TenMinutes wrote:
I think I have an answer to why some stalled relationships bother me more than others. The ones where there is someone insisting they value me when they do not are in a state of contradiction, and if I was just able to make them work the way the other person says they are working, the contradiction would be resolved. So, I work toward that and find only more frustration and rejection. More contradiction, but they still insist I'm wrong, so I continue to give them the benefit of doubt, because I want to be wrong. I want this to be working, so if I think it isn't working, maybe I'm wrong. So I persist, and fail, and get rejected some more. By the time I give up, I also feel like a chump, I feel like I've been teased, I feel like they probably think I'm pathetic.
I let this sit for a while and coming back to it I am mortified that it is completely representative. I was teased. They doled out friendship like it was a treat. On their terms and only their terms. Let me catch it just a literal handful of times in all the time I knew them. Teased.