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Absofuckinglutely.
Toxic positivity leads to omnipresent, convoluted negativity. Just feel what’s there. Let the thoughts run their course.
Of course, actually discovering that this is viable is kindof a dice throw of readiness. But at least if you don’t have the necessary experience, you live the necessary experience.
How would one approach discussing toxic positivity with a friend?
She can’t get any dates or maintain other friendships because of this personality she’s adopted, everyone can see right through it and she comes across as annoying at best, and like psycho delusional at worst, doesn’t help that she’s 30, stacking shelves, thinking she gonna meet a guy of her dreams at work, refuses to use dating apps because she thinks herself above them and might actually be thinking she’s gonna make it in the music industry after a few singing lessons.
She also spams random anime shit, but when I try to connect that way as I used to be a weeb back in the day, she’s never even seen any classics, just no-name seasonal moeshit.
I know you tried to make her sounds bad but I’m over here like she’s got a job, hobbies, goals, dreams and puts her heart into being the positivity people want in this world…sounds like she’s doing pretty damn well to me
I don’t think anybody wants that kind of fake positivity but I by no means hold any of it against her. I’m somewhat disillusioned from it all and confused and concerned primarily since she says she’s depressed, but change has to come from within sometimes.
she’s got a job, hobbies, goals, dreams
Well not to be an asshole but that’s just the bare minimum. I know plenty of people have less than that, hope that ain’t you. Hope you’re doing okay, internet stranger.
Edit: Wow people are downvoting this! I don’t really get why
Yeah I come from a background of addiction and homelessness so my idea of good may not be everyone’s…doing well internet friend hope your doing the same
Yeah been there done that. For me it was a poly-addiction to benzodiazepines and amphetamines, former for work to quell the panic attacks that I’d be fired and deported back to the third world and the latter to play new vegas on the weekends. At the time it was an improvement from a 6 pack a day and a bottle of gin on the weekends. It was a long road outta all that, but trust me, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t even drink non-socially anymore.
thinking she gonna meet a guy of her dreams at work, refuses to use dating app.
I don’t know about your friend, but someone may decide against dating apps if they’re looking for less superficial and more meaningful connections.
I also don’t think you should look down on her anime choices. People like what they like, they might not care if someone else considers it bad or someone else prefers “classics”.
I don’t know about your friend, but someone may decide against dating apps if they’re looking for less superficial and meaningful connections.
Why? Every decently long-term relationship I’ve ever had was on dating apps. I don’t think people still do the meet-at-work thing these days anyway. Not trying to be all “these days” tho I mean it literally, It was never really appropriate that is, because work is just prison you stay in to have a roof over your head, any socialization there is inherently forced and highly problematic.
As for clubs now that’s proper shallow, not to mention dangerous with all the spice and ndma, not that there’s any of em left on these cursed isles, all shuttered and sold off for parts to the chinese years ago, bless em.
Besides, she’s trans and bi, same as myself, the chances of finding someone who’ll be interested in her amongst just a random selection of people in forced socialization spaces are closer to nill than god to baby jesus.
To think otherwise and even get depressed about it demonstrates to me that someone is just utterly out of touch with all reality, and that’s damn concerning.
The one guy she did meet cheated on her cuz he assumed the whole thing was a joke cuz why would he date a lady who couldn’t make babies. Not the sorta caliber folk you get on dating apps. Closest thing I ever got was a guy who was totally a six feet CompSci but could fit in some of my old pockets and couldn’t tell an hackintosh from a docker if the yaml wrote him
Like, I used to think my prince in shining armor was gonna sweep me off my feet when I was 17 fresh she/her posting for attention and found him on good ol’ r9k, 'cept the reality was I was in an abusive LDR with a shady jobless alcoholic 10 years older than me from Arizona with a psycho brother in tow and a love for first gen anti-histamines. Like full on jumping naked on cars in gated communities type psycho. Think they’re both maga nuts now.
Now that’s understandable, I was a child, didn’t have my head on straight, couldn’t see that dog won’t hunt. Hell I just transitioned that year, only knew jack and shit and jack skipped town to get estrofem two miligram.
But she’s 30, like, I just want to tell her “time to get on the dating apps and fight for scraps amongst those creepy high school marriage divorcees cuz you were too good for all the good ones” but I’m afraid she’ll snap or something.
People like what they like
That’s a thought-terminating cliche. If you ate assorted dust for breakfast it’s damn weird, there’s no way around it, but if you have a reason for it, like maybe it just makes you feel less bloated or something, you can talk about it - you can connect with people over it. It ain’t nothing if not interesting. Show em that you think, that you do somethin’ with all that oxygen you hog.
But if you don’t then it’s not very surprising if people assume you must be dimmer than a flashlight when you need one. You don’t owe justification to anyone but it damn well helps when you live in a society.
Those are some quality analogies.
For whats it’s worth, I’m also trans, and I don’t use dating apps. Everyone I met that I got involved with sexually or romantically has been either through making friends on discord or meeting friends of friends
Dating apps have a lot of shitty incentives, I won’t go into the details right now, but there’s a lot to dislike about them
There’s other places to meet people than work or clubs
discord
Yeah that ain’t exactly the place to go meet quality people to have relationships with IRL chief. I don’t think she’s into the whole extremely online gamer fetish clique stuff.
I would be curious to know what you mean by that “shitty incentives” part. The only issue I had with dating apps when doing t4t everybody is so damn passive, like why would someone even be putting themselves out there if they just gonna mutter one word answers under breath think they are being a cute princess or smth fr but they come off as creepy weirdos, like the VRC mirror folk.
The discords I’m in barely even contains gamers. Most of them are local trans spaces. Would it surprise you if I told you that I barely play video games with the people I’ve met on discord, and mostly spend time with them by meeting up in-person?
Dating apps have shitty incentives because they have a profit motive, and they don’t earn money from you finding people, but from keeping you on the app and maybe even making you desperate. Although hookup apps still work fine I suppose
Then there’s the whole problem of how dating apps work with swiping and superficial judging of people
I mean if you live somewhere with “local trans spaces” who use discord that’s a very different environment from here in London UK.
I know this clique group chat long-ass-mastodon-profile 10-nsfw-accounts-and-counting narcissist bay area referencing circlejerk 6 figure earnin’ tech worker subculture exists in San francisco, but it’s very odd to make the assumption that anyone not extremely online and living in like, the rest of the world, would be part of one, nevermind aware of such niche things, like assuming a gay feller is into snm leather or something.
I’d say I’m too online, and I don’t even get discord fundamentally, just seems like an unholy combo of a WhatsApp group chat and forum.
That said she did used to use discord, but I think they were too online for her and it all imploded in some drama over league of legends or some such. I used to have online friends on Skype from 4chan I met IRL too and it never really ended well either.
The benefit of dating apps is that it avoids any such drama, everyone’s intentions are pretty clear, displayed well on their profile.
If you judge people too quickly and find yourself running out of choices that sounds like a you problem to me honestly.
I don’t know what a hookup app is, I guess like for gay men that’s Grindr? Idk what it would be for others. I just used OkCupid, gotta say I hate this swiping trend, back in the day it was a list, one of the reasons i didnt even bother with tinder this time around.
I ended up with like 10 IRL first dates from the last time I was on there, exclusively t4t at that point for variety’s sake and the only problems I had was that they were mostly all too quiet, people who didn’t know how to socialise and didn’t even seem interested in actually putting in the hard work of getting to know somebody and well just didn’t seem to be very interesting people in general or couldn’t convey what they were about well.
Ended up with a few new friends though, one of whom I helped start her medical transition (logistically), and of course I met my girlfriend there that time too, almost 2 years in and I love her very much.
That said my experience with dating apps is a queer-centric one, I know cishet dynamics are way different, and when I turn men on in the settings it does feel like I’m opening the floodgates for all sorts of folks so I get that I suppose.
Well, fair, it’s gonna differ location to location. Though I want to specify that I don’t live in the US, I live in Oslo, Norway
Well, hobbies are another way to meet someone. Also via friends or family.
I think people should do whatever makes sense to them, theres no one best way. I was just sharing a different perspective, it’s not even necessarily my own 🤷♀️
Regarding what people like, yeah I guess the nicer way is to just accept that some people will have “bad” taste. Like a lot of people use MacOS instead of taking the time to learn and use Linux. Sometimes, under some circumstances there is an objectively better choice. Otherwise it’s all just what makes sense to the person at the time at hand.
Regarding what people like, yeah I guess the nicer way is to just accept that some people will have “bad” taste.
No such thing as bad taste, but if you can’t really explain why you like something or give reasons for it then it doesn’t make for the most interesting of conversations and makes one come off like a bit of a dullard, it’s not surprising then that she’s not able to make herself or her hobbies seem interesting to anyone.
I think people should do whatever makes sense to them, theres no one best way.
Sure, but that kind of defeats the point of asking someone else for advice when what makes sense to them doesn’t work.
You never address the real issue with a friend if there’s any risk of them misinterpreting it and taking it overly personally to the point of ruining your friend dynamic. I would say instead of confronting them about their toxic positivity, start introducing them to more healthy activities. Invite them out to things more frequently. Get them out of their insular environment and interacting with people IRL. I would start with that, see how they come around.
Yeah it’s tough though because I don’t want to accidentally reinforce the toxic positivity personality.
I wish someone shown this to my parents at any point in their lives! Haha! :D
At least I’m good at acting! Haha!
80s america excelled at this. It was the Atheist version of prosperity gospel
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I called out half of my Facebook friends almost 15 years ago now for this crap. Everyone thought I was insane. Turns out, pretending everything and everyone in your life is awesome and never ever letting yourself come across as a genuine human with real emotions is “neurotypical” and “totally healthy”.
Getting a sense of deja vu from this post
Can you do one for the opposite? My SO always says I’m pessimistic but I think I’m just realistic. I expect the worse and hope for the best. Anything other than a worst case scenario is a pleasant scenario.
The expectation you describe is the literal definition of pessimism.
It could be. I just don’t feel that way. I feel like I’m always happier because the outcome is seldom the worst. Doesn’t pessimistic thinking usually make for depressed people?
There are different levels of depression.
Huh, I always heard “hope for the best, plan for the worse”. Which I think is a better strategy to handling the inevitable bad.
Beginning vs end of inside out 1
