On people pleasing and breakups
I have this utterly shit habit of people pleasing.
It never works out, you burn yourself out, you withdraw, people hate you for it.
Experiencing it from the other side has utterly destroyed me. My ex, who broke up with me around 8 months ago, stayed with me as an act of pity and well, people pleasing. It has made me question absolutely everything. When did she stop actually caring? When was she out of the relationship? Was it a year before she broke up with me? There were certainly signs.
The breakup was also very upsetting. She broke up via text, in the evening. Guilt tripping me.
3 weeks later, on my birthday she insisted we have to continue playing DnD, since she didn't have a lot of time scheduling wise this month, and could only do one day. "No pressure tho" she texted.
I wish I could say I said no, I stood my ground. That after crying to my friends, complaining about the audacity... I said no. But I didn't. After a week I said yes. She was happy, as she always is. After she gets her way.
(For context, my ex is the DM) The first session was predictably awful. My character received a love letter. She even wrote it out. The others told me to read it out loud. I froze.
She later apologised, apparently only realising after that this was kind of painful for me. What a joke.
Still, I continued. Out of habit, out of obligation? Idk. I just did.
The "I can only play this one weekend this month" turned into a second one. So that was a lie too. She was fake, strange, and clearly didn't want me there. But if I leave, my best friend, who was also playing, would be gone, too.
We talked a few times, she would always push talks back. Half an hour at a time. Always late. I sat there, anxiously, waiting for her to finally be there. Her pushing me back would drive me insane. By the time we finally talked all my emotions were in turmoil, and I was angry. Perfect way to spin it.
She boasted once to the whole group how she would manipulate her younger sister all the time, in front of said sister, too. I didn't stand up for her at the time, even though I didn't like it.
She guilted me about the way she violated my privacy. The way she would purposefully prod at my boundaries. She left me alone in her room for hours talking to her mother, who was unhappy that I was there. She pushed me back all the time, even when we were together. The worst on my birthday, where she wanted to be there around 1pm and arrived at 9. Pushing back in hour increments. After we agreed it would just be us because we haven't seen each other for a while.
I don't know why I stayed.
My own habit of people pleasing has also pretty much only brought me pain.
You do so much, create spaces for people. Talk about their art, hype them up. Theorise about things that matter to them. But it doesn't matter. By the time you pull out you are just an asshole, a whiny asshole who complained and ruined their fun.
My ex pretty much kicked me out of the campaign. I still agreed to do a little exit dance. "A tidy bow" on the story, of my character leaving. I dreaded it. I cried, it paralysed me. I didn't talk to the others anymore, although I did try. The one person I texted regularly hadn't replied in a month (I started the conversation, my message was the last), but to them it was only silence on my end. I didn't talk about the future of my campaign. I should have. I didn't.
I did the asshole thing and dropped out a day before. I felt justified. It wasn't good or fun for any of us. (And she had done much worse things to me many times) My ex told me she had planned everything around plot points regarding my character (but that she also isn't comfortable playing out certain things...). I still said no.
Then, the one person I still considered a friend blocked me on everything (and I mean everything, social media, spotify, artfight, discord, pinterest... and the list goes on). And as predicted, they posted passive aggressive things about me. I wasn't even kicked from the Discord server, just given the guest role. I couldn't see the old art chat, which I wanted to archive (and even told my ex I wanted to do). See, she technically complied with my request. I wanted to stay on the server. But she still denied me all access. An act of pure revenge.
What's even funnier (or sadder), was the person who blocked. They blocked people I was talking to, even though they never met them. Just blocked everyone. I made the mistake of checking their socials. Saw their passive aggressive posts. How many likes they got.
A few months ago they posted about how noble they are for resisting the urge to vague post. It's really impressive I thought at the time. A double vague post with a virtue signal attached. They got so many likes. They vague posted about me before, many times. My ex told me they used to do that to her, too. Posted away about every conflict the two of them had, just with the serial numbers filed off. On a blog where she followed them.
So really, nothing of this was surprising. It was one of the reasons for why I dropped out. I knew I would face Armageddon no matter what.
In some ways I regret it. I could have let things fizzle out. And maybe it would have only been passive aggressive posts, not full on blocking on everything. But what does it matter. It would still hurt.
I did so many stupid things, masochistic things. A friend called me out for just how long I subjected myself to painful things. When I finally said no on my own terms, I became the asshole.