I don’t know if it can comfort you but personally I’m trying to accept that it’s ok to be "vulnerable" with mostly everyone. Most of the time it creates interesting bonds with people. Sometimes you are being "vulnerable" to authentic jerks and so what ? Most of the time you can just ignore them.
I find that acting like this is actually an effective automatic filter for my social interactions.
The only place I’m more protecting myself (without being totally closed) is at work because, probably due to the environment, people aren’t acting normally at work.
One of the things I've noticed is that there is a huge discrepancy between people who can "bounce back" from someone behaving inappropriately to them when they are in a vulnerable position. People who are able to go "yeah fuck you too buddy, anyways onto the next thing" are way more able to handle things. People who end up dwelling on one person who did something bad years ago and are unable to let go of that pain end up closing themselves off for fear of exacerbating it.
Yeah but like I said, I’m just trying to do that. I’ve been like the former people you described.
In my case, I feel it’s just the wisdom of just being older. I also have the luck of having a stable life, a few friends and nice little family. I’ve never been more emotionally stable than today so of course it’s much easier not to care when people randomly betray me.
I don’t know if it can comfort you but personally I’m trying to accept that it’s ok to be "vulnerable" with mostly everyone. Most of the time it creates interesting bonds with people. Sometimes you are being "vulnerable" to authentic jerks and so what ? Most of the time you can just ignore them.
I find that acting like this is actually an effective automatic filter for my social interactions.
The only place I’m more protecting myself (without being totally closed) is at work because, probably due to the environment, people aren’t acting normally at work.