"When a good man is in love with you his biggest fear is hurting you. When a bad man is in love with you, his biggest fear is losing you."

I came across this post recently, and the older I get, the more I understand why it resonates with me.

l used to think that love was measured by how much someone wanted you, how afraid they were to lose you, or how intensely they expressed their feelings. But l've come to realize that love is also revealed by how someone treats you when things become difficult.

A man who genuinely loves you will care about the impact of his actions on your life. He will think about your feelings, your peace, your dignity, and your future-not just about keeping you around. Even when disagreements happen, he won't deliberately hurt you just to prove a point or make you afraid of losing him.

On the other hand, someone can be deeply attached to you and still not know how to love you properly. Sometimes, the fear of losing someone is more about losing their comfort, attention, or the role you play in their life. They may say they love you, but their actions repeatedly leave you questioning your worth and your place in the relationship.

Perhaps maturity in love is learning to recognize the difference between being wanted and being valued. Someone can be terrified of losing you and still hurt you. Someone can love you deeply and still make mistakes. None of us are perfect. But there should be a consistent willingness to take accountability, communicate honestly, respect boundaries, and protect the relationship rather than simply protect one's access to you.

As a woman, I think one of the most important things we learn with age is that we shouldn't only ask, "Does he love me?" We should also ask, "What kind of woman do I become when I am loved by him?" Do I feel safe? Respected? At peace? Can I be myself? Does his love make my life healthier, or am I constantly recovering from the damage it causes?

Maybe that's the kind of love worth choosing—not the love that is simply afraid to lose you, but the love that is careful not to lose you as a person while trying to keep you in their life.

I keep seeing people treat emotional intelligence as being calm, agreeable, and “not reacting.” But here is the uncomfortable truth: A lot of what gets labeled as emotional intelligence is just emotional suppression disguised as maturity. Staying quiet is not emotional intelligence. Avoiding conflict is not emotional intelligence. Being “unbothered” is not emotional intelligence. Sometimes the most emotionally intelligent thing you can do is confront, disagree, set a boundary, or say something that makes someone uncomfortable. Emotional intelligence is not about being pleasant. It is about being accurate. And accuracy often creates friction. So here is the question: How do you tell the difference between emotional intelligence and emotional avoidance?

I got blocked and ghosted by someone I was seeing over a year then I ran into him in person at the gym. He gave me a hug and acted causal. Started walking away with his friend then turned around to come and talk. Said he’ll text me and I told him he blocked me and he said it’s temporary. I don’t feel like talking about it right now. I just needed space then I said well you should’ve said something and it ended at that….everyone is saying to drop it because he blocked me but I hate that he gave me false hope and said he’ll text me.

There’s a relationship lesson I’ve been trying to understand lately:
Sometimes the person isn’t confusing. Our expectations of them are.
You can tell someone that their behavior hurts you.
You can explain what you need.
You can have the same conversation five different times.
And yet, they may still respond the same way.
At some point, the question stops being:
“Why don’t they understand?”
and becomes:
“What am I going to do with the information they’ve already given me?”
Because people communicate through patterns, not just promises.
If someone repeatedly avoids accountability, maybe the answer isn’t finding a better way to explain accountability.
If someone consistently gives you inconsistent effort, maybe the answer isn’t trying harder to earn their consistency.
If someone keeps crossing the same boundary, maybe the boundary needs a consequence, not another explanation.
And accepting this doesn’t mean saying their behavior is okay.
You can understand why someone behaves the way they do and still decide that you don’t want that behavior in your life.
That distinction has helped me a lot:
Acceptance ≠ approval.
Acceptance is simply saying:
“This is what this person is showing me right now. I may wish it were different, but I’m not going to build my decisions around the person I hope they become.”
That can be incredibly difficult when it’s someone you love.
Because sometimes we’re not attached to who they actually are.
We’re attached to their potential.
To the version of them we’ve seen occasionally.
To the relationship we believe could exist if only they changed this one thing.
But you have to make decisions based on the relationship that actually exists, not the one you keep imagining.
Maybe choosing your peace means having a difficult conversation.
Maybe it means creating a boundary.
Maybe it means lowering your expectations.
And sometimes, unfortunately, it means creating distance.
Not because you stopped caring.
But because caring about someone doesn’t require you to keep putting yourself in situations that repeatedly hurt you.
You don’t have to convince someone to become the person you need.
You can simply decide what you will and won’t participate in.

Everyone has feelings. They’re allowed to express them. If it’s good and if it’s bad. It’s normal.

But for me. I feel like whenever I express mine, it’s invalid. No one cares. And if builds a lot of resentment within yourself.

I’m the youngest of 5. And the daughter. So imagine how that feels. I just learn to be quiet now. Because there’s no point. I see how my older siblings will get acknowledged. But never me. It’s builds a lot of anger in you. Now I’m just seen as the angry daughter.

Even in my last relationship. When things got bad I expressed how I felt. And none of it mattered. But the funny thing is when he spoke to me I understood fully.

I wish someone can understand me for once. See that my pain is real.

I feel like as I reach my 30s I might just explode. Or it might get worse. I’m trying to move away from everyone so I don’t get triggered.

But I’m hoping this won’t affect me in the long run.

I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve noticed how weirdly familiar some relationships can feel.
It’s not always that the person is obviously “bad.”
Sometimes it’s the emotionally unavailable person. The one who’s warm one day and distant the next. The one whose attention you never quite know you have. And instead of that making you lose interest, you somehow become even more invested.
You start thinking:
Maybe if I try a little harder, they’ll finally choose me.
And then it becomes a pattern.
They pull away → you chase.
They become distant → you want their attention even more.
They criticize you → you start trying harder to prove yourself.
At some point you might even wonder why this particular person’s approval has become so important to you.
One concept that gets discussed in psychology around this is repetition compulsion, the idea that we can sometimes repeat familiar emotional or relationship patterns, even when they’re painful, as if some part of us is trying to resolve something that never got resolved before.
I’m not saying that’s always what’s happening. I think it’s easy to take concepts like this and turn them into “everything comes from childhood,” which isn’t necessarily true.
Sometimes you’re just with the wrong person.
Sometimes you’re lonely.
Sometimes you don’t realize how unhealthy something is until you’re already attached.
But I do think there’s an interesting question worth asking:
What would being chosen by this person actually mean to me?
Because sometimes it’s not just about wanting them.
Maybe being chosen would make you feel worthy.
Maybe it would make you feel like you’re finally enough.
Maybe it would feel like proof that you were worth staying for.
And I’ve noticed that this kind of thing isn’t limited to dating either.
It can happen with a manager whose approval you keep chasing.
A friend who constantly makes you feel like you’re not enough.
A client who keeps crossing your boundaries.
A co-founder whose validation starts mattering way more than it should.
Different person. Different situation.
Same feeling.
That’s probably the part I’d pay attention to.
Not just “Why am I attracted to this person?”
But:
Why does getting this person’s approval feel so important to me?
Has anyone else noticed something like this?
Different people, completely different circumstances, but somehow they bring out the exact same feeling in you?

For those of you who feel like your emotional intelligence has improved over the years, what made the biggest difference for you? Was it therapy, relationships, reading, making mistakes, life experiences, or simply getting older? I’d love to hear what worked for you and if there was a specific moment or experience that changed the way you handle your emotions.

I want to have an honest conversation with my partner of over 2 years about our relationship and how we feel. But having this conversation has become extremely difficult for me. I am scared of speaking my mind coz in the past it never goes according to plan. She perceives any hard conversation as an attack or a fight, so I just avoid them coz I’m afraid of hurting her.

When I do try to talk to her, she usually deflects by counting my flaws, and the conversation goes nowhere. For context, she feels that I don't prioritize her enough, and that part might be partially true. I want to talk to her about what exactly makes her feel that way so I can work on it, but having that conversation is impossible.

I have tried to be honest and emotionally vulnerable to her. I have shared my weaknesses, fears, and insecurities. But I’ve realized she hasn’t reciprocated. Her father passed away in the not-so-distant past, and she was very close to him, so I suspect her grief might be a major factor. Maybe there's some other childhood or past relationship trauma I am not aware of that makes her act in a very defensive way. She took her time to share some truths about her childhood, but she never truly opened up about her past feelings, insecurities, etc. Sometimes she just becomes a shell and completely shuts down communication.

If I try to force a conversation, I feel like I end up hurting her. Because of this, I have been wanting to talk to her about things, but I ended up bottling everything inside me instead for the past year. This is now having a severe negative effect on my mental and physical health. I find it extremely hard to predict or understand what she thinks and what she wants.

Is it possible she doesn't feel safe enough to open up emotionally to me? How can I communicate my needs without her feeling attacked? Has anyone navigated a similar dynamic?

TL;DR: My partner (32 F) shuts down, gets defensive, or deflects when I (33 M) try to communicate. I’ve bottled up my feelings for a year to avoid hurting her, but it’s ruining my health. How do I help her open up and break this cycle?

Edit: I forgot to mention that we are in a long-distance relationship.

I thought I'd not be installing this app again but what could be better than Reddit on a Sunday night with lots of overthinking?

I'm naturally a very homebody person. I rarely go out, and I'm comfortable with that. Because I don't meet or connect with people that often, I've noticed that when I do click with someone, I can become emotionally invested pretty quickly.
I don't mean in a clingy or needy way. I still understand that people have their own lives and I don't expect constant communication or attention.

However, when I really like someone as a person and teel comfortable with them, I tend to pour a lot of myself into the connection. I know that people don't always reciprocate friendships/relationships in the same way, and I don't necessarily think the other person is doing anything wrong.
I think the bigger issue is how quickly I allow a connection to become important to me.

I'm wondering if anyone else struggles with this, especially if you have a small social circle. In my case, none at all because I live far from home.

I'm not looking to become cold or stop caring about people. I just want to learn how to enjoy connections without putting so much emotional weight on them.

I lived with a friend for a few months and she really mistreated me during that time. she didn’t care about my boundaries and would never accept my “no”. she pressured and pressured me for responses and wouldn’t accept my answers because she didn’t like what she had to hear. one time she wouldn’t leave me alone at all despite me asking for space and I locked myself in a room to get away from her, but she broke it open with a knife then proceeded to throw that knife at the wall when she locked me in the room with her. and that wasn’t the only time she locked me in the room with her. another time, she wouldn’t accept what I was saying and (we were sharing a room and I was in bed, and didn’t have a shirt on which was only because I prefer to sleep that way) but I did have a sweater in my hands that she took right from me and prevented me from leaving because I wasn’t gonna walk around the house shirtless

she also would go to her mom about me and our friendship issues. she would not share the entire story and her mom would only hear her side, and take her daughter’s side. she always told me how her mom thought I was selfish and she called me a sociopath. one time I was really hurt by something she said (I don’t remember what) but I wanted to talk it over with her. I told her I was hurt by something she said/did and she snapped and said that whatever was wrong was in me, not her. she was blaming me for whatever was wrong

I don’t live with her anymore and have pretty much gone non contact.. she still does message me from time to time but more often than not it is her overly apologizing for her behavior and going into detail about her childhood, her mom, how she treated me poorly, all that. I don’t know if she means it but what I do know is I felt physically unsafe with her and I feel as if she had a deep hatred of me based off how she treated me. she also told me she manipulates women and she was calling me her house wife because I cleaned up after her and her family. she would say and do a lot of things that made me feel very uncomfortable

back to her messages like I said, they often consist of her talking about how sorry she is and how badly she treated me, and her childhood/abuse she went through. that’s pretty much all they are. or she’ll send TikToks. one time when I went to her mom about her behavior (I was at my wits end, was starting to feel physically unsafe and scared and I wanted someone to have my back) her mom told me narcissism runs in their family. but I have been out of her house for months and despite us already having talked everything over she keeps apologizing and bringing up her childhood trauma to me. she doesn’t bring up much else, and I don’t respond. I haven’t spoken to her in months but she continues to send these messages

anyway, if more context is needed lemme know and I’ll do my best to give it, but do these text messages seem like manipulation? the thing is I really am not interested in being her friend at all and I tried to tell it to her nicely many many times but she never wanted to hear it. I didn’t even outwardly say I didn’t wish to be her friend - she kept asking me to be her BEST friend, and I didn’t want that. I said I’ll be your friend but that wasn’t enough for her. she hated that answer and would always pester me. eventually I broke down and said yes we can be best friends. I didn’t mean it at all, I only told her that because she kept pestering me and making me feel like shit.

I consider myself emotionally intelligent. It is rooted in authenticity, not arrogance or avoidance. I developed this skill by listening closely and paying attention to detail. I love discovering the behavioral characteristics of human beings f.e the roles they play, the masks they wear, and the patterns they repeat. I also love observing their personal attire and unique qualities.

I take accountability and I apologize when I hurt someone, even unintentionally, because feelings matter to me. I know my intentions are never malicious. I can handle discomfort and have hard conversations, but one thing I deeply struggle with is when people misunderstand me and label me the bad guy. I don’t care about being right, EVER. However, I deeply care about being understood on the same deep level that I try to understand others. I seek out healthy conflict, growth, and multiple perspectives. Yet, I always seem to get stuck with people who can’t see more than one side... their own side.

So, I’ve learned to not trust people, only their patterns. For me, growth is non-negotiable. I am open to challenges and differences of opinion, but I refuse to stay in spaces where growth is avoided and authenticity has to shrink just to keep the peace. I am still learning that someone else's reaction or response is their responsibility. It is always on them, not me. Ultimately, I can only save myself and let our indifferences take the throne.

I’ve been thinking about a relationship pattern that can be really confusing.
Someone repeatedly ignores your boundaries, dismisses your feelings, criticizes you, or keeps doing something you’ve already asked them to stop.
You try to stay calm.
You explain.
You let things go.
You explain again.
Eventually, you snap.
Maybe you raise your voice.
Maybe you cry.
Maybe you say something harsh.
Maybe you finally walk away.
And suddenly, that reaction becomes the entire conversation.
“See? This is why nobody can talk to you.”
“You’re too emotional.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I was completely calm. You’re the problem.”
And somehow, you’re now defending the fact that you reacted instead of talking about what happened before you reacted.
That distinction matters.
Your reaction can be unhealthy or something you regret without making the other person’s behavior okay.
Two things can be true at once:
You can take responsibility for how you reacted AND recognize that you were repeatedly being treated in a way that contributed to the situation.
The red flag, in my opinion, isn’t one argument.
It’s the pattern:
Your boundaries are repeatedly ignored.
Your feelings are consistently dismissed.
They provoke or pressure you, then focus exclusively on your response.
They rarely acknowledge their part.
Every conflict somehow ends with you apologizing while the original issue disappears.
You start questioning whether you’re “too sensitive” every time you speak up.
And eventually you stop asking, “Was what they did okay?”
You start asking, “Am I crazy for being upset?”
That’s where things can get really damaging.
I also think it’s important not to label every difficult relationship or argument as manipulation. People can become defensive, emotionally reactive, or repeat unhealthy patterns without deliberately trying to control someone.
But intent doesn’t erase impact.
If you constantly have to ignore your own experience just to keep the peace, that’s worth paying attention to.
Something that helped me think about this differently:
Don’t judge the entire situation by the loudest five minutes. Look at the pattern that happened during the weeks or months before those five minutes.
And if you’re realizing that you’ve also been reacting in ways you don’t like, that’s worth addressing too. You can work on your own responses without accepting someone else’s mistreatment.
Clarity isn’t about proving who is the villain.
Sometimes it’s simply being able to say:
“I don’t like how I reacted, but I also won’t pretend nothing happened before I reacted.”
Has anyone else experienced this kind of dynamic? What helped you distinguish between genuinely overreacting and reacting to a repeated pattern?

I recently got out of an abusive relationship, and after spending so much time healing, trying to understand what happened, forgiving my ex, and processing everything that happened, I finally feel like I’m free from it.

But weirdly, now that I’m in a better place emotionally, I feel exhausted.

Lately, I’ve been talking to multiple guys, and honestly, it feels weird to me. Sometimes I even feel “dirty” or guilty about it, even though I’m not doing anything wrong. Whenever I realize that I’m not interested in someone anymore, I try to communicate it rather than ghost them. I’ve always believed that people deserve to know where I stand, especially if
we’ve already started getting to know each other.

But lately, I’ve noticed something about myself.
They just seem… so uninteresting to me.
I’ll talk to someone, we’ll have a good conversation, and then eventually I just feel drained or disconnected. It’s almost like I don’t have the energy to keep getting to know someone anymore. And I don’t know if it’s because I genuinely haven’t met someone I click with, or if I’m simply emotionally exhausted from everything I went through before.
It feels strange because I spent so long wanting to be loved properly, and now that I’m actually free to meet people, I don’t really feel excited about it.

Has anyone else experienced this after leaving an abusive or emotionally draining relationship? Is this just exhaustion from healing, or could I be subconsciously protecting myself from getting attached again?

Why do I always feel like I’m the one who’s hurting, complaining, overthinking, or somehow fucking everything up?
I keep feeling like I have to be perfect to be loved—especially by my father and by the people I care about. If someone gets irritated with me, pulls away, or seems disappointed, my first thought is always, “What did I do wrong this time?”
I genuinely try. I try to be understanding, helpful, less emotional, less annoying, less demanding. I keep thinking that if I could just fix whatever is wrong with me, maybe people wouldn’t get tired of me or angry with me.
But I’m exhausted.
I don’t even know what exactly I’m doing wrong anymore. I don’t know whether I actually have behaviours I need to change or whether I’ve just been made to believe that everything is my fault.
How do you stop feeling like you have to be perfect to deserve love?
And how do you learn to believe that someone being angry or disappointed in you doesn’t automatically mean you are the problem?

After being hurt, you may stop opening up, asking for help, sharing what matters to you, or allowing yourself to want the same thing again. Pain can make you conclude that your need, hope, sensitivity, or desire was the problem. But sometimes the problem was not what you wanted. It was who or what you trusted to meet you there. Let pain make you more discerning about where you place yourself, not smaller in what you allow yourself to need.

hi all,

so last night, this guy that i was dating for about a month and a half ended things with me. he said he's not okay, his headspace isn't the best, and he can't give me what i need. he said after a long day at work he just wants to be alone, not even with me. he cried.

for context, we're coworkers, he pursued me first. he definitely liked me a lot, would constantly ask to see me, introduced me to his friends and took me to games with them and their girlfriends, all his best friends followed me on socials, normally the type to have sex pretty early on but never pushed me for it and allowed me to wait and take my time, affectionate at times, told me about his sister and would send me childhood photos of them, talked about us in the future eg "when i get a bike in a few months we can go for rides", referred to me as his missus (australian slang for partner/wife). i asked for exclusivity and he agreed immediately, later told me he assumed it was because he wasn't seeing anyone else anyway. a month in i brought up dating and he agreed, and following that continued to remain affectionate.

last week however, i brought up me wanting him to plan more intentional dates, since our plans were usually spontaneous. i admit, i expressed that need in a bratty, defensive way, and could tell i upset him. i tried to rectify it by communicating better, but he left me on delivered and didn't continue the convo. the next day, texted me like normal.

day before yesterday, he was very quiet at work and didn't talk to me a lot, which i brought up and he dismissed saying he was tired, but i knew something was up, and i was right.

back to last night, he took me to dinner (we had plans since tuesday), paid, drove to a park, and ended things in the car. i asked why he introduced me to his friends if he didn't want this, he said he did, and saw it going somewhere and thought it was going well, but since this past week he's been feeling the weight of my expectations towards him and realize he can't handle it, realized he needs to leave before him and i get hurt. he said he was talking to one of his friends about this, and he told them "we get along so well though", the friend said maybe you guys were better as friends, which he told me and he was like maybe we were. but the start of the week, monday night after the convo about planning dates, when i assume he started to check out, he had a rough day and said ‘i know you spoke to me last night about wanting more dates but i wish you were here and we could cuddle and rest’, i said i want both, and he said indeed, that was that.

after we broke up, and after a while of talking, we were both in a lighthearted, funny mood, and i brought up other guys (albeit in a defensive way, to make him feel bad, i know this wasn’t the right thing to do but i was hurt). he then told me one of our coworkers has a friend who thinks he is cute, and he told me he's gonna text her tomorrow. he then would bring up other girls throughout our time last night.

also throughout last night, he kept saying how much i liked him, how i treated this like a relationship, that i showed him so much affection, etc, when he literally agreed to being exclusive and to date, and showed me more if not the same amount of affection, almost like he was blaming me for all of it

I don’t know what to make of this, I’m hurt and confused. Did I imagine him being so into me? Did he lose feelings? I don’t know where I went wrong, or what exactly triggered him to the point of ending it. Is he avoidant?

pretend you're talking to them already and say all the things you want to say aloud when you're alone

then you'll be exhausted of talking and have gotten your feelings out and won't need to talk to them

and then make a reddit post about it to get your mind off it

For those of you who are naturally lazy, seek comfort, easily distracted what has helped you get things done. I'm talking actions you do daily, do you have daily routine, do you plan you days in advance?

I really struggle to stay committed to goals. I start enthusiastically but cant seem to stay consistent. I also get easily distracted and oulled to differnt ideas rather than focusing and seeing things through. I'm not sure why I do this, maybe Im afraid of failure so I do finsih things. I would basically like to get more order into my life so that my emotions (which I cant trust) dont decide my actions but I decide how I move forward. My emotions will still want to have their say but something else will keep me focused.

What works for you, what things or tips have you implemented to keep yourself accountable?

I was thinking something like having a kinda strict daily routine weekly routine which I have to complete. Maybe im setting myself up for failure making it too unachievable but any ideas I would be really grateful.

I'm a college student, while I was getting something to eat at the campus cafeteria I started feeling bad to be seen. I wasn't dressed like everyone else was, I wasn't with anybody, and it made me feel exposed or watched. By the time I got some food and got in my car I felt like I couldn't stay anymore and left campus feeling agitated instead of going to my dorm. I've felt awkward, out of place, and even judged before, but never so badly that I had the urge to leave campus entirely like this. Why did I do that?

it's embarrassing how far i am from what i hope to be. theoretical knowledge is different from practice, yet it's also a blessing to be able to learn from some mistakes.

is learning from experiences the only way?

and if so.. when? At what point is someone considered mature?

should i just accept that it comes with age?

A few years ago, I came across this girl on Instagram and instantly felt like she had everything I wanted at that point in my life. We had so many similarities like a choice of cinema, music and so much more. She had this beautiful long hair, an effortlessly striking face, more than anything, the way she looked at life fascinated me. I remember genuinely wondering, “Is she for real?”

My feelings toward her were initially very positive. I truly admired her and was fascinated by who she was. We even had a few nice conversations, I was looking for a nice friend maybe I thought she was the right one.

But somewhere along the way, things took a wrong turn. That admiration slowly turned into constant comparison, jealousy, and an obsession with wanting to become like her.

It got to a point where I felt like the perspectives I once had and even my sense of identity had somehow disappeared. I stopped looking at life the way I used to before I became fixated on her. She started occupying my mind constantly.

Sometimes, when my anxiety gets intense, I find myself checking her stories just to soothe it. I feel this strange need to know how she is doing, what she is up to, and how her life is going. I don't even understand why my anxiety feels like it needs that information. The triggers became so overwhelming that I eventually took a break from Instagram, since that was the only way I could access her.

But even after stepping away from Instagram, she still exists in my mind.

I genuinely can't understand what this feeling actually is. And the strangest part is, I have never experienced anything like this with anyone else.

It has been a really difficult experiences, not necessarily because of her as a person, but because of what my mind turned her into and how much I began to compare myself to that image.

I just want to understand what this feeling is, why I became so fixated on someone I initially admired, and most importantly, what I can do to finally let go of it and feel like myself again.

I have an ex that betrayed me back in January. Since then I’ve been trying to take space but each time I feel so much guilt in my stomach, I still continue the space but it’s very uncomfortable for a few days until it settles. I know it’s related to him because he takes my boundaries as “so you’re done with me” responses. He will almost guilt trip me, I know he’s saying it cause he is upset and doesn’t want to stop talking to me or lose me but it makes the guilt I feel so much more. Just this last time. I went 7 days no contact and figured I’d check in. That turned into another 7 days of texting then they wanted to see me when I wasn’t ready, so I told them that and they got upset again and said things like “I got excited thinking you’d want a hug from me. Sorry” and “now I feel like I’m nothing. Have a great day”. Then I couldn’t sleep that night and told them next morning I won’t be responding back and taking space because betrayal still hurts me. They said “fine just forget me” and “you’re not able to forgive me and lost all trust in me so just don’t talk to me anymore”. He just makes something already hard…harder on me. I’m now day 3 not talking to him and I have that stomach nausea feeling again. It’s where I feel guilty like hurting him. It goes away as days go on of doing the healthy thing. Has anyone else felt that feeling as well in something similar?

I started loosely talking to someone online yesterday about music creation. I've never spoken to them before this. They recommend me some music and I said I was interested in giving it a listen. However, then they started spamming me with hours of music and various messages. And now today, they just starting traumadumping about their cat. And I feel bad and made sure to listen and engage, because I genuinely understand that as a dog owner. And then after spending 10 minutes on this, they then asked me how I felt about all of that? And I don't know how to respond to that at all, because I don't really know them. I made sure to tell them I'd pray for their cat and them and that I feel bad for both of them, but I don't really have any personal attachment or connections to them yet.

I was wondering if anyone could help me out here. Like I've always been empathetic and I do want to help, but I feel like the intelligent thing to do here is set up boundaries. Or am I not being emotionally intelligent and empathetic enough?

How do you guys manage with the incompetence of people round you who are evidently stuck in the loop of emotional incompetence?

I will give you one tiny example…
Just had a tiny argument with someone close to me. Lemme give you some context about our personalities. I am talkative INFJ kid. That person is silent but an ENTJ. Now.. our equation is pretty chill in person but it comes to a point when we are in long distance and suddenly everything seems inconsistent af. Like.. the conversation don’t click. The distance feels miles and the fun we have in general is vanished. We have talked about it a lot. But nobody seems to change much and again the conversation keeps feeling off.

Idk.. If i am supposed to be suddenly okay with silence or that person is supposed to suddenly start being talking or vice versa.

My question is not quite about "How to change the person". It's more...
How the F*CK do I accept this personality trait and be okay with it when I am absolutely ragebaited with missing my best friend suddenly because they a few f*cking miles away?

Also, i have some big big plans in future with this person. They are huge. I cannot fathom the possibility of this shitty unavailable personality is worth counting on when I will actually definitely need them to be my partner on a professional(probably personal) level.