processing a helpfulness fetish
Aug. 30th, 2012 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinian[unlocking DW entry completely as of 18 April 2014 due to link from public post]
Lots to think about right now. Here's a bit of what I'm trying to process that I think feedback would help with. Feel free to skip if you don't feel ready to help me wrangle the inside of my head, but I'm not filtering this beyond overall access list because more perspectives are better.
See #5.
It is possible that always feeling like I need to be HELPFUL COMPANION ANIMAL (or Tomoyo) is not really the right thing. If there is a person I love I am quite strongly inclined to love them from Way Over Here and occasionally dive-bomb them with sweetness. Why? Because otherwise I will somehow mess up, and that is a DISASTER. Because they can't love me back. Because the whole thing is actually very easy as well as an ongoing pattern: RISK FREE and still fun, only also not? This happens a lot, I have a list of people, for now you can take my word for it. And I know it makes some people confused and probably hurts them.
Okay, so why can't they love me back? PEOPLE DO. Some people even claim I don't have to put in all this effort to be valued.
I really don't know. Because when people love me it is based entirely on what I do -- and that is objectively true, hear me out. If I never did anything that took effort I would NEVER SPEAK. And if I literally did not produce any way for people to know me, it would make zero sense for anyone to care about me. Any interaction I have is performative. Of course I'm not saying I don't want to interact, but it's conscious effort and often not easy. So where is the line? If you love me because you can perceive my messed-up self that I'm showing you on purpose, if you find me interesting because I do science and love it, if you value having me around because I give you actual objects -- where is the line? I don't see it.
Without a line there is no okay amount of nothing to do. Maybe other people perceive a baseline that is the obvious right thing? Maybe other people are not questioning their entire lives current and future at fairly deep levels right now.
Is there a line for you? How do you deal with it if there's not?
Lots to think about right now. Here's a bit of what I'm trying to process that I think feedback would help with. Feel free to skip if you don't feel ready to help me wrangle the inside of my head, but I'm not filtering this beyond overall access list because more perspectives are better.
See #5.
It is possible that always feeling like I need to be HELPFUL COMPANION ANIMAL (or Tomoyo) is not really the right thing. If there is a person I love I am quite strongly inclined to love them from Way Over Here and occasionally dive-bomb them with sweetness. Why? Because otherwise I will somehow mess up, and that is a DISASTER. Because they can't love me back. Because the whole thing is actually very easy as well as an ongoing pattern: RISK FREE and still fun, only also not? This happens a lot, I have a list of people, for now you can take my word for it. And I know it makes some people confused and probably hurts them.
Okay, so why can't they love me back? PEOPLE DO. Some people even claim I don't have to put in all this effort to be valued.
I really don't know. Because when people love me it is based entirely on what I do -- and that is objectively true, hear me out. If I never did anything that took effort I would NEVER SPEAK. And if I literally did not produce any way for people to know me, it would make zero sense for anyone to care about me. Any interaction I have is performative. Of course I'm not saying I don't want to interact, but it's conscious effort and often not easy. So where is the line? If you love me because you can perceive my messed-up self that I'm showing you on purpose, if you find me interesting because I do science and love it, if you value having me around because I give you actual objects -- where is the line? I don't see it.
Without a line there is no okay amount of nothing to do. Maybe other people perceive a baseline that is the obvious right thing? Maybe other people are not questioning their entire lives current and future at fairly deep levels right now.
Is there a line for you? How do you deal with it if there's not?
