How can I be ok with feeling negative emotions?

March 9, 2012 11:38 AM

Suggestions for changing my outlook on disappointment and making excuses for other people?

I have a terrible tendency to make excuses for people who do rude/mean/thoughtless things, while simultaneously not allowing myself to feel negative emotions about them/the situation.

The combination of those two unfortunate traits is causing me a fair bit of consternation in the dating world, so I'd really like to get a handle on it.

A real world example -
After 2 weeks of mailing back and forth, I had a fun coffee date with a guy. We made plans for dinner & a movie the following weekend, but he canceled due to illness. He had been ill earlier in the week, and his cancellation seemed sincere.

However, that was 5 days ago and so far, there's been no contact from him since then. I sent a fairly neutral "Hope you're feeling better!" mail on Wednesday and still no response.

The logical part of me says, 'He's clearly just not interested, and not polite enough to just say that', but for some reason, I can't a) allow myself to just be irritated about it and write him off, because b) I keep mentally making excuses like 'Maybe he's really sick', 'Maybe he's super busy at work', 'He really doesn't seem like the type to be that rude', etc.

Logically, that's just dumb. He's clearly blowing me off. And I can accept it enough for it to bruise my ego, but not enough to consider him a thoughtless jerk.

This is a recurring theme with me, not just in dating, but in most inter-personal relationships. It leaves me fairly vulnerable to being treated poorly but forgiving people over and over - because I've already made all the excuses for them, and not allowed myself to feel rightfully hurt/angry with them.

Anyway. Coping strategies? Anything?

posted by dotgirl to Human Relations (16 answers total)

I am not sure why believing that this guy is a thoughtless jerk would add any value to your life. There is much to be said for not getting too fired up about someone else's bad behavior. Just let it go and move on.
posted by amro at 11:48 AM on March 9, 2012 [11 favorites]

This is a recurring theme with me, not just in dating, but in most inter-personal relationships. It leaves me fairly vulnerable to being treated poorly but forgiving people over and over - because I've already made all the excuses for them, and not allowed myself to feel rightfully hurt/angry with them.

We have to forgive people over and over. We wouldn't have some friends or family if we didn't. Notice the good things in people and ignore the bad. If they are purposefully mistreating you, or being inconsiderate, rude, or mean, speak up and create better boundaries. If you're hanging out with people you don't like, or who continually treat you poorly, stop hanging out with them -- simple as that. If you find that you are easily offended, take a look at that and investigate why that may be.

I like your way of handling things. Why go around being angry when you don't have to? Most people do not intend to intentionally hurt us. Some of your excuses may be valid.

The thing with the guy. He was behaving in a hurtful way. Be irritated for a moment and move on. He doesn't have the maturity to be straightforward. You don't have to think of him as a thoughtless jerk. Think of him as trying to spare your feelings in the best way he knew how and let it go. Learn from this and remind yourself to do the right thing if you find yourself in a situation where you have to let someone down.

I am not sure why believing that this guy is a thoughtless jerk would add any value to your life. There is much to be said for not getting too fired up about someone else's bad behavior. Just let it go and move on.

exactly
posted by Fairchild at 11:57 AM on March 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

not allowed myself to feel rightfully hurt/angry with them
It is possible that this is a defense mechanism for you, in that if you let yourself see them as a bad person, you feel bad because you trusted them. You might know in your brain that you had good reasons to trust them but your heart is telling you that you messed up by trusting someone who didn't deserve it. If that is what's happening, stop blaming yourself and realize that a mistake in judgment does not make you a bad person. Their bad behavior reflects on them, not you.
posted by soelo at 11:58 AM on March 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

Just let it go and move on.

Yup. I usually think of it as a variant on haters gotta hate--but peoples gotta people, you know. There is so much weird shit going on in people's heads, and so much dumb shit they do as a result that, man, you just gotta let it slide off you. But not get worked up about it; that's just the way people are.

But don't go back for seconds. Flag it and move on.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 11:58 AM on March 9, 2012 [10 favorites]

Best answer: The logical part of me says, 'He's clearly just not interested, [...] but I keep mentally making excuses like 'Maybe he's really sick'.

I think it helps to get to the point where either one or both of those could be true and it still wouldn't get under your skin. Speaking from experience similar to yours, either thought means you're involved in a way that's focused on what others are making possible or preventing for you, rather than on what you want or can do for yourself. Try migrating to something like: "He may be uninterested or sick or busy or in space or making a new album. In any case, the best use of my brain/heart cells is reading the book I've just bought/going bungee jumping/headed out to take night photos/etc."

I think of it as being super-conversative with what I direct my attention toward. If he's interested, I will attend to that later. If he's sick and ignoring me, there's not only no way I can know it (i.e., waste of attention), there's also nothing I can do (i.e., more waste of attention), so I'm going to direct my attention elsewhere.
posted by cocoagirl at 11:59 AM on March 9, 2012 [16 favorites]

What do you have to gain by making excuses for him? What do you have to gain by not making those excuses and moving on?

Can you stand up for yourself when you need to? (At least mostly.)

Based on the example, you're a better man than I.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 12:00 PM on March 9, 2012

I agree with others that this is a defense maneuver, and I'm guess you have a parent or sibling for whom you've frequently made such excuses. In this case it's just as easy to let it go, but you should be sure to give yourself license to ask questions of yourself like, "most people would think that this other person treated me poorly, why won't I let myself think that?"

Then, when you finally find those feelings of anger and disappointment and sadness, just feel them for a little bit. It's almost the hardest part, but acknowledge that they're normal and ok. Once you've felt the negative emotions and acknowledged them, they aren't nearly so scary.

This was a longwinded way of saying that what worked for me was therapy: seeing where the patterns came from and finding better ways to deal and assert my own needs.
posted by ldthomps at 12:11 PM on March 9, 2012

Best answer: I am not sure why believing that this guy is a thoughtless jerk would add any value to your life. There is much to be said for not getting too fired up about someone else's bad behavior. Just let it go and move on.

In dotgirl's defense - sometimes writing someone off as a thoughtless jerk is what you need to do in order to let it go and move on. It sounds like she's still stuck on "oh, maybe they're just busy and therefore there is still a chance that they will get back in touch with me later and therefore I should be patient for a little while longer". And if you get stuck in that headspace, then you start blaming yourself for being "impatient" or something and you just end up turning that negativity onto yourself instead of projecting it onto the guy for being thoughtless.

(Can we tell this resonated with me?)

Dotgirl: as you may have guessed, I've done this too; I think what finally helped me is deciding that even if I thought the guy WAS a thoughtless jerk, I wouldn't necessarily say "no" if he did come through with an excuse. I could think all the awful things about him that I wanted, if I told myself "oh, but if he calls me back in a month to say 'sorry, I was called away to an emergency life-saving mission in Peru,' then well, obivously that'll change things and I'll just re-assess." You know? By telling myself I could change my mind about what a jerk he was, it sort of freed up my ability to call him a jerk "without consequences." (Of course, none of the guys ever called me with such an excuse, but if they ever do....)

Also, letting myself fantasize about really awesome and eloquent put-downs in case they ever DID call again helped, and was really fun. (I've accepted that my last ex will never talk to me again. But if he ever does, oh BOY am I going to be ready with things to say.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:12 PM on March 9, 2012 [11 favorites]

First, my experience of online dating is that even after a real-world date, the most common way women rejected me is by simply not replying to my messages. Maybe about 1 in 3 would send a polite rejection, but most just ignored me.

The Fundamental Attribution Error might be relevant too. We tend to think of our own actions as mostly motivated by our situation, but other people's actions as mostly motivated by their character.

You never know for sure what's going on inside someone's head. He doesn't seem to be interested in a second date. It might be that his character is that he's a thoughtless jerk who doesn't care about your feelings. It might be that all his online dates rejected him by ignoring him, so he thinks that's just the way things are done. He might have been genuinely sick the first time. He might have faked being sick because he genuinely thought "letting you down gently" would be the kindest way to do it. He might have some kind of crippling anxiety or depression, and he knows he should give you a clear rejection but just can't face it.

It's good that you want to stop bothering with excuses, but it's bad that you want to replace them with feeling irritated. His actions aren't in your control, there's no reason you should feel anything in particular about them.

You just have to face it that he doesn't seem interested for whatever reason, and you'll probably never know why. If possible, don't waste any energy on either excusing him or hating him. The majority of online dates don't lead on to relationships. This is one of them. Try to just forget him and move on.

On a practical level, with online dating I ended up trying to be at some stage of communication with two women at a time. That way when things go badly with one, at least you have another prospect lined up; you've got someone else to take your mind off the first.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:13 PM on March 9, 2012 [10 favorites]

My guess is that you want to protect him and others from the (imagined) destructive impact of your anger.

This was a problem for me. I would make all kinds of excuses, and with a therapist's help, was able to discern that I was really angry, and that I was frightened about being angry, because I had gotten the idea that my anger was a crazy destructive force that, once unleashed, would damage people in ways that I couldn't stand. I got this idea because of stuff that happened with my mom when I was little and all that. In my mind, it was preferable for me to stuff my feelings down to protect others and to prevent me from feeling guilty about hurting others.

Once I came to understand that my anger was actually nothing that people needed to be protected from, this became less of an issue. Do you have an experience in your past that convinced you that it's dangerous to be angry?
posted by jasper411 at 12:30 PM on March 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

I think you need to deal with every case, every person in your life as an individual circumstance completely dependent from the past or future.

With this guy, he was wrong to make another date in person with you with no intention to keep it. Perhaps his polite way was to cancel via sickness and not reschedule, still cowardly and even if he does call woth some other excuse for his absence, your better off without such flakiness in your life.

Whether something like this happens again or not, you just have to look at the events as individual circumstances and be strong if it doesn't work out. You owe it more to yourself to be self-assured than to accept or make excuses for others.

There may be better strategies of how you proceed with second dates etc, maybe don't schedule a second date during the first but ask the person to call you in the next two days if they want to see you again. Then it's less pressure and you know within two days if it's on or off?

Wish you luck!
posted by Under the Sea at 1:10 PM on March 9, 2012

It leaves me fairly vulnerable to being treated poorly but forgiving people over and over - because I've already made all the excuses for them, and not allowed myself to feel rightfully hurt/angry with them.

But, you don't need to feel hurt or angry, to set boundaries, decline interaction with a person because of how they treat you. Also, even if someone has an "excuse" for doing what they do, it's STILL okay for you to decline interacting with them or not be accepting of what they do.

Maybe you feel YOU need an excuse to set boundaries? Like it's only okay for you to do it if you find some kind of unassailable justification or reasoning? I just want to tell you don't need any excuse at all. If you don't like the behavior or it isn't working for you, for any reason or no reason, then thats enough.

This is an out of left field example but it's like cats. Cats bury their poop with their feet and then jump all over your counters and pillows. It's not their fault and it's not malicious, that's just what they do. Cats gonna cat. However, that's why I don't have a cat.
posted by cairdeas at 1:10 PM on March 9, 2012 [5 favorites]

Completely independent! Sorry!
posted by Under the Sea at 1:11 PM on March 9, 2012

I love TheophileEscargot's shout-out to the Fundamental Attribution Error, and cocoagirl's comment about getting to a point where it doesn't get under your skin.

I have a terrible tendency to make excuses for people who do rude/mean/thoughtless things, while simultaneously not allowing myself to feel negative emotions about them/the situation.

You already have half the problem solved if you're recognizing situations where you're being mistreated. Instead of looking at these situations as places where you have to make excuses, how about looking at them as places where you'll give other people the chance to make the excuses for themselves by compassionately pressing the issue?

If your response to that is, "Well, this isn't something I could see them doing or taking very well," then that's a sign that you're allowing people who don't respect you to get close to you, and a good New Rule for you would be that the people in your life either don't put you through certain kinds of shit to begin with (especially if there's a pattern to it), or they treat you as an equal when you bring it up and work with you to resolve it. Acting dismissively is a red flag, and there are tons of people out there who would never do this to you in a million years.

I've been banging the "I guess it's not a big deal" drum a bit lately in AskMe, but I think this is another situation it applies to. If this is part of your self-talk when suppressing your feelings, I've found that, "Well, then that means it won't be a big deal if I raise the issue with them, either" to be a good way of countering that. And if it turns out to be a big deal to them, then it's definitely a conversation you need to be having.

Assume people would want to know if their behavior is bothering you. If they act like something is wrong with you for assuming this, act like something is terribly wrong with them, because it is.
posted by alphanerd at 2:02 PM on March 9, 2012

I can't speak for the rest of your life, but when it comes to dating, after about three days of no contact, you should probably assume he's not interested and too wimpy to actually say so. Most people do the "silent dump" these days, so this is something that will come up over and over again. If the guy really did want to call you, while sick, busy, whatever, he could manage it. He could do a sneak call from the bathroom at work if he's busy at work, he could text you if he had laryngitis. Short of sudden hospitalization, in almost every case, someone could call you if they wanted to. (I heard of that actually happening to someone ONCE. And then as I recall, she just moved on to the backup guy she was dating anyway by then.)

Rationalizing to yourself that "maybe he's just busy" keeps you hanging on and feeling shitty while you wait for a lack of response. I think you just need to start cutting bait quickly, assuming that after 3 days he isn't interested and moving on, and not getting too attached to any one dude at this point.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:22 PM on March 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

What kind of text message or phone conversation do you wish he would write you?—if he just wanted to spend time alone, or made plans with someone else?

Is it possible that the reason you want to consider him a thoughtless jerk so that you can meet his rejection with indignation rather than sadness?
posted by esprit de l'escalier at 3:54 PM on March 9, 2012