Smells like narcissism in here.

This is what helps me to deal with loneliness as a trans person in queerphobic society. I dont think of myself as a person not worthy of love. I instead think of other people not being worthy of relationship with me. I know that there are many people like me, who will love me, and who will be loved. It is hard to find someone when everyone just sits in a closet, because of a fear of society we all live in.

It has a rather sinister submeaning: those who overly love themselves are too often completely lose the link with community and morals. Yes, morality is not a universal thing, so sometimes it is nice to ditch some moral rules, but many of those rules are healthy both for the community and the individual.

I find this incorrect. I like myself a lot. Sure there are things I don't like, but I have a lot I'm proud of myself. I still desperately crave external validation.

It's not true. Some people enjoy being more social than others. Some people need the love of others. Others don't.

I don't think it's saying "the less you'll need others" it's saying you'll be less likely to change for others. You can still be social, but you'll be more willing to wait to find someone who likes who you truly are than pretend to be someone you're not just for them. You may be lonely in the interim, but you won't mind as much because you know who you are and you know you're worth loving as is.

I don't know if "being social" and "seeking validation from others" are the same thing.

You are right.

I guess we both interpreted "like" differently.

I interpreted it closer to love, and you interpreted it more about changing to be liked.

Reading it a second time, I agree with you.

I briefly read it and I missed "to" and I thought it said "love" rather than "like."

Personal experiences giving us different perspectives i suppose

Doesn’t help when you do find people and they tell you how much they appreciate you being a friend with ”no strings attached” and how refreshing it is to meet someone with “no expectations” and then they just let it die even after you reach out. The only way to cope with that is to have your attitude. Keep on keeping on brother/sister.

This is why making sure you grow as a person and work to undo your trauma is most important.

Maybe you have trauma :(

Oh boy do I! A whole bunch of it.

I was wondering the other day what would stop someone from doing bad stuff if they completely didn't care about other's feelings

That'll do it

Like an ink blot test, there is more than one way to read this OP, and how you choose to do so is revealing.

Open your mind to new possibilities! You may be glad that you did. ☺️

There is more than one way to read this and I did. Maybe those that read this as a positive should consider the alternative... Then again narcissists don't really do that so...

You didn't say that earlier, as in "another way to read this is as narcissistic tendencies". You made a firm declaration that this smells like one thing - and you mentioned that one thing only - which is narcissism.

So you are now changing your story. Perhaps not what you meant in your head, but the portion of what you meant that you had shared with us.

Anyway there are much more positive ways that you could have phrased the identical point, and since as the saying goes you catch more flies with honey than. vinegar, if your goal was truly to offer a different perspective for others to consider, then why not use them?

Anyway I have no desire to be your judge - in my own mind this conversation definitely seems sus - but I'll leave it to you to decide what you want to do with it all moving forward. I just wanted to do here what you claimed that you also wanted: to offer an additional perspective that might help you see outside of yourself, like how this looks to someone else (me) who is not privy to the intimate thoughts inside your head.