Vitriol

[greenstorm]

Of course you're doing really well. You're off work with the person you said touches you in a way that you feel emotionally close and communicative with and gives you what you need, and you don't have the burden of listening to my feelings anymore. I'm going through a breakup with someone who hasn't felt emotionally close or communicative for a long time and is glad to be rid of that communication. Maybe try expressing even an empty platitude about hoping I'm doing well, or sorry this is probably hard for me?

Especially when you just stood me up for a chat this evening?

What the fuck, dude? Do you not have any compassion or empathy at all?

Oh, that's right. That sort of thing is too draining, and it wastes time when you're on a multi-day date.

Sorry about that.

It's kind of rubbing salt in the wound to say you're looking forward to talking to me, though. You explicitly don't want to hear how I'm doing, so what are you looking forward to, a performance? I don't owe you that anymore. You're no longer bothering to perform for me.

I wish I'd taken your previous relationship breakup as a bigger red flag. Who knows why she didn't feel like she could talk to you about her emotions? What a mystery.

Edited the next morning to add: oh, you're sorry, you were busy having an intense emotional experience with S, you didn't have enough energy to shut me out, so you just stood me up. Given that this breakup is because you aren't into sharing with me emotionally, that's... well.

Greenie, every moment is a sign. The way you feel now means something. It's information. Use it.


Right. Anger. It illuminates boundaries and gives the energy to enforce them.

Comments

[yarrowkat]

i realize i did a really unhelpful NT thing there ("that guy hurt you therefore he's a jerk" reductive thinking) and i apologize. the work you did in putting this comment together is very kind & thoughtful - to me and to Tucker and i hope to yourself. i have certainly observed over the years that people have varying ability & interest in analyzing their own thinking patterns, relational patterns/styles, and so on. i feel like i come at it from a gestalt awareness more than analysis usually, but at the same time, i put a lot of time into thinking & talking about relationships, which very much informs the gestalt. (i just am more of a "closed loop with sudden flashes of insight" thinker than a methodical thinker; i often blame this on being a Taurus with mercury in Taurus.) ;)

i very much also am the kind of person who wants to speak about and know what i/they did wrong, so that we can understand and do better. if i hurt you and i don't understand why, i have no solid ground with you anymore and it erodes trust. if you tell me why i hurt you, i can work to change whatever in my thinking & behavior led to that, and we retain trust and can grow. and vice versa. so i have a lot of empathy for you around how hard it is that Tucker isn't able to participate in that process. that's rough.

even when your partner isn't the center of your being, we don't have a supportive framework around "stopped being able to notice time; missed our phone date" and the absence of that framework is one reason that would feel hard for a partner. it sounds like that is a framework that would need to be built with each new person, which also sounds tiring. i can also see phone alarms being really helpful if they work for you. (my housemate Jenny, who has adhd, sets three or so phone reminders for anything important, so that she can't just keep ignoring it; this comes from knowing her own brain & behavior patterns and not wanting to not come through on something she said she'd do. a while ago she was hunting for a reminder app that would take over the screen so you couldn't do anything else on your phone until marking it complete; she might have found that).

[greenstorm]

I keep trying to phrase "sadly, NTs are not the only ones who do this" and "hard agree/hard agree" for this one and failing, so I'll just leave them here like this.