2019.10. Insecure Behaviors

This year I met a boy who, within the first three days of my meeting him, smirkingly asked me “haven’t you already lost all your boobs [working out]?” when I expressed desire to work out and lose weight and unprompted told me that my eyes were small (at other points during our time together he would point out large eyes as beautiful on women whom he objectified in what was for me a disgusting way). He also said many other condescending and rude things to me over the course of two weeks, but the above mentioned were the comments he made of my body, about which I am significantly more insecure than I am about my intellect or my personality, which he also ridiculed both to my face and behind my back. For example, at one point he responded to what I said by saying “your brain will mature when you hit 25” for, according to him, his did so when he turned 25; he was 27.

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At the time, I was very shocked and hurt particularly by his words about my body because these two (small boobs and small eyes) are both major insecurities of mine (the boy I was interested in this past year also gushed about huge eyes to me frequently, which had worsened my preexisting insecurity); in the moment I failed to respond to these comments because of the intense pain and embarrassment I felt for (twisted I know but) my ‘failure’ in physique. My friend who introduced me to him not only did not stand up for me (which I asked him to do) regarding most of the degrading and (for me) viscerally painful behavior his friend was directing at me, but also told me that the perpetuation of this behavior by his friend was partly my responsibility for not standing up for myself. He told me that I should deal with this treatment essentially on my own; there was little he could do or say to his friend on my behalf. The emotional pain from these instances and the arguments he and I had made most of the rest of the time we were stuck together unbearable for me; I wanted to and over the phone discussed with Celina the option of leaving the group, but I didn’t have the financial means to do so, because most of the euros I had left in my bank account I had to lend to that friend because he lost his wallet during our time together. It was complicated to transfer my dollar-savings.

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This harassment I experienced from my friend’s friend caused many problems between me and my friend and was a large part of the deterioration of my trust in him as a person and as a friend who respected me properly and cared for my well-being; I believe he still blames these arguments and problems between us regarding these events mostly on my reactions to them and not on his other friend’s behavior or his own lack of mediation. His and my close relationship is also now gone, (for my half of it, at least) largely due to these events though other things have also contributed, too. His admiration and affection for his friend seem unaffected by whatever sorts of psychological and emotional damage his friend’s behavior and words triggered in me for many weeks, during which time he chose to distance himself from me.

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I worry just a little that my-at the time-strong and negative emotional response may still have some residual effects in my presentation of this situation, but I trust that I am sufficiently far away from the situation for my thoughts on the matter to be at least not unreasonable. I have reflected on these events quite a bit in the past few months, both when I felt pain thinking about it and after I had ceased to feel pain at the thought of it. I have waited months after the cessation of pain to finally edit and post this entry so as to prevent myself from doing anything rash.

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One thing I will reaffirm briefly for I have reaffirmed this many times before is that: I have no good reason to be insecure about how I look. How I look is how I look and though not meeting today’s standards of beauty in society, I’m cute. Prolonged exposure to my friend’s friend and the boy I liked this year was particularly harmful to me for my self-respect and confidence, but I am right now—without this stimulus and being surrounded by many loving and respectful friends—back to being comfortable and happy with myself.

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As people say—I think rightly—regarding the psychology of bullies and rapists, the sorts of people who do and say terrible, mean or rude things to and of others like my friend’s friend did are the ones that are the most internally volatile and insecure. He himself told the rest of us how secure and confident he was in himself despite (he said this) not being very attractive, intelligent, etc. etc. so many times that after a few weeks it became very clear to me that he is still very insecure and unsure of himself. I wish that I had been able to read this person better and more quickly, because then I would have been able to prevent at least some of the extremely harmful effects his actions and words had on my psyche for many weeks and the problems between me and my friend I believe would not have been so bad. If I could better understand the sort of person I am facing in the future, I would be better able to respond appropriately by distancing myself from their words and perhaps even be able to calmly contribute to these people improving their behavior. Through this experience, I learned that I should not assume as I have always done that most negative words are offered with constructive and helpful intentions. I would be better off if I were to watch out for these sorts of behavior and to choose to directly respond or to fully ignore it. Reacting as I did—something in between trying to laugh it off as if it weren’t a problem and at times being unable to keep my pain hidden and thus internally and externally combusting—is exactly that which adds fuel to their fires and makes them feel justified in continuing to insult me. If I could have read him better, sooner, I would have been able to respond appropriately and feel untouched by his words as I feel today. This is a skill I must acquire.

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Throughout my interactions with this boy, I often felt as though he was always striving for more for himself. This, I admired in him as I would in anyone because this is a value I think is extremely important for all members of society to hold dear for the sake of a more harmonious world and for their own individual happiness, etc. What I have realized upon reflection, however, is that some people feel the need to belittle others to feel better about themselves. I cannot even count how many people I didn’t know at all—and three (two of whom we were with) who I consider my friends—he talked about and insulted in front of me. Others do not need to do such a harmful and hurtful thing to improve themselves, be amazing and feel good about it. Perhaps I had gotten used to being with friends who are of the latter sort; my experience with him was so jarring. This experience reaffirmed for me my desire to want to be of the latter sort. I want to be the sort of person who does not belittle others and make others feel bad about themselves to feel good about myself. I want to be more careful to not speak badly of others (I could be wrong, but I do not think I am being hypocritical in this post because I think only the people who were there would recognize who I am speaking of and they know this all already, and I think it is important to discuss ideas with real examples). This will require a lot of conscious effort and time, but I think morality demands this of me.

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Standing up for your friends in almost every situation has always seemed to me like an important part of what it means to share a friendship: a real and deep relationship that goes both ways. In the past when I have been between two clashing friends, it has been tricky to be a good friend to both, but I have thought it very important to analyze, praise and criticize different parts of all parties involved for as long as it takes to find some middle ground. This experience has taught me that my approach to and understanding of what friendship consists in is apparently thicker than some others’ ideas on it. It has also taught me that if I want to prevent significant pain for myself, I ought to expect less rather than this or to not involve myself in relationships where the other does not find it important to put in whatever effort it takes to make sure that some kind of compromise can be found. I was extremely disappointed and hurt by my friend’s behavior or lack thereof, and it has taught me that either I have to show them why what they do (or don’t) is not good enough—which I tried and I believe failed—or to not share a meaningful friendship with them. My lifelong approach has always been to grant trust and respect for others until they proved me wrong and then to adjust little by little accordingly. I have once before been disappointed and hurt, but now that friendship is very much mended and stronger than before. Though I have no regrets in that relationship, the consequences of her behavior were immense in my life and are still impacting my future. Perhaps I ought to consider adjusting my approach to one where my trust and respect must be earned. I think that such an adjustment would make it more difficult to build meaningful relationships, but this experience is teaching me that perhaps the avoidance of these negative consequences may outweigh the positive upshots of my past approach. It will be difficult to evolve from my trusting and give-the-person-the-benefit-of-the-doubt preexisting attitude, but this may be an important skill for me to protect myself and my well-being in the future.

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Finally, this experience has most of all reaffirmed more concretely in me my previously vague thoughts on the importance of forgiveness. When I thought about how I was resentful towards the boy or unhappy with my friend, I felt no joy. Then I thought about potential explanations for their behavior (for my friend’s friend I think my analysis is found already above). Perhaps my friend’s not telling the other boy to stop being rude, bossy or mean to me was a matter of emotional closeness and history in the respective relationships (I personally doubt this very much, he and I were very close). Perhaps he had incentive to not displease the boy because he is a mutual friend to a girl he likes. Perhaps he thought it would be less trouble for him overall to not criticize the other boy. Perhaps his response was a matter of his agreeing with the statements his friend made of me or towards me. Perhaps he thought his friend’s words or actions weren’t or shouldn’t be as painful for me as I tried and maybe failed to express they were or he thought that my pain was not a legitimate thing for which his friend should have to address or adjust his behavior. This last explanation is more plausible for he also never considered the painful effects his own disrespectful behavior had towards me as a legitimate reason for which he should have to adjust his own behavior (to be fair to him, despite insisting that he should not have to, he did or tried for me in many cases). Perhaps my criticizing his friend for what I thought was morally problematic behavior was too intense. Perhaps my hurt feelings caused me to speak less reasonably to him than was appropriate. Perhaps many things happened in his mind, but this does not matter much anymore; I only offer these potential explanations (which are only some of many of which) I thought through to try to make his response more intelligible by putting myself in his shoes—I do not consider any one or combination of them to be legitimately (to be philosophically technical) excusing or justifying reasons for my friend’s response to the situation.

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However, after a few weeks of thought, I realized that both their behaviors really have nothing on me–have nothing to do with me and say nothing about me other than perhaps the fact that I’m someone very easy to walk all over (which I will henceforth change). Despite the fact that his insecurities manifest in problematic ways, my friend’s friend means well, just like any other person who isn’t a socio/psychopath. Upon reflection, I feel bad for him that he has, through life experiences about which I don’t know, somehow acquired behavior patterns that probably cause a lot of people around him to be unhappy with or feel resentment towards him. Most importantly, I have no good reason to let his words and actions keep me from living my life joyfully as I normally do. After a few weeks of thought, I felt forgiveness towards him wash over me. It was an extremely liberating moment where I could begin to let go of the pain I had felt before. I now feel no pain rereading the text I wrote months ago about what occurred, and when he asked me for favors, I could wholeheartedly accept doing them for him and even felt a desire to help him. I am very happy with myself for having moved on so fully from what had been, months ago, intense psychological pain. With my friend with whom I share many more memories (most of which are joyful), things have dissolved, but I can say the same as I do with his friend about what happened in the time we spent together: after a few weeks of thought (which is now a while ago), I felt forgiveness towards him wash over me as my own self-respect and confidence returned. I learned from this experience with these two boys how valuable it is for me in any life experience to be more sure of myself and how much easier it feels to not continue to feel unhappy and resentment towards others. Though the whole ordeal felt quite long and quite painful, for the outcome, a much stronger me with a better sense of self-worth and respect, I am very grateful.