We all have our insecurities and our SOs gotta find a way to work with that. But being a little insecure about how you look in a neon-pink bathing suit is a whole other ballgame than deep-rooted insecurities about your own person. And it’s that last kind of insecurities I wanna talk about. This article isn’t going to discuss how you can deal with a SO with these issues. Instead, it’s going to give you some tough love and advice you probably won’t wanna hear.
Throughout the whole dating and relationship thing we deal with a lot of nonsense. This is particularly true for women, which can all be reasoned back to the way society views us and brings us up, basically. We talked about that before, remember? The whole “women should take what they can get and be happy about it” discussion. So of course it’s inevitable that this seeps into our dating lives as well. It’s almost inevitable that at some point you’ll be dating someone with deep-rooted insecurities, and the person this’ll take the biggest toll on is you.
Symptoms
The real interesting part is that at first sight they might not seem insecure. Insecurity can easily be masked. I’m going to highlight a couple of common techniques for ya:
The first and often most employed technique is to make themselves feel better about themselves by trying to make you feel insecure. This shit’s subtle too. Maybe you won’t even notice initially. Think about it though: whenever you start doubting yourself or start feeling inadequate, does that always happen to be when you’re around a certain person? Mmmk.
Another thing that often happens is that insecure people like to (humble) brag about their life and accomplishments. Don’t get me wrong, you’re totally right for highlighting your accomplishments, where appropriate. Like on LinkedIn. But complaining about how “Oh my life is SO HARD while doing all these fabulous things” is not only annoying, but probably a ploy to mask something right underneath the surface.
Then there’s my personal favorite: talking themselves down. Extremely. To the point where you start to feel sorry for them. So you start trying to talk them up and try to make them feel better, even if that’s not necessarily in your best interest.
The last symptom I want to mention is extreme perfectionism or people with very high standards. Or at least, higher than yours. Of course this kinda loops back into the whole making themselves out to be better than you by making you feel more insecure about yourself.
Oh shit. (S)he’s insecure. What do I do now?
It sounds selfish but if a guy (or girl) shows you (s)he has low self-esteem, don’t walk, run. It’s a recipe for disaster. These people will become codependent, make you feel guilty for not feeding into their selfishness, then they’ll misbehave (cheat, steal, lie), and tell you “but I told you I’m not a good person” knowing good and damn well you’re too far in to walk away. To top it all off, they’ll make you feel guilty for calling them out on their bullshit. True story.
I know what you’re thinking: “But this poor guy just needs someone who…” No. Stop it. Hell. Naw. You ain’t his mama, it’s not your job to turn him into a functioning adult. If somebody tells you that (s)he’s a shitty person, why would you even stick around to see if it’s really true? Life’s too short, boo.