"You’re Too Serious”

My whole life I’ve been told things like

• you’re too serious

• you think too much

• you’re so shy (when I was young)

• you’re moody

• you’re never happy

• you’re too intense

• your standards are too high

• you want too much

• you care too much

• you need to lighten up, have a little fun

• talking to you is like walking on eggshells

• you’re living in the past

I subconsciously felt shame for decades for being serious, contemplative, very aware and perceptive, and having high standards for relational expectations (both of myself and others). I thought something was wrong with me. I so badly wanted to learn how to be bubbly and light-hearted all the time—especially to free me from literal and implied scrutiny, which is essentially society-wide.

I realize now that anyone who has told me these things has this in common:

• very low tolerance for not being emotionally-soothed and emotionally-regulated by others

  • via performance, song-and-dance, chit chat, smiles, etc.

  • via others going along with their own self-concepts and internal narratives—regardless of conflicting actions, choices and patterns

• dissociative from their own emotions, challenges, wants, needs, actions and choices

• disinterested in deep growth and healing

• choose willful blindness

• disinterested in relating, resonating, and aligning with anything which isn’t superficial and easy / soothing

• disinterested in standing on integrity, ethics, standards, truth and honesty

• refusal to acknowledge consequences of actions and choices

• compartmentalize themselves, their lives and relationships

  • lacked in coherence

• spread themselves across many shallow experiences and associations

• superficially looking “good” and feeling “good” is top priority

• operate in a low-investment or casual relational mode

  • relationships are simply

    • infantile-level soothing

    • entertainment

    • stimulation

    • supportive of desired image & appearance

    • supportive of a contrived narrative

    • predictability & familiarity

    • having a warm body & sounds around

    • consumption

    • distraction

    • having a stage for performance

    • captive audience members

    • illusion of “belonging” or “fitting in”

    • a place to hide out

    • novelty

    • for projection & and having a scapegoat

    • data-mining and plagiarism

      - using what those in relationship reveal as ideas for what to say to, and to impress, other people

    • easy-access material for covert voyeurism

    • In order to obtain any & all of the above, the following is acceptable, appropriate, & even validated:

      - moral relativism & ethically flexible

      - avoiding responsibility & accountability

      - avoiding admitting what they want & don’t want

      - flippancy

      - lying

      - gas-lighting

      - hiding

      - compartmentalizing

      - forgetfulness

      - secrecy & evasiveness

      - gossiping & backstabbing

      - character smearing

      - incongruency

      - lack of loyalty

• as such, they are unable to live in deep, ethical, meaningful shared reality, perspective and alignment with another

All that those people have in common, points to why they made those comments about me. My just being myself inadvertently held up a mirror which they didn’t want to look into, and showed them what they are not and what do not want to look at and deal with.

For decades, I received a consistent message from parents and others:

• My seriousness was excessive

• My memory was a problem

• My ethics were inconvenient

• My questions were aggression

• My standards were pathology

When that message comes early and repeatedly, the system does this:

It assumes the common denominator is me.

So instead of concluding “these people are flippant, evasive, or incoherent,” I concluded “there must be something wrong with how I’m wired.”

These people lacked the capacity, the interest, the ability to meet me and to reciprocate where I reside, function and orientate.

“Abandon all attempts at sincere communication when communicating with the insincere.”

-Richard Grannon

I see clearly that all of my depression and sorrow in life has really only stemmed from not having an allyship with someone at my level (“level five” of relationship engagement and skill").

What an eye-opener for me. I don’t take those comments to heart anymore. Their comments only show me who they are: someone I steer clear from.

I am playful and humorous—but not casually or for public consumption. This side of me is reserved for the people I truly love and trust as part of my relational investment and bonding—not a performance, entertainment or filler. Otherwise, people usually get my seriousness, conscientiousness, and strong boundaries.

Ready to address what others say about you? I’d love speak with you. Pro truth. Pro reality. Realist. Genuine. Sincere.