#i'm sad i'm uncool i'm unpopular

[eliotheeangelis]

f1blr i love you and one day you'll love me back

[donnerpartyofone]

I keep thinking about this experience I had where it was apparent that somebody was attracted to me, and after I learned a little more about him I realized that he was chiefly attracted to a quality I find pretty repulsive and that was definitely not something I deliberately cultivated, that was in fact something I struggle to suppress. And even though I had no interest in that person I had all sorts of strange feelings about this experience: On the one hand I really resented that someone would like me for a reason I found pretty gross, and this made me feel fetishized or something in a way that was very uncool in my view. Then on the other hand I wondered if I was just being a snob and I should realize that everything about oneself can be lovable...and inevitably I'd just swing back to finding the whole thing kind of insulting. It's like being told, I don't know, "I love how dirty you are and how bad you stink," the fact that the speaker means it as a high compliment doesn't mean you have to appreciate it, just as you're under no obligation to be grateful for attention in general. Plus I don't think I can do the whole unconditional love of the entire self thing, I think self-criticism is what actually drives me to improve and become more aware and responsible. And then there's matters of taste, he has a right to his preferences and so do I even if mine seem more judgmental or "negative" or something.

My last shrink, who was so incompetent that she triggered a rolling psych episode that got kind of scary, would do this abject positivity thing to me that literally made me crazy. I'd be trying to untangle some difficult experience and she'd just bombard me with all this stuff about what a good person I am or "what if it's not YOU that's wrong, what if THE WORLD is wrong!", and I'd think...OK fine but that's beside the point? I just wanted to talk through this thing that fucked me up but never mind, you're right, I'm OK You're OK and as long as we agree on that then nothing is worth discussing. And then I was trying to talk to her about how I used to have this major dysfunctional behavior that was derailing my life and I recognized this and got control of it and I'm really proud of myself for that, and my shrink just kept going "But why are you saying behavior X was BAD? Why does it have to be WRONG?" like she was really sad and disappointed that I was criticizing myself and I just wanted to scream in her face It's bad BECAUSE I SAY SO! I'm the one who was harmed by it WHICH I JUST TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT and that's a perfectly good reason for me to say it was WRONG!

TL;DR:

1. Sometimes things about yourself are crummy and it is totally rational and even a form of self-care (🤢) to judge these things and want to change them.

2. Don't involve people in your fetishes if they aren't expressly interested; this includes just making it kind of obvious that you like a casual, platonic acquaintance for an unpopular sexual reason. It may not make them feel as complimented as you personally think it should.