Both anxious and avoidant attachment styles respond badly to pressure and benefit from structure, or, "Mom, I can't be your on-call therapist."
Category: manipulation
#1366: “Malicious, controlling mother-in-law wants to move in”
Ultimatums are scary for a reason: Sometimes people force you to follow through on them.
#1364: “Gender is elusive, and I cannot teach it to you, Mother!”
Don't let a side quest for understanding get in the way of doing - or demanding - care and kindness.
#1358: GUEST POST: “I think my professors $#@%-ed me up.”
Thriller author Amy Gentry answers this letter about abusive professors who feed like vampires on the potential of their students.
#1347: “My friend asked me if we could add ‘benefits,’ I still feel weird about it, am I justified in ending the friendship?”
"Good news, I finally persuaded my fiancée to let me sleep with other people, now we can finally act out all my fantasies about you over Zoom!" Whoa, seems sexy!
#1346: “My new ‘friend’ has alt-right skeletons in her closet. How do I nope out?”
"Inside this lady are two bigots, one is capable of acting nice sometimes and the other is not, don't feed either of them with your time, sympathy, or attention."
#1333: Multi-Level Marketing Cults & Performative Friendship
How to plot the accumulated costs of "useless objects" vs. "pointless arguments" over time?
#1330: “I don’t want this friend as a roommate or a summer houseguest, but my sibling and I sort of already agreed.”
People who won't take 'no' for an answer often present the risk as you being seen as mean or selfish when you don't do what they want, when really, it's that if you don't say 'no' you have to put up with them in your personal space. Re-balance your risk assessments, friend!
#1324: “I moved out of a terrible roommate situation two years ago, but our mutuals won’t stop trying to ‘make peace.'”
"I hated living with them so I moved the hell out. What is there to 'mediate?'"
#1322: “My friend’s (white female) roommate is a creepy creep.”
"Don't touch me" isn't complicated. You know who makes it complicated? CREEPS, THAT'S WHO.
CaptainAwkward.com 