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Being Told

 D is now deceased but a few days ago I remembered the words he said to me that stayed with me for a very long time. We had known each other for a couple of years at the time and one day in all seriousness he told me that I was the kind of woman that no man could possibly live with. That judgement dissected and analyzed for accuracy might have revealed that D was making an impossible claim. Humanity is too vast and diverse for an extreme statement like that. No matter now odd, strange, and weird a person it is very much possible that there are people who can deal with it and even thrive in a relationship with them. I took D's words to heart because it built upon a foundation of self-doubt about my ability to cohabit with just about anyone. I had always struggled with room-mates, was alleged to have impossible standards that no one could live up to and so on. 

I presumed D had stumbled upon the hard truth about me and accepted it as such. His statement proved to be incorrect but that did not prevent me me from having many spikes of angst about failing when placed in a new situation or context. I have to do this new thing now involving a person I am unfamiliar with and therefore I am more likely than not to fail. Having presumed failure even before it happened, I set in motion events that caused me and those around me a lot of undue pain. Each time, I proved to myself that I can actually operate in a "normal" manner and nothing is terminally broken about me, the inevitability of D's pronouncement fades a bit more. It has not lost its sting entirely, but it definitely hurts less. The people you trust as friends and mentors can do the worst damage to your psyche because you present to them your most vulnerable and receptive self.

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