Why a simp is not a loving man

If you’re anything like me, the Internet slang will, every now and then, make you feel old. It happened recently, with the trending rise of the word simp. As the Urban Dictionary defines it, the simp is a guy that is overly desperate for women, especially if she is a bad person, or has expressed her disinterest in him. Basically a new cool term for an old reality. Not that long ago, these guys were known as “nice guys”, and no one wanted to have much to do with them, mainly because they were not that nice as they wanted to seem like.

But time went by, and the “nice guys” that no one wanted to deal with back in the days found a way to market themselves as desirable partners. I’ve seen these days a post saying Stop calling any decent man a simp! and, even if it was, indeed, real, it was mischievous at the same time. What separates a decent, loving man from a simp? The girl’s kind of interest in what’s the guy having to offer.

If you, as a guy, have fallen for a girl and show it, there are two big scenarios: it’s a mutual thing, so she will flirt with you and show interest as well, or she is not interested and she is just being polite. A man showing appreciation and support, complimenting a girl that is into him is a decent man, regardless of what his pals say. A man acting the same with a girl that has told him already that she’s not interested in him is a simp trying to make his way into her bedroom. Regardless of her telling you “no”. The easiest way to know if you deal with a simp is by paying attention to your emotions.

Guilt is a really important indicator when it comes to human relationships. A man that makes you feel guilty for not liking him back is not a good man for you. I know that clearly, as I have been there myself. Asking a good friend of mine if it’s okay to feel guilty for not liking back a guy that was madly over me, he said No, you’re not, as love is no duty. It is what it is, if it is, and if there is such thing as guilt or the feeling that you should, you definitely should not. I am still thinking about that moment of my life, about how blinded I was by my low self-esteem. About how bad that attempt of giving a dude a chance because he knew to make me feel guilty about rejecting him, I’ve seen things clearer.

A guy can be a decent man, but be a simp to you, as this is a matter of perspective on both sides. On his side, it’s about knowing how to take a clear No for an answer. On her side, it’s about being crystal-clear from the beginning. If you can’t picture yourself in a relationship with that man, tell him. If you see him as a good friend, tell him. He has to know exactly where he stands and make a decision. Might be a tempting thought to fuel his attitude, if you have self-esteem problems or you simply need male validation- a simp will constantly make you compliments, give you more attention than you’re used with and, generally, make things more about you than about him. Will make cute little gestures for you, trying to get under your skin. And that is flattering, not gonna say it isn’t. Feeling wanted, as a young woman, is and always will be a flattering thing, something we want more of, at times. But keep in mind that, when the attraction is not mutual if you fuel this kind of behavior from the dude, you expose yourself to a form of emotional blackmail.

Because any simp is a potentially toxic man, trying to make you feel good, but capable to make you feel bad about yourself as well, at the moment when his patience goes thin and he gets sick of waiting for you to tell him yes, eventually. This is, in fact, the simp issue that girls fail to see and men won’t address: the lack of boundaries and self-respect. It is a matter of self-respect to stop trying once the girl told you no, and it’s a matter of mental healthcare to be able, as a girl, to have strong and clear boundaries. Even when what you receive is all pretty and dipped in glitter, tempting you to give in. Love is not making you guilty and is not sneaky. Self-validation need, instead…

When not all vampires fear the light

Scrolling down the Internet these days I’ve seen a question on a page saying If you could go back to your past and unmeet someone, who would it be? and it really got me thinking. If I could unmeet people from my life, those would be a friend and two of the men I’ve loved so far. Three different persons, but with a really important shared trait: they’re all takers.

My friend was a simple girl, wanting to have a successful life and turn into a better woman. And I tried to give her some help with it, as she asked me to. I started to share with her books, film recommendations, to try and have debates on topics that mattered to her, to help her gain clarity. And, still, she kept on doing the same mistakes and complaining about the same things year after year.

Everything till one day, when I got to understand that it was never about me not being a good enough friend to her, but about her unspoken need to be constantly in the spotlight. She wanted attention, wanted to make everything about her, and she discovered that the easiest way of getting it without having to give something in return is to be the victim of the story. But only the fact that she wasn’t willing to admit, once I got tired enough to try and fail to be helpful, that she wanted to vent and have my attention, not help, made me leave the friendship behind.

Talking about the men, there are much shorter stories to be told. One was a nice guy, you know the type, who wouldn’t take a no for an answer, no matter how often it was told. Because, obviously, he was such a nice guy that managed to always make feel guilty about saying no. The other one seemed to be the perfect man, but loving him proved to be one of the most toxic experiences I’ve got so far.

What’s the common point? They wanted to have it all. Attention, resources, affection, everything I got, and was good. But when it came to giving back? Less is more seemed to be the golden rule. They were not able to fully understand that not everything has to be around them. That one could have joys, sorrows, worries, anxieties…that has nothing to do with them. Nope, those were quickly dismissed, as the main subject was put on hold. And the main subject was also something about them.

It hurt at first, admitting to myself that I cared so much about people who’ve got such a bad influence on me. It still leaves a bitter smile on my face, but I still have a reason to smile: because of them, I’ve gained a better understanding of this kind of person.

I know it is not something they’re fully aware of. It is a painful subject to be addressed, the source of this type of behavior. I also know it is not about me, either. I did what I was able to do, with the knowledge I had at those points in my life. Truth is it wasn’t more than a sad encounter in any of the cases.

And this is how it usually happens: the giver meets the taker. It is the toxic half of the duo that one’s looking for without even knowing. And, as draining and as painful as it could be for the giver, they will meet until they learn their lesson. About how to establish and respect boundaries. There’s nothing more important when it comes to human interactions than this one aspect.

I know the narrative where saying no is making you a selfish, evil person, but it’s wrong. It is wrong and harmful. A taker wants to fill up an inner void, but they never think about how constantly taking without putting something else in place affects the giver. That they are recreating the same void they try so hard to avoid but in someone else’s life.

They don’t think about it and will make a whole tragedy if you tell them. Because, in this story, there has to be only one receiver, and it has to be them, always them. They are, always, the helpless ones, the ones that require to be taken care of. It doesn’t matter how they do it. It can be by never listening to you when you’ve got something to tell them that means a lot to you, but doesn’t affect them. It can show up like never really feeling happy for your accomplishments. It can be an attempt to convince you that your feelings are not valid. It can take a lot of forms, much more than you could possibly imagine, but in the end, it is about the same thing: about being out of the spotlight.

I remember reading some of Eric Berne’s books, and seeing something that stuck with me to this day: for children, receiving negative attention is preferable instead of being ignored. At first, I looked at the sentence a bit surprised, then read again. Now I am just as surprised as I was when I first met the idea, but because it amazes me how many adults act just the same. The father of transactional analysis was jus saying that children associate being ignored with being abandoned, which could, in older times, bring them in dangerous situations. Therefore, they did what they could to receive attention from the grown-ups. Whatever paying attention to them meant to the adults. It could’ve been as reproaches, blame, didn’t matter that much as long as it was attention, it was about them. For some people, doing something bad and being punished was, sadly, the only form of parental attention they’ve ever received, because why bother when everything works well?

This means that the people that received more attention when they misbehaved, even if it was negative, taking the shape of slurs or quarrels, become grown-ups acting the same due to their wounds. They prefer to start an argument with you, rather than not talking at all. Why? Because that’s how they were taught it works. And any lesson about emotions that we’ve learned as children will be painfully difficult to be unlearned as adults.

But, and this is a huge one. It is not your job to heal them, it’s theirs. You can only support them and be there for them. Of course, they will not do it, because it is painful, uncomfortable, and a losing move for them. If they heal, they will have to reciprocate, to give in return exactly what they pretend to receive. And that means a whole other journey of learning how to open up and give. To actually give to other people meaningful parts of who you are.

Your job, however, is to take good care of yourself. To understand that being picky with who you’re giving access to your resources won’t make you a bad person. Will only help you preserve those resources and your sanity for people that deserve having access to them, to people that will give you other things in return. Your job is to look in the mirror, see what you’re truly being made of, and not letting anyone else suck the spirit out of you, no matter how helpless they seem to be.

Because being selfish, being self-absorbed, is not the same as being a person that is going through dark times. There is a difference, and that difference, the moment when you can accurately spot it, is the game-changing point. And the sooner you’ll find it, the better your life will be. Vampires will always be around, ready to take every good thing you could give, while they’re ready to put your dark side in the spotlight and demonize you, but they don’t fear sunlight anymore. They fear boundaries, so state yours clearly, and make sure everyone, including yourself, is respecting them. What you have to offer is good, important, and necessary to many, so choose those that really deserve it.

I’m fine

Not that long ago I’ve seen a post on Social Media asking ‘What’s your favorite lie?’ I did not answer at the moment, but I know that my favorite one has always been I’m fine. It is the lie I’m telling most of the time, and even if I know I should not, I keep telling it even when I’m anything but fine. Or especially then.

It is bad, yet a deeply rooted habit, and a costly one in terms of mental health and general well-being. But it is far from being something special. In fact, this is part of the factors leading towards what is known as The Caregiver’s Burnout. This is a common condition amongst the caregivers, manifesting as anxiety, depression, physical and emotional fatigue.

But here’s the catch: there are way more caregivers than we tend to admit. The caregivers are defined as persons caring usually for family members suffering from a disability or a chronic disease and are mostly associated with adults caring for their family’s elders. They are not.

A caregiver is also that friend who is always catching and trying to support and lift the others. That friend taking everyone else’s hand during their mentally challenging times and never talking openly about its own. It is that one person that always seems to have their life together, to know exactly where they’re going and what they have to do.

Because not every suffering is visible. Some of us face mental health challenges, others are facing losses, grieving times, there is a lot going on in every person’s life. And, every here and there, it is at least one person being the safety net of their social group. That one person who got the others coming to them for guidance in their tough times. They are caregivers as well, highly empathetic people that care and feel deeply responsible for those guided by them, even if not witnessed as caregivers by society.

And that leads them into a very dangerous trap. It makes them feel like the time for them to talk about their struggles is never now, always later. Now there are others that need their help and support, loved ones that need to receive their best in order to recover or get through the darkness. And this is how they get used to answering I’m fine when they’re asked about themselves. Because they are not a priority on their own list.

This also comes from a strong belief that places bad times as a thing to be kept private. As if, once admitted that you struggle as well, your ability of supporting others would vanish away, making you as weak as they are. Because the strong ones don’t make their dark times public while happen, but only talk about them later, when there are only the scars without the pain. However, truth is we all can struggle at the same time, but not in the same ways. We can (and we do) struggle in different ways, due to different reasons, and at very different intensities. That’s not what matters. What really matters is the ability to manage struggle, frustration and pressure. Because, as an informal caregiver, there’s a different kind of pressure on your shoulders: the thought that you’ve been trusted. That your close one, your friend, the person who asked you for help, did so because it knew you can deal with the situation without being overwhelmed. That you will lift them up, not that they would drag you down. When it comes to a family member that needs to be taken care of, there is a slightly easier burden to carry: you’ve had no actual choice, other than caring for them.

And just like that, the story of I’m fine begins to unfold: with the desire of not being a disappointment to the people which have seen the best in you, and with the belief that there will come a day when you will be free to talk openly about your struggles and allow yourself to ask for the help you need.

Because at the end of the day, what makes a caregiver fail those who trust them by failing themselves is the mix between empathy and fear. You know how it feels to be let down, so you fear that, by saying that you are struggling, you will let the ones that trusted you down. But you’re not. In fact, you would only be helping them more, as they see that it is fine to talk about your bad times. That you can only grow stronger when you learn to be honest. And, the most important lesson one could learn, that it is an act of self-care and self-respect, proof of generosity, as no one has ever been able to pour into other’s souls from an empty cup.