House of Eratosthenes

Dear Carolyn:

My girlfriend broke up with me last Thursday. Essentially she got drunk, and some guy she admits to having a crush on kissed her.

I think the original breakup was an overreaction on her part. She struggles with some self-esteem issues even though she is an amazing person; she constantly tells me she doesn’t deserve to be with me, I treat her too well, etc. She is in therapy and addressing these issues and others.

We’ve been talking a lot the past week — some very painful, tearful conversations — and I think we’re getting back together.

I really, really want to make things work with her, but I’m concerned there are hazards ahead. Is there anything particular we need to watch for?

Hurting but hopeful

I realize this is ridiculously easy for me to say, from out in the ether with no feelings for either of you beyond a we-are-the-world love of humanity, but: It sounds as if she’d be better off navigating through her issues without the added complication of maintaining a relationship.

I agree with Carolyn about what the guy needs to do, and it isn’t necessary to discuss whether I agree on any other point.

“Ladies” like this are not going to get better, ever. That’s because, while they do have self esteem issues, said issues do not exist in the form in which we recognize them. Our mistaken notion is that the victim suffers from low self-esteem and doesn’t consider herself to be worth as much as other people. The truth is more like: She doesn’t know how to live a fulfilling life, only a comfortable one, and in order to reach a comfort zone she needs to diminish the people around her, because that’s their purpose in her eyes. So she’s seen, institutionally, as suffering from a deficit of self-esteem especially in relative terms when she compares herself to others. But it’s more accurate to say she is carrying around a debilitating overabundance of the stuff.

Think about it. Who, in this situation, does she see as more worthy than herself? The guy she kissed? He was just an implement she used in a scheme to get more attention from her real boyfriend; it worked like a charm. The real boyfriend? She manipulates him to get more attention. She cheated on him and she’ll do it again, because that’s the method she’s selected. Won’t use another method until it becomes necessary to do so, and it won’t. The therapist? He or she is there to make her feel good. People like this don’t get better because they fail to learn how to engage life in any setting in which it isn’t all about them, them, them.

They go to therapy, in which, for an hour or so, it’s still all about them-them-them. The bill is paid, somehow, and then they go back to their lives in which it’s still all about them-them-them. They don’t know any other way to do it, and although the therapy industry won’t permit anyone to talk about this openly, they aren’t learning.

Rat in Maze I’ve noticed people like this tend to have multiple addictions, of sufficient number and intensity that it’s fair to conclude their personality — which is busted — makes them susceptible to forming addictions. What really defines our blind spot, is this: The addictive personality is not going to struggle with a problem it really wants solved, for years or decades at a time. It is not like the rat in the maze that needs to be led to the cheese. It is the Jurassic Park situation. The way will be found. It wants what it wants when it wants it, and it will get it. If it isn’t getting something, it isn’t getting it because it doesn’t want it.

Now if we’re talking about whether people like this have issues with envisioning themselves independently achieving something useful to others — then this is an entirely different conversation. Yes there is a vision problem there, and the vision problem is atrophy. They haven’t formed that vision because they’re not used to thinking that way. By the time a man is starving, if he uses his wits and other gifts to get himself a plate of food, he has no feeling of accomplishment as he devours the plate of food because the demand nature has placed on him to eat the food obscures that sense of accomplishment. The same is true of a baby who’s found a nipple. In this sense, the “low self esteem” thing is a true statement, because the addictive personality can’t engage this cycle. It simply isn’t constructed that way.

It can barter one good in exchange for another, but it can’t remain in a system that operates by such bartering for any length of time, because sooner or later it will engage this bartering by means of deceit and in so doing, destroy the trust that is the foundation of such a system.

It’s simply un-evolved. Like a beast living in the wild; the time comes to gorge, and it will do whatever it takes, like any properly developed lioness, shark, or other predator. To express a hope that it will learn a different way to interact with its environment, is to express a true ignorance of what’s being observed.

“Predator.” That is the key word. From Kindergarten onward, our society simply will not allow people to view anything feminine in this way, ever, no matter what. We talk about females like this missing their self-esteem, because we’re groping around looking for some alternative way to discuss it. But in truth, the capacity to develop into adulthood poorly, with predatory personality tendencies, is divided about evenly between males and females. We are culturally permitted to recognize it only in the males.

She’s not to blame, he is. The guy is a beta, and she’s reacting to his low-level status, as demonstrated by the tone of his narrative. He makes excuses for her, instead of expressing his inner rage, which would be present in anyone disrespected as he was.

I guarantee you she tested his strength and resolve hundreds of other times in the relationship and found him lacking, therefore she took it up a notch with infidelity. And then SHE broke up with him, convinced that he doesn’t make the cut and must be expunged.

Sure, she’s a tw@t, no doubt about it. But he’s a supplicating appeaser. And kneeling prostrate at the feet of a b1tch will get you sh1t on faster than a pigeon-laden statue in Central Park.

He needs to man up and grow a pair, then he can get higher quality women who will treat him the way he believes he should be treated. But until that happens, he’s going to be target practice for estrogen bullets at the dating range of life.
- sanskara | 12/16/2011 @ 16:10
Eh, it’s more complicated than that though. As far as initially rejecting him, you’re right; that’s the woman’s role. Men keymasters, women gatekeepers, if it was up to the men to decide what coupling would take place nobody would ever get a damn thing done, we’d all be involved in cockfights and fornicating 24/7. So for the human equation to work, 1) ladies are going to have to have a “does & doesn’t make the cut” detector interwoven into their DNA and 2) the gentlemen are going to be just a notch or two short of what’s needed to figure out how it works.

But this kind of low-grade tramp defeats the purpose of the detector, because her “want what I want when I want it” actuator is shorting the damn thing out. Before we’re done with the first three short paragraphs she’s given the poor stupid bastard every answer possible, and it isn’t because she’s confused it’s because both answers, at one point or another, have suited her primary objective of getting what she wants when she wants it.

You’re right, he’s asking for it — and he’d get treatment on par with this, no matter who the woman is. But it’s a bit of a stretch to say “she’s not to blame, he is.” I’ll agree that if I’m that guy, looking for the proper solution to the situation, it would be productive to look at it in those terms. But you can’t say she’s not-to-blame, in the sense that you’d trust her with something like walking your dog, watching your kid, taking care of your house! She’s a narcissist. We probably don’t disagree. It’s an old story. Billy Joel had a good handle on what’s going on here.
- mkfreeberg | 12/16/2011 @ 16:31
Obviously, the first sentence is meant as a rhetorical device. I clearly conceded that she’s a tw@t further on down. My point is that there’s a little part of every woman that will dump on you if you’re weak. They are absolutely hard-wired to experience revulsion at the sight of weak men. To what extent it guides a woman’s behavior, just as to what extent a man tries to mount every hot chick he sees, is a matter of individual ethics.

It may seem like a stretch to “blame the victim.” But for would-be victims, it’s absolutely germane to say, figuratively, that if you don’t keep your hands up in a fight, you have only yourself to blame if you get hit.

This guy is too far gone, it wouldn’t do any good to tell him to man-up and defend himself. He’d probably just pee all over his pantaloons. But for other sissy-mary-catherines in training, you can nip it in the bud with a little hyperbole.

As you noted, we don’t really disagree.
- sanskara | 12/16/2011 @ 18:20
Yeah well, wuzza-time I was like that. Lots of boys are brought up to adulthood that way. It’s a very common affliction. So you *can* snap out of it…but you have to be willing to shut up, look & listen, and form rational conclusions about what’s taking place. To many people reach adulthood without the ability to do this. They want to shoehorn reality into their preconceived notions of what it should be, and these are the guys who are convinced that if they’re just a little bit more commiserating and acquiescent, someday soon she’s going to stop being mean.

I think the rational, ethical females just make themselves inaccessible. Kinda like we do, as cell phone users, when we avoid telemarketers.
- mkfreeberg | 12/16/2011 @ 19:55

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Her Self Esteem IssuesThursday, December 15th, 2011

Her Self Esteem Issues
Thursday, December 15th, 2011