I don’t think it’s within your capacity; you’re a likable person.
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I’m picturing a bunch of old ladies with hot sauce dripping down their face onto their bingo cards.
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What mental images you use to satisfy your self is your own business mate.
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Yes and no.
You explained why being selfless is good, but I’m not sure that you explained why YOU believe selfishness is bad.
My point was that the two are not opposites in this regard.
Being selfish is necessary for your own survival and happiness/fulfillment. It cannot be bad, but i wouldn’t say that it’s good, either. It’s not what should be aspired to.
Being selfless (in the genuine sense… not coerced) is almost always a good thing.
Keeping in mind that selfish =/= greedy, personally i find that being selfish is okay.
As you said, putting your mask on first.
I also prioritize things differently, I think.
Needs will always be more important than wants.
In this case, are your mental health NEEDS more important than their validation WANTS?
Back to your biblical perspective…
Does the Book not also say “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” Proverbs 4:23?
If your belief is that being selfish is a bad thing because parts of the Book say not to be selfish, does this not directly contradict that, in this instance?
“Above all else” is pretty powerful phrasing.
I’m not the person to get into religious debates, I’m just trying to get at the root of the guilt.
If I were to guess, your guilt comes from somewhere deeper than specific interpretations of your religion. That’s what I would try to unpack.
Why should your heart come after the heart of someone else’s who wouldn’t do the same for you?
I believe there are examples of judgment and discernment in the Book as well.
This is the best way to celebrate this holiday 
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Yeah, like trying to put new chipper knives on a Bugatti. Incompatible designs.
Ive seen a woman very much like you’ve described. She was my wifes sponsor in al-anon. He m.o. was to swoop in on newcomers that were in the midst of an emotional crisis and instead of comforting and guiding them would foment their grief and pain.
I pointed this out to my wife and for her it was one of those things that once seen, couldn’t be unseen.
I personally hated her and clashed to the point of her not really wanting to be around me. She wasn’t helping people get better, she was keeping them from getting better.
Wife ended up steadily creating distance by shutting off the tap and broke off the relationship all together. Not without emotional parasite lady’s parting shot though. A couple of weeks later she called and in a sideways kind of way accused my wife of breaking into her house and stealing her lockbox full of jewelry and heirlooms- which is a completely bizarre and like a thousand miles out of character accusation.
I just chalked it up to sour grapes on parasite lady’s part, and good riddance on our side.
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Always a good tactic!
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What shit she was! But that makes sense. What better place to take advantage of people than AA. The vulnerable are there.
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Thats another thing! 13th steppers!
Al-anon is support for co-dependents though. But yeah, lots of vulnerability and whatnot.
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I think there might be different interpretations of that scripture, but you make a really good point. I would be hesitant to say that guarding one’s heart is synonymous with being selfish… it’s an interesting idea that I’ll have to think about more.
Maybe it all goes back to motives? Like, if your motivation to become wealthy drives you to steal from people, then your selfishness is evil. If your motivation to not be manipulated drives you to keep people at arm’s distance, your selfishness is reasonable.
But would we even call that selfishness?
Because those two situations are so different. One is self serving, the other is self defense. Wait. Isn’t self defense self serving? LOL it literally is!
See, I argue in my own brain all the time. We (the committee in my head) can’t agree on anything.
So, is the disagreement over “selfishness” really just a semantics thing?
But that brings up another hypothetical scenario: If a woman is about to get raped and murdered, but she shoots the predator, we wouldn’t call her “selfish” even though she acted in a way that technically served her own interests and the interests of his would-be future victims.
I actually haven’t viewed any of our conversations as debates, but just discussions with a variety of thoughtful perspectives. If anything, you’re making me feel more validated, which is my drug. Watch out, or I might become YOUR emotional parasite!
Overall, my frustration and behaviors (setting boundaries, saying “no” nicely, ghosting, having a mental check-list of queasy feelings people give me) show that we’re on the same page.
But it’d be pretty hard to perceive the word selfish as a positive thing with even the most logical and compelling arguments. As a dad, you know what it’s like to sacrifice your time and energy so that your kid can have a happy life. If you’d been a selfish father, she would be a completely different person than who she is now.
Maybe the larger question (for anyone including Bible scholars) is this: how beholden are Christians to other people when it comes to time and energy?
You may be right about that. I don’t know if it has anything to do with sharing a bedroom for 14 years with an older sister who had serious issues. To prevent women from seeing me as a threat, I know how to kowtow, compliment, self-flagellate, and ingratiate. But these characteristics make them think I’m dumb and controllable. So when they’re trying to trick me into feeling sorry for them, they don’t realize that I see though the charade.
But physically, I tend to have a jarring effect, and maybe that awareness makes me overcompensate in social situations.
A short story nobody asked for:
I once forgot to wear my contacts when Chris took me shopping one day. So I couldn’t clearly see anything at a distance when entering a Lucky Brand store. I was looking through the jeans when I noticed a woman in the back of the room. She was huge and made me feel intimidated.
As I moved further into the store, she seemed to be moving closer to me, and I became uncomfortable. But I needed to find jeans, so I kept going closer to the back of the room.
I was getting irritated that every time I moved deeper into the store, she moved toward me. So finally, I looked up at this bitch to let her know that I was aware of her.
And that’s when I realized it was a mirror. I was staring straight at my own reflection.
Yikes, right?
I think Jesus’s sacrifice for us on the cross is the biggest example of putting others first. If he had chosen not to die for our sins and instead do the comfortable thing, then I would not be saved.
So if you’re a Christian, you try to be Christ-like and this includes giving up what you want for the good of others.
Playing “devil’s advocate” against myself though, one could ask, are you really doing good for others by allowing them to make choices for you and determine what you do with your time? And honestly I don’t know. I think that might be a case-by-case situation.
Because if I give in to the manipulative tactics of other women, they’re going to assume they can just treat people this way and it’s a-okay. But maybe if they get ghosted enough, they will become introspective about why that happens and make changes.
It feels weird to write that. So I want to be clear: I don’t think I have it all together. Seeing patterns and getting introspective about why they’re happening is something I want to make sure to do, too. So if I’m in the wrong, I want to correct it.
But if doing the right thing means becoming a servant for someone who actually needed a professional nurse and care-giver (the clingy person last year) or to become the sidekick and personal fitness advisor for free (the clingy person this year) then maybe I need to be okay being the problem.
In the words of Taylor Swift, “It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.”
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This is super philosophical and it’s stretching my brain out today! I got overwhelmed with all the insightful and funny comments in my log and when I went to respond to your part I didn’t scroll up and include this part in my response.
But the main thing that resonates is the part I bolded.
This is the part that’s tough for me:
I think meaning and purpose are more important than happiness and fulfillment, and as a byproduct they cause happiness and fulfillment. But it would be hard to have a powerful sense of purpose or meaning if you’re only serving yourself and not others.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl goes pretty deeply into this.
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Good to hear! A lot of men don’t like to see musculature on females. But they don’t realize that, for many women, the musculature prevents the bingo wings and other squishy features.
Like this?
Or maybe more like this:
Here’s what I picture as bingo wings.
AI is fun. Actually just kidding, I took those pictures at Bingo night with my girls!
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That first one looks like The Exorcist meets Hot Ones
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That seems more toxic than what I’m whining about. I’m so sorry you and your wife had to experience that.
Ah what a good husband. Sometimes we need that second set of eyes.
That’s dark triad stuff right there.
Wow! What a blessing to have gotten away before it got any worse. That is wild. Yeesh lady, nobody wants your dusty crap.
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Yeah it does! I’m partial to the floating hot wing on the third one.
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I think what you’re expressing is quite valid. 
Relateable even, given that I understood and recognized exactly what you’re talking about.
Thanks. Eh, no biggie. I’m good with crazy. Its normal that scares me!
Yeah. When people really want in too close, that sets me off. I have my public interactions and my personal ones, and I’m the gatekeeper of both. The public ones, I don’t have a lot of control over when or how they happen, but I do have control over how far they go.
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Open Mic Night
Chris and I did our first open mic night at a bar/restaurant yesterday, and I’m logging it because mentally it felt like a workout. We finished stand-up class and went straight there after talking ourselves out of and into it a handful of times. But our teacher said it would really be worth it to test our material.
We’re discovering that 90% of comedians are suuuuper filthy. And believe it or not, women are just as vulgar as men.
So, my goal is to stand out by keeping it pretty clean. And I have tested in class some of my clean material that turned out to be pretty unfunny… haha! I don’t know why that makes me laugh while writing it, but it does. I’m so fine with people not laughing because every bombed joke is an opportunity to build confidence. It’s just another rep.
And, as I always say (starting now) if you can’t make them laugh, at least make them like you, which just so happens to be my super power.
This sounds counterintuitive, but getting okay with people not laughing is actually a huge privilege. I feel more confident now than I have in years.
I do get the sense that clean comedy is the direction it’s all heading. I think our teacher would disagree (and he may be right) but I’m telling myself that anyway.
Felt stockier than usual last night. No biggie. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Our teacher said that I was the performance of the night (!!) which… I’m not sure if he was being serious about that, but he said it right in front of a professional local comedian who had also performed. Maybe he just meant I did the best out of the class. Even so, it was a big compliment because out of all the classes I’ve had with him, I’ve never done that well.
So yay.
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Whoa. Thank you for saying that. I really hesitated to write anything about it because I was wondering if maybe my feelings and behaviors were a sign of some type of personality disorder. I don’t want to have a plank-in-the-eye-versus-speck-in-the-eye scenario, so I’ve been researching stuff (like cluster B disorders) trying to figure out if it’s a me-problem.
HA!
Right? Some type of alarm should go off in our heads if we hardly know a person and they’re trying to gain more access to us than people we’ve known for years.
This is such an assertive, healthy way to be. I love it.
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Thanks. I learned it the hard way though. I’ve had some pretty rough people come in to and out of my life.
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I don’t know how to put this gently.
He was tortured to death for the benefit of strangers he never met; many of whom hated him over the belief he was dying for.
I don’t think the point of his sacrifice was that his followers should all be tortured to death.
I don’t think he would have wanted to see his followers suffer and sacrifice for the benefit of others.
You have excess money to spend on niceties. Why don’t you give all the excess to charities or homeless?
You could downsize your house, eat more basic (cheaper) food, spend all your free time helping others…
My point is that there’s a disconnect that needs to be reconciled. One you pointed out here
I dont think this is a question for all Christians, i think it’s a question for this Christian.
If i were to answer, as a non-Christian, I’d say “once your own needs and reasonable wants (which include mental health) are satisfied, giving time, money, effort, etc to others in need (not in want) should be a priority. But only after all your own needs and quality of life are sufficient such that you do not feel lacking or taken advantage of.”
It more or less follows Dave Ramsey’s baby steps…
The last step is to be charitable, because you have to take care of yourself first.
There’s a book called Surrendered Wife that my wife read… it emphasizes traditional relationship roles and dynamics, where the wife tends to her husband’s and children’s needs.
One of the most important steps in the process is self-care.
Why? Because if you feel that your needs and wants are being neglected, how can you freely give and sacrifice for others? It will build resentment, bitterness, and a reluctance to help those who’ve done nothing wrong.
Maybe this feels a bit similar to your situation, but with different people?
I have a brother in law whose last job was at circuit city.
He moved in with his mom, and started making up medical excuses that made him unable to work. Yes, they are actually made up.
Mommy dearest believed him, because her perfect little angel couldnt possibly lie now, could he? No! Its every single doctor he went to thats lying about his lack of illnesses!
He lived with his mom until about 6 months ago. Shes going to pass in 3-6 months for health issues.
I had to evict my brother in law out of my house that she was renting from me.
Hes now a 50 year old homeless dude with made up medical conditions trying to find another house to squat in for free.
Should his mom have told him to grow the fuck up and get a job like 20-something years ago, or should she have allowed him to malinger his way through life?
You know the answer.
But because she enabled him, he’s now virtually unable to live on his own.
What are you doing when you enable these manipilative women into your life?
What would be better for you, them, and society at large? Enabling bad behavior?
Hell no. And I take a lot of solace in that.
I think meaning, purpose and fulfillment are one in the same, but happiness is secondary to all of them… i don’t think happiness should be an end state or constant.
Does it feel fulfilling to sacrifice for others when it’s making you unhappy to do so?
I go back to “genuine sacrifice and selflessness” as the gold standard. If it’s not fulfilling, I’m definitely not going to make that sacrifice.
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Real-life PR! Congrats to you both
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