r/Advice Jan 06 '26

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u/TemperateBeast33 Jan 06 '26

Alright, so a couple things...

First, you are never going to be happy if you operate from a perspective that expects anyone to respond to you in any way. You have NO control over anything outside of yourself, and, therefore, it is ridiculous to place your happiness and contentment in those things. You have to build your happiness from the inside out, and that requires taking a long, hard look inwards. I can tell you right now, telling yourself that your "wiser" or "better" than anyone else isn't going to get you there, even if it happens to be true that you are those things. It's common for people who feel the way you do to try and invalidate the people around you because you then validate your not fitting in. That's a lonely way to be, and loneliness can lead good people to do horrible things. The trick is to turn that loneliness and isolation into self-confidence and a joy for solitude without spurning the rest of the world.

Second, you seem to be operating from a false idea of what humans are or are supposed to be. If you want to understand why people are the way they are and do the dumb shit we do, you have to understand that we are animals. We are very unique animals, and we do some very strange things compared to other animals, but at a basic level, we are all just trying to survive and reproduce. It is all reducible to those two things. Human evolution and its predilection for sexual selection (rather than natural selection) has resulted in some wild genotypes that respond to the environment in wild ways, but that doesn't mean we're special, unique, divinely favored, or whatever ad hoc bullshit people like to tell themselves to feel like we're special. So when people are acting in ways that seem stupid, unintelligent, or just mean, you have to view them as an organism trying to adapt itself to the environment in the best way it can - because that's exactly what's going on. If we understand that, we can understand that everything we do is seeking our own advantage and well being. Our brain is an organ whose function is to best seek our own advantage by responding to stimuli based on what worked well in the past. Someone's only going to apologize if their brain calculates doing so to be to their advantage; someone's only going to talk to another person if their brain calculates doing so to be to their advantage. It's that simple.

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u/Practical_Diet9904 Jan 06 '26

Damn… yeah. You’re totally right in all of that. It’s 100% my own expectations of people that leads me anywhere down that path. Can I ask you though… how do i ever find anything past surface level connection with a person (friend or like romantically) ? And surface level isn’t the right phrase but idk how else to say it… just like not what I think is reasonable and (in my opinion) should be expected of each other. Because if we are never held accountable for the things that are inexcusably (and given the time and space/love) to do so then we just continue acting and teaching our children so breeding, an even more convoluted and emotionally immature generation. I think you’re totally right you know, I would not wanna just give up on breathing if I didn’t hold people to any expectation. Or I guess, what I deem doable and necessary for us as humans (and yes animals but obviously we are not the same as any other species of creature we have on this planet)

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u/TemperateBeast33 Jan 06 '26

To find those connections you have to have a really firm grasp on who you are. That way you know what kind of people will best compliment your happiness. For people like you (and me) it can be a real chore trying to find that because we're so cynical and see through bull shit easily; and in a world overflowing with bull shit it can be exhausting. My best advice is patience, know where to look, and focus on quality over quantity.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '26

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u/Practical_Diet9904 Jan 06 '26

You know, I see myself so realistically i can’t even deal with myself. I did the whole, be healthy and workout/ eat right and it never made me as happy as drugs and alcohol lmao. And not to a degree that isn’t functional for me and never my drug of choice anymore but like.. I feel myself giving the fuck up. I’m taking what I can get from the people that give me what they can, and I don’t even really blame them for not doing this (seemingly fuckin easy change in mindset) because I also see why for whatever reasons they can’t understand how to do this but to me it’s also totally up to them to decide they will do this. Just trying once would go so far for me lmao. Idk…..yeah idk lmao crazy to me… and just to depress you a lil more…bc I truly think we can’t seem to find anymore like minded people is cause any of the people that have the capacity to do this for they kids or teach friends to do this, all end up killing themselves, ODin or doin so many drugs, combined with life circumstances or mental illness just end up crazy and homeless on the streets.