Bootleg Therapy: An Advice Column #5
On ungrateful friends, and stopping relationship anxiety in its tracks
Welcome to Bootleg Therapy: an advice column for wayward hearts. Think of me as your virtual stranger at the bar with a raspy voice and a weird scar on their cheek; the truth is in the worm at the bottom of the mezcal bottle. Submit your questions anonymously on brokebutmoisturized.com for a chance to be featured.
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Content yet annoyed
Hello! Happy to be here. I want to begin by saying that I want all of my friends to feel comfortable venting and complaining to me when needed & for me to do the same with them. An equal exchange of complaining, because sometimes it's just what you've got to do. I have a friend who I love dearly, let's call her Ashley. The things Ashley complains about to me often rub me the wrong way. Ashley is engaged, lives with her partner, and for all intents and purposes, is "on track" (I don't believe in the idea of being "on track" for your age, but I'll use it here for argument's sake). I am happily single and live on my own. Ashley is a small, very in shape person. I am bigger than she is, but I like my body and am confident in it. She'll often say things about her weight ("I look so fat don't I?") or her finances ("I don't know what I would do without my partner, thank God he makes good money!"). Things like that. I don't want to invalidate anyone's feelings or insecurities, but at a certain point, I just want to say "Come on girl." It almost feels as if she chooses to complain to me to make herself feel better. I consider myself to be a pretty secure person. Of course there are certain things I'd like to change in my life (who wouldn't?), but for the most part I'm very happy! But when she says these things, it almost seems like my type of existence is her worst nightmare. As if she couldn't manage being single at our age. Perhaps I'm looking too much into it, but it’s getting to me. I don't know why I care so much! I now feel like I have to prove that I am happy, which is a feeling I hate. Is it even worth bringing up to her? And if so, how should I approach this?
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Dear Content yet annoyed,
When I lost the 15 pounds I put on during quarantine, I thought I would stop skipping meals.
When I got engaged to the love of my life in May, with whom I share a beautiful apartment, a bouncy puppy, and healthy salaries from two major corporations, I thought I would stop looking for long hairs that don’t match mine on the furniture after weekends apart.
This past week, I had a friend connect me with her psychiatrist father to help me navigate medication so I can stop thinking about killing myself. What a release it could be to leave this conventionally fit body that got called fat daily growing up, even when I weighed less. I could be liberated from the fruitless pursuit of love without anxiety. And I could stop being a burden to my friends, to whom I sometimes vent, who might just feel like you do right now.
You see, Content, our insecurities aren’t erased by good things happening to us. Nor do other people’s lives become the object of repulsion. Never once have I looked at my single friends and felt lucky to be partnered in comparison; I feel lucky to be partnered because I love my fiancé. Think about your own achievements or positive qualities. Maybe you have double Ds and have complained about not liking certain tops on yourself. I wouldn’t roll my eyes and feel like your complaint is a snide reminder that my boobs are small.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Stripping issues down to their simplest elements can ground us in reality. This is your friend, no? Miss Ashley is someone you claim to “love dearly.” I know love and annoyance aren’t mutually exclusive, but real friends don’t typically find each other condescending enough to intentionally reinforce our inferiority. In my experience, that’s very much a “when you know, you know” situation. For example, I had a “friend” who’d see my happiness and would find ways to arrogantly call it into question under the guise of support. Everything from my romantic partners, to living in a city, to drinking, she would be like, “oh, you had fun at a party this weekend? I feel like people who party are always looking to fill a void in their soul. Alcohol is literally poison, you know?” We don’t talk anymore.
Does Ashley make those kinds of indirect-yet-direct comments about your life choices? Or does she just do what friends are supposed to feel safe doing, which is talking about her life (including her body) to a non-judgemental ear? We should be able to vent to our friends without some cliche insistence that we practice gratitude, or worse, getting a “come on, girl” in response. There’s no reciprocity in a relationship where one person can speak freely about their insecurities and the other can’t, no matter how “on track” they are. And even if you’re not the complaining type, would you drop a friend just because they are? If anything, their insecurities should be cause for concern, not skepticism toward their motive in sharing.
You’ve made clear that you’re aware of the line you’re toeing in policing someone’s self-doubt. That is something you don’t want to do, you assert. So it seems to me like your only motivation in saying something to her, then, is the ego-driven need to make her feel badly about it. To make her look back on all the times she confided in you and feel like an asshole because she’s engaged and thin and thus, enjoys the various prosperities that must exempt one from inner turmoil. When we start telling people they shouldn’t complain, or that they should consider how their complaints make others feel, not only are we centering ourselves, but we’re undoing the work we’ve done as a collective to normalize openness around mental health. I mean, we’ve been applauding celebrities for sharing their insecurities, and you think your friend should dial it back because she’s doing well as like, a lower middle class person who probably makes $70k and fights with her fiancé about whether they’re going to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods this week? Come on, girl. Obviously there is, like you said, a certain point where complaints are rightfully offensive, like bitching to your broke friend about not being able to re-up your jar of Crème de la Mer. But Ashley’s history seems innocuous.
Make no mistake, Content, what you're experiencing is totally understandable. Even as a secure person, it’s easy to take it personally when someone with an ostensibly nice life complains about the things they have that we ourselves lack, especially when we detect some smug contentedness from them 90% of the time. And even if we don’t take it personally, sometimes it’s just fucking annoying. But just because it’s understandable doesn’t mean it isn’t lazy, shallow, and presumptuous to indulge it. At some point in our adult lives, we must outgrow the urge to minimize other people’s problems based on how we think they should feel about them.
My recommended action items may take you by surprise. They mostly go against the otherwise benefit-of-the-doubt-giving mentality I’ve suggested thus far. But realistically, if you haven’t already found the empathy to presume your friend is coming from a wounded place, this advice column isn’t about to heal you. So in the short term, I suggest gossiping! If you have a mutual friend, especially one who is also single, chances are they’re annoyed with Ashley, too. Tell them how you’re feeling and that you need to vent to avoid saying something to her, because saying something will only make her feel ashamed and make you look intolerant. I also recommend being mindful when Ashley starts to complain, but in a way that challenges your preconceived notions about her intentions. There are people who keep certain “friends'' around to make them feel better about themselves, but it’s important to go into this believing she isn’t one of them. Listen for any meaningful references to your lifestyle that seem strategically mentioned to sort of “put you in your place.” You’ll quickly come to find if your annoyance is just your own insecurities rising to the surface, or if there really is something more sinister behind her words.
We should never feel like we need to prove our happiness, Content. And any “friends” who make us feel otherwise are no friends at all. But just remember that insecurity looks different for everyone. Even the prettiest houses have cracks in the foundation.
Anxious/Avoidant/Annoying
Hi Dia! I am 3 years in my healthiest relationship yet and have started to feel old self sabotage moments creep in, feeling very anxiously attached which triggers my partner’s avoidant attachment and sets us in the loop of conflict. I am aware of it, I actively try different ways to build my sense of security and yet! Any advice on trust and love and staying put? Signed, Anxiously Avoidant & Annoying
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Dear AAA,
I refuse to call you by your pseudonym because despite the stunning evidence of self-awareness, it fans the flames. You and I both know that’s as literal as it is idiomatic…
It’s the hot flush that ignites your cheeks when you dress up and they don’t notice.
It’s the burn in the back of your throat when you word-vomit, “You never say “I love you” first!”
Oof.
I get submissions like yours almost monthly. I try to avoid repeating myself on here too often, but this is such a prevailing romantic experience that it felt right to run it back. And because yours lacks specificity (in the best way), you can feel good about asking the broad question that plagues so many. You are overwhelmingly not alone, my love.
As a writer, I understand acutely how language shapes our world, particularly our identity. If I didn’t make a point to call myself a writer, a runner, and a godmother, I don’t know if I would do what it takes to be a writer, a runner, and a godmother. The more I confidently identify with my assorted roles, the better I perform within them, and thus, the better I feel about myself. When I call myself by some other truthful titles, like procrastinator and insomniac, I start missing deadlines and chugging wine at 4 AM to knock myself out. I go into situations believing those things about myself and performing accordingly.
Over the last two years, we lost the plot in how we talk about relationships. I can count like, five instances of Therapy Speak within your brief submission. That’s no fault of yours, AAA. It’s just a reflection of a society relying on infographics to help us work it out with people we’re not supposed to be with. This isn’t to say you and your partner shouldn’t be together, but… I’ll get to that in a bit.
How much good has it done you to view people through a lens of attachment styles, conflict loops, and the like? If you consider your partner avoidant, every tiny moment of naturally fluctuating distance will feel like you’re completely at odds; it will supersede your commonality, all the warmth and closeness they’ve shown you. This language also reinforces our discomfort with uncertainty, i.e., if you can’t experience something without needing to analyze and label it, it may be harder to trust. Because all the Therapy Speak and “doing the work” is, in so many ways, clinging to the invisible. And trust requires letting go. Relationships cannot succeed until we learn to presently respond to stimuli without knowing what the fuck it even is. Love is, itself, undefinable. So why must we define everything that goes into it?
I was just like you, AAA. I thought it would help me break patterns to identify them by name, to understand what kind of person does what kind of behavior. But it only trapped me in a constant state of unlearning and healing when all I wanted was to exist as a woman in love. When I looked at myself as an anxiously attached person, I felt immense shame. The kind of shame that makes you berate yourself for not “progressing.” Spoiler alert: you can’t actually progress when you’re mad at yourself all the time. As it turned out, all I needed was a partner who loved me and believed in me enough to work through it without frustration or judgment. Now, when I have anxiety, I look at myself as a person having anxiety, not an anxious person living up to their name. This was an incredibly long-winded way of saying… instead of identifying with an anxious attachment style, or calling your partner avoidant, I propose merely acknowledging each other’s boundaries and tendencies for what they are, rather than what you’ve been conditioned to believe they make you.
Now to more pressing matters. You say this is your healthiest relationship yet. Is it healthy because your past is marked by incompatibility, rejection, perhaps even abuse? I implore you to determine whether this feels healthy because it is, or because you’ve only felt pain in comparison. Three years is a long time to be with someone to just now feel yourself regressing into self-sabotage. As a chronic self-sabotager and a generally anxious fawn, I know those habits don’t reappear out of nowhere. Something is going on and I doubt it’s merely internal. Anxious people are really good at blaming themselves.
It’s easy for someone with an anxious attachment style to fall for an avoidant. We work hard for their affection, so once we have it, it feels like a comfy blanket we want to be wrapped in at all times. It feels like a reward. Mice don’t run obstacle courses in labs for bits of Oreos because they think the Oreos love them back. They do it because the reward triggers a dopamine response. That is what we experience when we pursue people whose affection isn’t given freely. Real love isn’t something you work to be rewarded with; it’s like a faucet that doesn’t turn off, even through bad moods and dry spells in the bedroom. If your partner only shows you affection in bursts, even when you’ve communicated your needs, it doesn’t mean they’re avoidant. It means there’s something they’re not telling you.
If I sound cynical or dismissive, it’s because I’ve been in your shoes so many times that I feel like an authority on anxious people who date avoidant people and desperately try to make it work. So it’s taking all of me not to shake you and say, “you’re probably not right for each other” based on the morsel of context you’ve provided. But in a general sense, I try to support any decently healthy relationship that fights to make it work. Like, when Kim Kardashian said no one wants to work these days, I felt that shit. But you do, AAA. Now treat yourself to some SKIMS!
Anyway… you want advice on trust and love and staying put?
Simplify.
The reason we’re all obsessed with love is because this complex, prismatic emotion has the power to distill our lives into something infinitely more compelling than jobs and degrees and exercise regimens. Our brooding facades cannot mask the primitive desire for bare bones connection. To be seen for who we are in the midnight glow of a refrigerator, snacking on shredded cheese. And so we must meet love with matched simplicity to nurture and hold it.
When I start to feel untrusting, I literally shrug my shoulders and remind myself that if my partner’s going to hurt me, he’s going to hurt me. Simple as that. And unless I have tangible evidence, anticipating the worst will only drive us apart. You already know you love this person and want to be with them. Would it kill you to imagine they want the same?
This publication runs on love and a really poor sleep schedule. If you appreciate the time that goes into it, maybe you’ll consider supporting for $30 (the “Subscribe now” button below also works for existing subscribers who want to upgrade to paid). Or you could drop it in your group chat, or share a passage to your IG story. Idk lol. Much love.
Unbelievable.