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a question about trying to change someone


rainorshine

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Hi all, it's been a little while since I've started a thread. I'm still chugging along in my healing process post-break up. Recently during moments of reflection, I have been thinking quite a lot about the dynamic my ex and I had.

 

I would like to believe that I am - at least I make a conscious effort to be - a very understanding, empathetic, and considerate person. I try my best to remain open-minded, appreciative, and kind. My friends closest to me (my ex included) have described me as very genuine, authentic, and good-hearted.

 

My ex, on the other hand... while I have always maintained that he has a good heart, his character could definitely be better. While he treated me very well during the majority of our time together, towards others he could be very mean and disrespectful, and he would often use offensive and degrading terminology regarding them. For other males, his level of respectfulness was usually based on how they dressed and what their interests were, while for women he based his respectfulness primarily on how attractive he found them (at least, this was my viewpoint). I found myself constantly telling him to "please be nice," and to "please don't say that" when it came to him speaking to and about other people (which I knew I shouldn't have had to do), and I would go extra out of my way to be kind and do generous things for other people hoping that he would take notice and want to do them, too.

 

Throughout our entire relationship, I really tried so hard to encourage him to be a better, kinder person through my actions and words. I pushed myself to be better in the hopes that it would push him to be better. I just wanted so desperately for him to be nice to others the way he was nice to me.

 

But eventually I realized that by doing this, I was trying to change him, and I hated that. It made me feel so guilty, because I didn't want to have to push him so hard to be a good person in the first place!

 

Obviously the lesson learned here is to stick dating someone who has a comparable character to you, so this issue doesn't exist. But in general, is trying to change someone for the better really that wrong? Where is the line between accepting someone for who they are and trying to encourage them to be a better person?

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You can never change a man. My poor mother tried to change my late father and wished he could've been a decent human being to no avail. Never make my mother's mistake! My mother was so naive when she was young. She has since learned street smarts and hopefully passed them down to me!

 

I don't think it's "wrong" to try to change someone for the better. Your intentions were good but realistically, you're simply wasting your time, energy and resources on a man who is who he is. "A leopard cannot change its spots." Nothing is more important than character.

 

Many men (or women) don't have an empathetic gene in their DNA make up. It's not there. They were either not raised with it or they'll never comprehend the word "empathy" in a million years. They're total lost causes.

 

Or, they'll engage in gaslighting in order to win every argument, wear you down, defeat and confuse you. Beware of those psychological sneaky tricks.

 

Accepting a person for who they are really depends on how picky you choose to be. If you have a high tolerance and look away at alarming behavior and accept him as a package deal, then you're settling for mediocrity. If your standards are extremely high regarding consistent integrity, moral and honorable behavior, then it's better to remain patient until you find the right one for long term stability with a great guy.

 

If you have to lecture a man as if he's in 2nd grade and try to teach him how to behave with common decency and common courtesy, there is something wrong with the man and you for that matter.

 

It pays to shop around. Why not the best?

 

After my parents' fiasco, I vowed to marry a man who was the exact opposite of my late father and snatched him up.

 

I can't speak for all men but I will tell you about my husband: He's just like his father, a very moral man, very kind, considerate, selfless and honorable. It helps if a man was raised in a normal, loving, nurturing, stable, solid "mom 'n pop 'n apple pie" household. The man knows of nothing else. Also, my husband observed his father treat his mother with utmost respect and love. Great fathers teach their sons how to respect women. Generally, these types of men are keepers. Look at their background and his family because a man's background is your stable, blissfully happy future.

 

I never dated in HS, college and didn't meet and marry my husband until I was 22 years old. He was worth the wait. All other dates were nothing but big time losers. It pays to be very picky and choosy.

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On the face of it, it may seem like a good idea to try and change someone for the better. But the reality is that it's very difficult to do so.

 

The person you are trying to change (men or women) have likely been in their patterns of behavior for many years. It's very difficult to change and will not happen without rebuttal.

 

In future, try to identify their traits early on and decide whether you are compatible with them or not (the whole point of dating someone before entering a relationship).

 

As it seems you have learned, it's a fool's errand to identify that you are not compatible, but to then think that you will try and make them compatible.

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Ok try to continue to heal and move forward. The breakup has already established that you are incompatible. Many people go through the sour grapes phase after a breakup and paint their exes as evil demons for a while. It's part of the healing process to assess the things that didn't work so you can choose better next time.

 

Keep in mind, it's fool's errand to try to fix or change anyone. Correcting him all the time meant that you were unhappy. Yes it's arrogant to assume anyone you're with is defective and needs to be retooled according to your standards. Dating is a what you see is what you get situation. A relationship that has a chance of working is based on acceptance.

 

The bottom line is either you're compatible or you're not. It's not your job to change, fix, teach or remake anyone. The pretense that your way- the correct way- is better will assure your dissatisfaction with whoever you're with...and theirs.

 

A bit of short term therapy may help you sort through the breakup as well as get a better handle on healthy boundaries and explore whatever dissatisfaction in your life compels you to try to control and change others.

Throughout our entire relationship, I really tried so hard to encourage him to be a better, kinder person through my actions and words. I pushed myself to be better in the hopes that it would push him to be better. I just wanted so desperately for him to be nice to others the way he was nice to me.

 

is trying to change someone for the better really that wrong? Where is the line between accepting someone for who they are and trying to encourage them to be a better person?

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To be honest I would be annoyed and even insulted if a man I was dating thought I needed him to teach me how to be a better person.

 

I'm sure your intentions were good, but that pretty much never works.

 

Date someone whose character matches what you're looking for. People are not fixer upper projects.

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Rose Mosse and Reg: I appreciate your comments sincerely and will remember your advice moving forward. Thank you!

 

Cherylyn: Wow, your advice was just what I need, thank you. It sucks to accept that my ex probably, more than likely, falls into the "lost cause" category - I truly want to believe everyone has the ability to be good and decent. It hurts me to know my efforts were a waste, because I still care deeply for him. But I can't worry about that anymore. He is who he is, and well, I definitely settled for mediocrity. It makes me sad to even think that, but I'm glad I was able to finally realize it (it's crazy how clear things become once you fall out of love, huh?), and he should absolutely be with someone who never once feels that way about him.

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Keep in mind, it's fool's errand to try to fix or change anyone. Correcting him all the time meant that you were unhappy. Yes it's arrogant to assume anyone you're with is defective and needs to be retooled according to your standards. Dating is a what you see is what you get situation. A relationship that has a chance of working is based on acceptance.

 

The bottom line is either you're compatible or you're not. It's not your job to change, fix, teach or remake anyone. The pretense that your way- the correct way- is better will assure your dissatisfaction with whoever you're with...and theirs.

 

A bit of short term therapy may help you sort through the breakup as well as get a better handle on healthy boundaries and explore whatever dissatisfaction in your life compels you to try to control and change others.

 

I agree completely that it is not my job to change, fix, teach, or remake anyone. While my intentions were never to ‘fix’ him (I was able to deeply fall in love with him despite his mean streak to others, so I definitely accepted who he was to some degree) I guess I did feel as though it was my duty, for lack of a better word, to help and ‘teach’ him to be kinder.

 

As Cherylyn touched on, he was raised in a very dysfunctional household, surrounded by people who did not respect one another. I knew he lacked that teaching growing up, and for awhile I felt like, as his partner, I was then responsible for helping him to learn by setting a good standard and, well, leading by example. It wasn’t my job, but as the person he loved, I felt I was his best hope at the time. I realize that sounds very messed up, but it hurt me to know the reasons behind his actions. I didn’t want his poor upbringing to follow him forever. But, of course, it will.

 

It wasn’t until the latter part of our relationship that I finally realized the characteristics are embedded into his core. That’s when we broke up.

 

I definitely don’t think of him as an evil demon. Like I said, I’ve always believed he has a good heart. He cared deeply for me and was kind, patient, and thoughtful to me. I wanted so badly for him to showcase that to others. I guess that is the whole reason behind me feeling ‘compelled’ to encourage him to be kinder, but I would push back against the idea that I 'controlled' him. I never once forced him to do anything, and I don't think he ever saw it that way, either.

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To be honest I would be annoyed and even insulted if a man I was dating thought I needed him to teach me how to be a better person.

 

I'm sure your intentions were good, but that pretty much never works.

 

Date someone whose character matches what you're looking for. People are not fixer upper projects.

 

Thanks, botnrun. I don’t think he got annoyed (or insulted). It wasn’t an incessant thing. We were long distance for the majority of our relationship so my remarks were actually pretty infrequent. Perhaps he felt annoyed occasionally, but he knew my intentions and appreciated them. When we first broke up, he told me that he had been the best version of himself for me and because of me and thanked me for that. I know I had a momentary impact on him, but I know it wasn’t lasting. I agree fully to go forward only dating men whose characters match what I'm looking for.

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Nice hearing from you, rainorshine.

 

I agree with the general consensus here. In short: changing someone, even in the tiniest ways, should not be part of a relationship. Aside from being a fool's errand, it is, as bolt pointed out, condescending and controlling, no matter the intentions.

 

It's also a very, very common dynamic: relationships in which one party (or both) spends a lot of time thinking that it's good now but will be really good once the person becomes a little more x, a little less y.

 

Behind the instinct, often, is a form of rationalization, justification. You basically know in your gut that the person isn't right for you, but other parts of you—the heart and, very often, the loins—don't want to admit this. So we create a story of "change," a narrative that provides comfort to make up for the places of discomfort inside the relationship, much the way many people will deploy the word "love" when the feeling they are more acutely describing is a fear of being alone. Selfishness softened and edited into selflessness.

 

People tend to sense when another wants them to change, and often they will rebel, finding comfort and "power" in not changing. That's how things get toxic fast. Let's say my girlfriend wanted me to read more books and watch less TV. Even if I want to read more books and watch less TV, if I believe my truest self is a reader and not a binge watcher, I'll likely become annoyed at that pressure, no matter how subtly or kindly asserted, and I'll rebel by reading even less—becoming a lesser version of myself, alongside her, rather than the "best" version of myself, if that makes sense. At that point it's basically a coin toss and a waiting game to see who ends things first, because at that point both people are in a dysfunctional relationship.

 

Lots of people grow up in dysfunctional households, were dealt some rough hands as kids. Many of them are kind, responsible, empathetic, unbroken adults. I'd like to consider myself a version of that. One would have to have a cold heart not to sympathize with some of what I went through as a kid, but I wouldn't want that to translate to sympathy for being, you know, an a**hole. I'm not an a**hole. I'm kind and decent and don't need a patient professor of a girlfriend to teach me these traits. That's my level and the people I make time for are on that same level, so we can help each other level up in small, organic ways.

 

A phrase of yours that jumped out at me above: It hurts me to know my efforts were a waste, because I still care deeply for him.

 

There's a lesson there, I think. We have this idea that relationships are "work," which is true, but not this kind of work. Intimacy is not labor, in which you put in the hours to get a reward for "efforts." A relationship is not going into the salt mines to put food on the table, a roof over you. There is no nobility in that approach, on either side, though sadly many people, especially Americans, with our collective religion of "work," make this mistake. We want a reward for "staying in it," for "believing in" someone. Zoom out just a bit and that's actually a selfish approach.

 

You sound like you're doing well. There's no shame in having spent some time—some of it great, some of it not—with someone who wasn't right for you for the long haul. You might do it again. And again. These are not failures, but experiences. They sharpen our compass, preparing us for the next chapters. They let us know what our hearts are capable of—by filling them, at times, and starving them, at others.

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Be a partner, not a social worker.

he was raised in a very dysfunctional household, surrounded by people who did not respect one another. I knew he lacked that teaching growing up, and for awhile I felt like, as his partner, I was then responsible for helping him to learn by setting a good standard and, well, leading by example.
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Thank you, bluecastle. You always have the most sound bits of wisdom.

 

I know the desire of wanting him to change and "become better" was selfish. I realized that fairly quickly once I acknowledged I felt that way, and it filled me with a lot of guilt.

 

As I believe I have stated in previous threads, deep down I always knew we were incompatible. But with me being 18 when we first met and fell in love, compatibilities didn't matter as much to me as having fun and enjoying our time together. All I wanted at the time was for someone to love me, and he did. He was good to me, so I stupidly swept how he treated others under the rug. I shouldn't have, it caused me a lot of inner turmoil and strained our relationship at times, but I did.

 

I truly thought his meanness was something he would outgrow as he got older. For some reason, my brain never made the connection that it was his character, and that character is something largely set in stone.

 

But at the time, that's how I saw it - as me trying to help him grow. Changing someone, to me, meant regarding their likes, hobbies, interests (i.e. watching tv over reading books), and I never did that - I accepted those things about him. I recognized changing someone in that way is wrong. I wholeheartedly believed I was doing good by trying to encourage him to be a nicer person. I truly thought it could only be better for everyone involved.

 

I did have that exact thought: it's good now but will be really good once he becomes a little more x, a little less y.

 

I do see now how condescending it all was. I still stand by my intentions, and I'm not ashamed of them. Considering how dissimilar he and I are, it's honestly a miracle to me that we survived as long as we did, and even fell in love to begin with. But we did, and I believe that was God's grace saying, "you have something the other needs right now," and "you both can teach each other a lot."

 

I fully believe that our relationship was meant as a lesson to help prepare me for my next chapters, and I will strive my hardest to follow your words of advice and not repeat the same dynamic!

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I see nothing wrong with keeping our own behavior to our own highest standard, which can ultimately become a model for someone else--or not. Free will means that we credit others with the ability to choose how they want to conduct themselves. So while modeling behavior we hope that others might adopt is fine, investing in that as a game changer for someone else is our own problem, not theirs.

 

I think of my own internal trust meter as something I set to a neutral 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 when I meet someone new. Then I observe over time and allow their behavior to influence my choice to either invest more trust or to withdraw degrees of trust until it occurs to me that I'd best walk away.

 

So our estimation of others' behavior is on us, along with our choice to continue engaging anyone who demo's that they are not exactly ethical or trustworthy material.

 

It's only a matter of time before someone who's mean to others will direct that poison toward us. Even before then, we decide whether their toxicity is worth the price of engaging with them.

 

This is stuff we learn experientially by living it. So credit yourself for recognizing toxicity when you see it, and you'll gain confidence in your ability to screen people OUT rather than try to rehab them.

 

People are not projects, and dating is not social work.

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Response to post #12 (Rainorshine):

It's condescending if you do it intentionally. It's naive if you are clueless. I believe you were naive to start and were interested in being with someone more likeminded. Unfortunately he didn't prove to be that way.

 

We've all been down a similar path. It's called being incompatible and making peace with others who are different from us (people we can't change no matter how much we may want to).

 

My husband is very different from me in more than a few ways. The key you should be remembering is that with the right person, you should be able to mutually appreciate your differences and find strengths in your weaknesses together. Just because you are different in an approach from someone else doesn't always mean the other person is a bad person or vice versa (you being the bad one, the rude one, the wrong one etc and so on and so forth). Your strengths should add to both of you as a couple. Your weaknesses can always be improved upon.

 

Some people are beyond learning or unable to learn from others, appreciate different perspectives or approaches and that's fine. To me this level of non-growth is a dealbreaker and that's where I part ways and bid farewell. At that point, it's time to be respectful and simply go separate ways as you have done in your previous relationship. Enjoy your singledom. I had some of my best and most incredible adventures being single and thinking about the same things you're thinking about too.

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There is a realistic answer here and a more nuanced one. The realistic answer is you can never expect your partner to change - you either accept them as they are or let someone else deal with their hangups. The nuanced answer is that people do change over time, as a response to numerous stimuli. I'm never going to like cleaning up, but the more often my girlfriend is over, the more often I am going to clean up. That's not her trying to change me, but I am changing because of her influence. There may be other aspects of my behavior that I am more blind to than the cleanliness one. I expect some of those to be things I work on if they are brought up.

 

But then... I am a person who is open to and looking for change in myself. Some people either don't think they have anything wrong with them, or wouldn't want to change it in any case. Behaviors like those of your ex that are picked up in childhood after lots of exposure to negative influences are not going to be fixed by a significant other modeling good behavior every once in a while. And it sounds like it's bad enough that, while you accepted it for a time, being around that kind of behavior long enough would have worn you down eventually if he did not change. You avoided a lot of that wear down by being long distance. This is one of the dangers of long distance or mostly online/texting relationships. You miss out on so many chances to really see and evaluate a whole person with all of their faults on full display.

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*Steps on soapbox*

 

Why are you ruminating to this degree about a relationship that ended so many month ago? To me, you are asking us to assist you in staying stuck, I think you should really put yourself first and try to stop these thoughts, the relationship is over and done with, yes everyone can and should learn from their past relationships but this is really coming off as ruminating more than anything else.

 

*steps off soapbox*

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I don't think wanting to change him in of itself is a bad thing and I don't think you should feel guilty for it. How you go about it though is what can make it wrong. If you feel that he isn't good enough now for you to be with but would be if he improved then you're with the wrong person and you shouldn't expect that they will change and maintain it. And this will show when you talk to them because you will talk from a position of them being wrong and not good enough. If you accepted them then your position would be that they're good now and you want to see them improve. Under those conditions the person would see that you accept him and he may be more willing to change although he still may not.

 

The other thing is, whenever you do end up with anyone, each partner changes a little towards the other. So you don't have to feel guilty for wanting to change.

 

Next, if you want someone to change their character you have to build a foundation to cause a change in their behavior. If someone is making a racist remark, they do so because of what they think and feel. You could tell them to stop but the remarks would still be on their mind and in their hearts. To change their behavior you would have to change their assumptions about that race or show them how skin color is not a factor. In your ex someone has built the foundation that treating certain people with disrespect is good, and treating the one you love with respect is good. Understanding the foundation and changing their thoughts would bring about change and not just asking for them to change.

 

In any case, I don't think you two were compatible so I'm not recommending you go back and change him, good luck in the future.

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In your ex someone has built the foundation that treating certain people with disrespect is good, and treating the one you love with respect is good. Understanding the foundation and changing their thoughts would bring about change and not just asking for them to change.

 

In any case, I don't think you two were compatible so I'm not recommending you go back and change him, good luck in the future.

 

Wow, what a good point about foundations that I have failed to see. Perhaps had I understood that before, I could have better helped bring about a positive change in him. Now, I must take it as a lesson and learn from it.

 

I do take blame for not approaching the issue in the best manner - I had never once became so visibly angry or frustrated at his disrespectful behavior as I did in the very last moments of our relationship - in pure desperation of wanting him to empathize with me and for him to stop gaslighting me (yes, eventually he did turn his meanness towards me) I went on a spree, for lack of a better word, of calling out his faults and essentially telling him he was not good enough for me for x, y, and z reasons. I think I may feel gross and apologetic about that for years and years to come. That's not who I ever want to be. By acting in that manner, I let him down, but perhaps more importantly, I let myself down.

 

However, that interaction and dialogue between us was the most important one that we ever had. It's what finally made a light go off in my head signaling to me just how toxic our dynamic had become and that we were seriously incompatible as people. It's why I broke up with him. I have absolutely zero desire to ever get back with him. Thank you. :)

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Your level of insight and awareness is really something, rainorshine. Good tools to have, and to keep sharpening, as it seems you're naturally built to do. Some day you'll find someone who shares that value and character trait, and I suspect you'll be amazed at what that feels like: apples and apples, instead of apples and oranges.

 

But another great tool, to piggyback onto figureitout's post? Letting go, cutting yourself some slack. No one behaves perfectly—in life, in relationships. We lash out, misstep, say stupid things. It's allowed. It's human. Nothing to feel gross and apologetic about for years and years, but just a few minutes. You weren't a person you wanted to be with him. Now you get to be the person you want to be—and, in being that person, the guilt and shame recedes.

 

The line between self-reflection and rumination can be thin—I get stuck straddling it plenty!—but it's an important one to understand. In self-reflection we shed husks, go deeper into ourselves so we can get more comfortable in our own skin—and, of course, share ourselves more fully and authentically with others. In rumination we can clog a lot of arteries while thinking we're cleaning them, and we can keep the focus trained on another person instead of ourselves—the one thing, in the end, that we can change.

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If you are with someone you describe as an emotional abuser you'll Never fix or change them. You might consider some short term therapy for insight, understanding healthy vs unhealthy relationships and tips on self esteem and boundaries. Also it seems you engaged in some equally nasty low class behavior.

 

 

It's great you broke up, but if you think it's only due to incompatibility and his lack of good breeding, you're in for one toxic relationship after the next because you're not addressing the real issue - You. Why were you in this trying to rationalize, sanitize and lie to yourself about everything.

wanting him to empathize with me and for him to stop gaslighting me he did turn his meanness towards me. essentially telling him he was not good enough for me for x, y, and z reasons.
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Also it seems you engaged in some equally nasty low class behavior.

 

It's great you broke up, but if you think it's only due to incompatibility and his lack of good breeding, you're in for one toxic relationship after the next because you're not addressing the real issue - You. Why were you in this trying to rationalize, sanitize and lie to yourself about everything.

 

Respectfully, this is not productive or helpful advice at all. Very unnecessary, actually. "Some equally nasty low class behavior," is honestly...way out of left field. Not once have I quoted him or given a specific example of any of the language he would use. You have NO right to project that my behavior, which extended maybe 6 text messages in one day over the 2.5 years we were together, was "equally nasty low class behavior."

 

I did NOT "lie to [my]self about everything" over the course of our relationship. Please do not come to my thread to attack me when you do not have a full knowledge (or any knowledge at all, really) of my character or the complexity or nature of our relationship outside of this issue. Thank you.

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Respectfully, this is not productive or helpful advice at all. Very unnecessary, actually. "Some equally nasty low class behavior," is honestly...way out of left field. Not once have I quoted him or given a specific example of any of the language he would use. You have NO right to project that my behavior, which extended maybe 6 text messages in one day over the 2.5 years we were together, was "equally nasty low class behavior."

 

I did NOT "lie to [my]self about everything" over the course of our relationship. Please do not come to my thread to attack me when you do not have a full knowledge (or any knowledge at all, really) of my character or the complexity or nature of our relationship outside of this issue. Thank you.

 

 

The nasty thing was "parenting" him -- using yourself as the gold standard of how he should be as a person.

. I found myself constantly telling him to "please be nice," and to "please don't say that" when it came to him speaking to and about other people (which I knew I shouldn't have had to do), and I would go extra out of my way to be kind and do generous things for other people hoping that he would take notice and want to do them, too.

 

Throughout our entire relationship, I really tried so hard to encourage him to be a better, kinder person through my actions and words. I pushed myself to be better in the hopes that it would push him to be better. I just wanted so desperately for him to be nice to others the way he was nice to me.

 

My ex was constantly correcting me in front of people. He always told me i didn't have life experience, i didn't know how to act in public "normal people don't do that" "stop talking, they already heard that story before". Later on after we broke up, people said they were relieved we were broken up because he was always jumping on me constantly on every little thing. I was never rude to anyone. He yelled from across the room at me once because he thought i dipped a carrot in the hummus that was out instead of putting a separate portion on my plate.

 

You may think he wasn't polite, but if he truly wasnt - you either don't say anything and let him suffer the consequences of what happens to his friendship or you privately tell him at a later date "hey, i am ucomfortable the way you talk to Tony." Constantly correcting him and acting like his mother or police is terrible in public. And i don't know if he is really mean or its just a bunch of guys busting eachother's chops.

 

My brother's friends have nicknames for eachother that sound rude but they are always changing and they think its hilarious. They are respectful towards women and others, but when they get together, the clock has turned back to sixth grade. They say some pretty rude things to eachother busting eachother's chops and are always trying to one up eachother.

 

Yes, find someone more compatible, but not someone "like you" - someone like themselves, but someone you have respect for, and then give them enough respect while you are with them to not be their parent

 

Also, not everyone has to be over the top generous - many people do so quietly -- give money with no one knowing, help with no one knowing. Even though you think they are selfish for taking the last donut or something.

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