Pushing People Away

Why do we push people away when it is an intrinsic desire to be wanted and loved? Some of us don’t even comprehend we are doing it until we look back on the parade of individuals, some good, some bad, trailing through our past.

I have always tried to be the open sort, the kind that likes to give everyone a proper “heads-up” just in case something bizarre happens, but many times this has just turned into a disaster of theatrical and semi-hysterical proportions that works to drive love away from me. I forget to consider that I may be the only one who cares in evident situations and the “warning” may be seen as just unneeded, confusing baggage thrust on someone who is possibly trying to extricate from an experience they really wish they had never had in the first place. Even thinking about that dooms me because I have already decided that I am “less than” and commendable of desertion. In trying to be nice and offering an explanation for my performance, whether it was asked for or not, I set disappointment in motion because no one can appraise up to my high expectations. I expect things from people but don’t say what these expectations are and when they aren’t met? A perfect excuse to be angry and beat myself up for getting into a decayed relationship or for trusting anyone at all with my heart; a pure formula for failure.

I suppose the answer would be to stop being too nice? How about being just marginally nice and all normal-grey? On the exterior that is what I appear to be but on the inside my head took a different road long ago, so I do apologize to anyone I have freaked out lately. If you really want “grey” then I am sure there is a whole gaggle of happy little agreeable dolls that never display or cause humiliation.

I feel completely too deeply and care too much about others too fast so in the end what I give is never equal to what I receive. It’s what I see as a failure because I look around and see others doing what I think are simple human connections, interactions without worrying about whether something was said or done to upset them or whether their personality was just too powerful to handle.

But this isn’t one of those cases where I turn back and run as far away as I can.

I will go on and on, riding this merry-go-round of accidental insults and misunderstandings because it gives me a little to write about. That realization freaks people out because when your “insides” age, the exterior layer follows quickly leaving you no choice but to hang it up and scuffle into a musty grave, alone.

Knowing how to understand my kind isn’t hard if you always take for granted that a vast percentage of what is said while smiling is the truth and that which is uttered or written in a serious tone is never as awful as it is made out to be. This is what is recognized as an “escape clause” because people like me automatically assume that people will ultimately want to run. So, to anyone I have pushed away or will push away in the upcoming years, be free and sorry for emotionally chaining you down because of this fatal flaw of mine.

– T.R.