resentment on both sides. Not sure how to fix it or where to turn to for help. I am not an angry person and I don't physically yell or hurt her but she has said that me being reluctant with most things is a form of emotional abuse, which after reading this concerns me and is cause for introspection.

throwaway6299 6y ago
How strange, just created an account to say that I am the same way and was thinking about this a lot last night. (Although, I don’t think I am emotionally abusive, as I feel my spouse demands things that are entirely unreasonable, like frequently asking me to leave work in the middle of the day to come help with something or buying a house and dog when we had less than $1,000 in our account). All I wanted my whole life was a happy family with a happy relationship like my parents had. That didn’t happen and now all I want is to be left alone, and it’s like everyone wants something from me but I don’t need or want anything from them. I have a great job now, so the only thing I look forward to each day is hopefully reaching financial independence before I’m 40. At least then I can “buy” some alone time.
- demadog 6y ago
  She’s likely wanting your presence and testing your loyalty or something? Definitely would help to see a couples therapist but if not, I think setting clear boundaries - like work time is work time - but also scheduling time together would put her at ease and prevent random requests.

brobinson 6y ago

"Familiarity breeds contempt"?

cgriswald 6y ago

I had an ex that was sort of like this. She wasn’t necessarily abusive, but she needed everyone to like her and the people that already did she didn’t have to do anything to impress. I interpreted it as a deep insecurity resulting in really fake behavior: a mask as a sibling poster said.

a2tech 6y ago

I think its easy to lice in a shell you create for yourself 10-12 hours a day. Its harder to live that life with people you're around all the time. My Dad for instance was well liked at his job and in the community. As soon as he left work and those people behind the smiles and jokes stopped and he was just mean and quiet with a temper that was never far from reach. I think the person he was at work was the person he wanted to be, but the person he was with us was his true self. Its either that or he truly hated my mother, my brother, and myself.

josepmdc 6y ago

I think it's because when you spend a lot of time with someone, you start to notice all of their annoying quirks you don't usually see when you just met them. So after a while you start to get tired and annoyed of them, and the way to deal with it is with anger.

foobiekr 6y ago

That theory really seems sensible to me.