abrightboy: (difficult to say)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
'Like this' in what sense? Working on someone else's personality defects?

(Anonymous) 2023-09-07 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Being patient and communicative and understanding and all that crap.
abrightboy: (tries to understand)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 06:26 pm (UTC)(link)
You don't act like you know that.
abrightboy: (thinking down)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
That's not the same.
abrightboy: (makes a point)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Not being compatible with a job isn't a judgement of who you are. Different people have different strengths. Different jobs demand different things. Nobody is a good fit for everything.

Conversely? I'm great at my job at home. Probably the best in the country. I'm not boasting; that's a fact by any objective metric. Being very cut out for it doesn't make me less socially defective.
abrightboy: (sad contemplation)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
But you don't actually say that.
abrightboy: (sad contemplation)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 06:58 pm (UTC)(link)
How would I know that?
abrightboy: (sad contemplation)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 07:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Did you think I didn't know that there's something wrong with me and it puts people off?
abrightboy: (thinking down)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 07:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe not. But do you actually know how to make me better? Sometimes I think you don't actually see me at all.
abrightboy: (thinking down)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
No. I'm talking about... I know it's me, okay. It's always been me. It didn't start when my father was arrested. That just made it worse or... more obvious. Or compounded, I guess, with the cPTSD. But I've been working on dealing with my...self with professionals and with every... attempt at connection I've ever failed at and it's disheartening that you don't believe me when I tell you that this is as good as I get. This is my most palatable form. And you don't begin to know the struggle it took to get to this point, so I think you don't really understand the... the killing blow that it is to hear from someone I respect that I just need to try harder. That I need to pull up my socks and just work on it. There isn't a non-annoying me under the surface, okay? If you're waiting for that guy to show up and hang out, he's authorized me to tell you that he's never coming.
abrightboy: (pays attention)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 10:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay. So tell me just the instruction.
abrightboy: (tries to understand)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 10:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I didn’t think I made you uncomfortable. You clearly weren’t uncomfortable. But when you said you didn’t want to talk about it with me, it made sense. Because we aren’t a safe place to each other - not because people don’t like me, and I didn’t say that was the reason. I said that was a subject that people talk about with safe people. So would you like to argue that you feel safe being vulnerable with me? Because I don’t think you do. But that isn’t the same thing at all as being made uncomfortable. I didn’t even bring up the topic of conversation. You did. And I still don’t actually understand why you did that when you didn’t want to talk about it. But that isn’t relevant to the fact that I’d love to stop doing the thing I didn’t do, but I didn’t do it.
abrightboy: (pays attention)

[personal profile] abrightboy 2023-09-07 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
I didn’t think that was rude. It was a valid question. And made me realize that the topic wasn’t appropriate for us when we’re not a safe place to each other. You assumed that meant you were dangerous and I wanted your comfort over it. I didn’t mean the former or want the latter.

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