Self-Sabotage [pseudo-rant]

[Guest]

A point was made on one of my earlier depressing rants that my problem is that I tend to sabotage myself. Whenever anything begins to go well for me, I find the best possible way to ensure that I don't get another chance to make things right for months.

You're all completely right. I could've actually lost my virginity tonight and I fucked it up. On purpose.

Here's the story for your entertainment:

So a girl that I'd casually flirted with back at my old school finds out I'm in town, starts messaging me, starts getting flirty, literally asks me out, the first time a girl has ever done that. She's getting increasingly sexual and openly states she wants to sleep with me. She's cute, she's nice, she's funny.

But also very dumb.

To the point where it was getting annoying. And like George Costanza, I took this small flaw, being unable to hold a single conversation with her, and elevated it in my mind. The date was supposed to happen tonight.

Finally, hypothetically, I would get everything I ever wanted, right? I would get to sleep with a girl, I'd get to be a man!

At least until a couple hours ago, where I had a panic attack over the thought of having to go on an actual date and impulsively decided to ruin it.

First I pretended like I'd gotten a fever, and made it obvious that I was lying about it (I'm good at being a bad liar just as much as I'm good at being a good one). Then I unfriended her on Facebook, blocked her, and deleted her number.

Then I told as many of the people I could over texts about how stupid she was and how I was lonely when I agreed to it, and I should've never made such a dumb mistake, and how I was settling for her. Every person who lives in my hometown, just so it may filter back to her and profoundly offend her.

And that's that. Within the space of ten minutes, I was able to completely ruin everything. I don't know how she reacted, nor do I particularly care. I'm strangely calm now that everything is ruined, and hopefully she hates me.

The fact is, everything was too perfect. Things were working out. Knowing that in the future, things would inevitably not work out, I decided to ruin everything in advance, just to speed up things. Either it happens in ten minutes or ten months.

I'm not saying that what I did was remotely rational. The irrational part is that I feel calm again, I feel peaceful, I feel safe, I feel comfortable. As long as I'm a failure, as long as things are going terribly for me, I'm in my element. As long as this girl hates me, like she should, everything is working out. I know it doesn't make sense, it doesn't even make sense to me. I'm so used to feeling terrible about myself that any opportunity to fix things must be eliminated.

I don't deserve to be happy. I just don't. Look at what I just did. You think that girl, stupid as she is, deserves a guy who will treat her like contempt just because she's unable to talk like a human being? She deserves a guy who respects her, because she is very nice and very sweet and very pretty. That's not me. I'm not the White Knight here.

The idea that I could've actually had sex tonight scares the living shit out of me. I could've actually done that with someone. She said blatantly that she wanted to. I can't have that happening. I know rationally I should've gone with it, but even thinking about it scares me. I guess it's an improvement from the idea of me having sex repulsing myself, but I'm consumed with fear about it. She has to hate me. No other way. I'd have to sit in a restaurant for a couple hours and pretend that whatever she said was interesting, just so I could fuck her. I can't do that. I couldn't punish any girl like that. I like women, for christ's sake. I can't torture them with my nude scarred up body. I can't do that to them.

So moral of the story: Glides is batshit crazy. Glides wants to die every second of every single day. I'm gonna stop speaking in third person. Namely, it's all my fucking fault, not society, not women, nobody but me. At every fucking turn, I have ruined my own life, and I will never stop ruining my own life. I would have a chance at success if I was anyone else, anyone else who didn't fuck things up for himself. I know why I do it: I was taught over years and years that I was a nobody and didn't deserve to be happy and was tormented at every turn. And now that no one does that to me anymore, I torment myself. I ruin every opportunity at romance, at connection because I was told so many times that no woman would ever want me.

I can't stop ruining my own life. I will never stop. The rest of my life is going to be like this. I'm doomed.

I don't deserve to be happy. If I deserved it, I wouldn't be this terrible.

[Enail]

Glides, it's okay. You were scared, felt backed into a corner, and reacted to get yourself out of it. What you did was mean, yes. The fact that you did it out of panic and self-sabotage doesn't make it okay - but it makes it understandable. You know that when you're in a situation you can't deal with, your defense mechanism is to lash out in really hurtful ways. So, if you want to avoid that happening, you need to come up with some strategies for non-harmful, non-cruel ways to get out of situations you don't feel able to handle, so you don't land up in that position of acting in panic.

First off, you need to give yourself permission to not do things you don't feel okay about doing. If you feel completely trapped in a situation, it's natural to go into panic mode. But if you're too scared to do something, if you can't deal with it, you don't have to do it. You're allowed to not be into someone because you don't find them intelligent, or don't like the way they talk, or because there's one little thing, no matter how minor, that annoys you. You're allowed to not be into someone for any reason at all.  You're allowed to decide you don't want to go on that date. You're allowed to go on a date and not have sex with that person, even if they really, really want to. You don't have to have a reason. Not wanting to is a good enough reason.

And you can still say no even if you don't feel okay with being upfront about it or you don't know what to say. If you're in a situation you don't want to be in and it's going too fast, you can say "I'm so sorry, I can't explain right now, I have to go/I can't make it tonight/etc. I'll tell you later." And then once you're out of the overwhelming situation and have calmed down, you can think up a non-mean way to explain. You can think up an excuse that won't hurt anyone. You can ask the forum for suggestions on how to handle it. Get yourself out of the panic mode first, and deal with it when you're not having that reaction.

Over time, you can practice making positive changes that will push you out of your comfort zone of feeling bad about yourself, a little at a time, so you can do things that will improve your life without feeling like you have to sabotage it.  But to be able to safely push your boundaries, I think first you need to know that you're in control of the situation, that you're allowed to set boundaries and that can trust yourself to respect the boundaries you've set. If your brain is telling you that it can't deal with something, pay attention and don't force yourself to do it.

[Dan_Brodribb]

I feel calm again, I feel peaceful, I feel safe, I feel comfortable. As long as I'm a failure, as long as things are going terribly for me, I'm in my element.

If that's the case, your choices seem perfectly rational. If failure is your element and brings you safety, comfort, and peace, why WOULDN'T you do what you're doing?  In the areas of my life where failure is comfortable for me, I behave much as you do.

[Guest]

I think the worst part is that I only wanted to have sex with this girl to raise my score a little bit. I just desperately wanted approval from people for being able to have sex with an attractive woman. I had no real physical attraction to her, and I was trying to force her to become a statistic. And that's not fair to her, she clearly wasn't looking for something casual.

I think the biggest insecurity I have is that pretending that I meet that person who is somehow perfect for me (the Manic Pixie Dream Girl who doesn't actually exist), I wouldn't have enough sexual partners to impress her. At the very least, I'd want more experience than her, and if not, to somehow be a good enough lover that I could lie convincingly. No woman's going to say "a man that good in bed must be a virgin."

So this chick tonight would've just been "practice" and "self-validation" instead of having a fun experience with another person. I would be taking advantage of her in a vulnerable moment, and I'm not evil enough to do that. I can't have sex until it's no longer about my own self-worth, yet I have to have enough sex to impress any future lovers I might have. I do not want to be taught, that's the ultimate offense.

God, I don't know what the fuck to do. I'm not happy being a failure, I'm just comfortable being one. I hate everything about myself. I'm doomed.

[trooper6]

I'm sure these following things have been said multiple times on these boards.

You can be a virgin and be good in bed. Being good in bed isn't about lots of numbers--or any numbers...it is about being present. It is about paying attention to the person you are having sex with. Having sex is like a dance. You aren't "so good" and then just dance all awesome regardless of what your partner is doing. You dance *with* your partner. And to dance well, you have to pay attention to their direction, and they pay attention to yours.

It is not the ultimate offense to be taught. It is the way I approach every single sexual encounter. In every single sexual encounter I must learn...be taught about that particular person in that particular moment. Thinking you have to know is a trap. You don't have to know, you have to be willing to listen.

[Werel]

trooper6 is wise and I'd +1 that all day long if I could.

Curious about one thing, Glides: when you say you're most comfortable and happiest as a failure, how does that jive with your film career? When you make a short film for class that you're proud of, that's well-received, when your professor tells you it's good enough to be a thesis film, is the feeling of that success uncomfortable? How about other small successes (getting into a tough parking spot, cooking something good)? Or just social successes (e.g. having a conventionally attractive woman express interest in you)?

[OneTrueGuest]

No, Glides. The worst part isn't that you wanted to just have sex to raise your score. The worst part wasn't that you self sabotaged yourself.

The worst part was that you humiliated a girl who did absolutely nothing bad to you. Who by your accounts was nice. You didn't just make her hate you. You could have done that easy by standing her up, or just cancelling the date with a few nasty choice words. No. Don't pretend that it's just about that. It was also about making yourself look cool. You told everyone in your community how she wasn't good enough for you. You made sure to gossip about her to everyone. You made sure that everyone knew that you thought she was stupid. And you made sure she'd find out that that's what you thought. A girl who liked you. Who had a crush on you. Who was, once again, nice. Do you fully understand what you've done? Because it doesn't come across like you do. I think you think she's just going to be upset at you and hate you and that's what you want so cool. But that's not all that you've done. You have now added to the list of people in her life who have done something bad to her. A list that makes the world a little meaner, a little colder. Just like you have a list of such people in your life, people who you blame for your current outlook on life and yourself (and not without reason), you have made her life just a little more in line with yours. Just a little worse. A little darker. She will trust a little less now. She will be less open now. She will doubt her intelligence just a little bit with every new man she meets. You aren't just some easy isolated incident she'll laugh off. I know it's hard to believe, but women are human too. Have feelings too. Have accumulations of issues and unfair treatments too. Think of every little thing that people did to you, every little bullying tactic they did. On their own, big whoop. But put together, and they are a pretty big fucking deal.

That's the worst of it Glides.

A while ago I sent you what I thought was quite a supportive message to which you never replied. And I can take a hint, I shan't be replying to you again after this post. But do you remember what I said in that message? I suggested that you maybe try to see if there was a way you could put more goodness out into the world. Just a little bit. To think outside of yourself and instead of contributing to the darkness really try.

Glides. The reason people haven't given up on you here is because they see the good in you. Heck the only reason I'm writing this to you is for the same reason. If I thought you were beyond hope why would I waste my time writing on some advice blogger forum? And that's why I refuse to let this slide. Because while you feel bad for what went down, I really don't think you think you did anything big to that girl. I really really think you don't believe girls are at all as complex and damaged and scared as boys are. You don't see girls as human beings. And that is a big part of your dating issues. Along with all the other things that you DO acknowledge about yourself. Which you are quite wise in the way you acknowledge.

I'm sorry you are going through such a hard time. Believe it or not I relate to it. As a girl. I've been through really really dark times as well. Which is why I also believe in not sugar coating things when good people going through hard times do bad things. You are an adult who deserves to be treated like one, and not pussy-footed around.

You did something really wrong. Don't try to make it something noble about how you'd have just been using her for sex so it was good you decided not to go out with her. There was a middle ground. It wasn't sex or humiliation. You didn't have to publicly humiliate her to everyone in her community. You could have been nice, even, said you were sorry but you've changed your mind. It would have hurt her, but at least it would have shown her that people can be kind even in rejection. You know, maybe the reason you fear rejection so much is because you think people will reject you the way you reject them. That they will go around spreading hate about you, mocking you to everyone they know. Just like you did about this girl.

I'm sincerely worried for you, Glides. You are becoming just like the people who bullied you. And it won't be just a mask for forever.

And that's all I have to say about that. I wish you so much wellness, Glides. I hope for so much in your future. I really do.

[tseug1]

 You don't see girls as human beings.  And that is a big part of your dating issues.  

nail on head.

[BasedBuzzed]

As resident douchebag, I can add on top of the above that being a braggadouchio like this paints a fat target on your back for others in the machismo dickwaving contest. It's unlikely to happen in this case, as depending on what you texted and how well you fronted your bro side to me, it will parse either as weirdly overinvested or else so utterly mundane that you're not scoring any points with it all.

[reboot]

  You don't see girls as human beings.  And that is a big part of your dating issues.  

nail on head.

Yep.

Also, you were a damned coward. You have just just canceled the date and tell her you were not feeling it. Oh no. You had to bad mouth her, call her stupid to your friends to, knock her down a bit. You were cruel to someone who "was not good enough" for you because you wanted to be. Then you turn around, come here and pretend like you were all so noble, that you did not want to use her, etc.. Bullshit. You used her to look "cool", to raise yourself in the esteem of your douchey friends.

If you can not be honest with us about your motivation, at least be honest with yourself. Going through a tough time now or in the past does not give you license to hurt and humiliate others.

[UristMcBunny]

agree with both enail and onetrueguest here, Glides.

On the one hand, your reaction is not okay, but understandable, and stems directly from issues and defence mechanisms you are aware are in play.  Your behaviour,  if not the extremes you went to, makes sense in the context of your panic response.  The good news is, you are aware both of the triggers for this behaviour and the ways in which the behaviour manifests.  This means you can change it - both in terms of finding ways to control, or at least compensate for, the panic response and in terms of finding less toxic ways to deal with the panic in-the-moment.  

But on the other hand, what you did was really awful.  More than your words seem to show appreciation for.  Consider - we get a lot of people on here expressing how extremely difficult it can be to ask someone out, the high anxieties people experience and the nightmare scenarios people come up with in their mind for what the worst end result could be.  Your treatment of the woman who asked you out is pretty much  perfect storm of the worst nightmares of a lot of people on this very forum.  She made herself vulnerable in a way a lot of people here can sympathise with, and in a way a lot of guys on this and the old incarnation of the forum expressly wished for - she put herself out there and pursued you.  And I think we can all agree that if some of the people on this site - yourself included - found the courage to ask someone out and got a reaction even half as bad as the organised campaign of humiliation you engaged in, the emotional and mental health fallout would be long-term.

For that reason, I think you really need to prioritise working on your fear response.  Specifically the ways you lash out at people who are being good to you.  Because it doesn't just effect you when you do that.  You know what your triggers are.  So invest time and energy in new ways to deal with them when they occur - ways that don't involve the person who triggered you. This was disappointing to read, Glides.

[Guest]

OK, I've had about enough of this crap.

In light of a couple assholes drawing the worst possible conclusion from what I wrote, which probably wasn't clarified anyway, I'm gonna make a couple clarifications here.

1. I did not reveal any personal information about the chick I complained about. It was all "this girl" and "that girl," no name. She also wasn't someone in my friend group, so none of them knew about it. Hardly mature, but she was not humiliated in the process. "God this chick is so fucking stupid" is pretty bad, but her name was never revealed. I'm pretty sure most of them think I was making a girl up, but even so...never used a fucking name, never humiliated anyone.

2. There was never any part of my original post that said I did anything like that. I complained to people, that was literally what I said. I never specified that I used her name or anything like that. Conclusion: some folks wanted to crucify me good. The feeling is entirely mutual.

3. When I called her, she actually believed what I told her. She was not offended. She simply said "I hope you feel better" in a sympathetic tone and hung up. I used this as an excuse to call her an idiot (without using her name) to a bunch of people to comfort my own deeply fucked up ego? Mature? Not at all. But I didn't humiliate anyone.

Now if the original post I wrote came off like I had done all of this, then that's on me and I expressed myself incorrectly. You people were very quick to assume the worst about me, and very quickly jumped on a bandwagon that assumed I was some kind of psychopath or something. I did incorrectly think that I was well acquainted enough with the forum for them not to think the worst about me when someone starts blabbing their mouth off. I'm not really sure what I did to earn that level of wrath, anyway, apart from being a generally self-deprecating self-loathing wiseass.

So no, the point of this isn't to say that I'm so noble and caring or whatever little sob story you people have invented to justify crucifying me. From the start I said what I did (pretending to be sick and deleting her contact info and complaining about "a girl" to people, nothing more) was wrong and I was a little coward and so on. Immature? Absolutely. But once again, I didn't humiliate anyone, I didn't ruin any lives, none of the terror you people are imagining for whatever reason. You're all taking shit way out of proportion here.

So thanks for being so quick to believe the worst about me and fuck every last one of you. Mods, you should probably ban me now. I'm pretty sure I just broke a rule and launched a personal attack.

[nearly_takuan]

Nah, you "made sure it would get back to her." So even if she's anonymous to the particular people you told, someone other than the two of you likely knows she was looking forward to a date, and even if it's only her... It is going to hurt her feelings. Because it's going to get back to her, and she'll know what you said and feel humiliated no matter what rationalizations you come up with for why she shouldn't. Humans have emotions that frequently override any logical sense. As. You. Know.

[BasedBuzzed]

You've said before that you brag and thrashtalk to fit in with friends, and have described how you've reacted with personalized vitriol before. But as I thought, it'll parse as the mundane why-the-hell-did-I-agree-to-this-date talk everybody has at some point. A bad feeling if you indirectly hear it, but survivable. Only rule you should have is consistency: if you hear secondhand thrashtalk next time about your own person, contextualize it probably and don't throw stones.

Anyway, blanket fuck yous have been thrown around before. Perhaps a threadlock until everybody's chilled down is in order.

[Enail]

<mod>Glides, stop being so quick to try and declare yourself banned.  Your original post made it sound like you were working pretty hard to humiliate her, and I'm glad to hear it wasn't as bad as that. People here have only what you say here to go on, and sometimes misunderstandings happen. Please remember that everyone was just trying to be helpful, even if they were drawing the wrong conclusions; there's no need to go on the attack.

I'm going to lock this thread for a few hours to give everyone the chance to cool down. Glides, you can let me know if you'd like me to open it again after that to discuss what actually happened and how you can avoid it in the future. </mod>

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