Psychoanalysis

People Letting You Down

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If you’ve noticed that most of your human relationships start out really promising but end in hostility the first thing to realize is that the common denominator is you. As much as you want to blame everybody else your own thinking and behavior probably have a lot to do with all these splits.

Psychologically speaking, one explanation is that you have a tendency to place people up on pedestals when you first meet them, projecting the very best qualities into them and blinding yourself to their human deficits. You see them as the funniest, smartest, kindest, most beautiful. By instilling these qualities in them your payoff is getting to bask in the glow of their light.

But you are destined to become disillusioned with any relationship defined by this kind of hero worship because people can’t live up to these impossible standards for long. Everyone is fallible, everyone has flaws. This is probably where that anger and hostility come from before the inevitable break. You feel justified in being angry because people don’t deliver on what was promised, they don’t fulfill their side of the bargain. But the fact is that you set them up to let you down. There is never any other possible outcome because your expectations from the get go are unrealistic, based not on who they objectively are as people but on who you wish they are.

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