The People-Pleasing Pattern Destroying Your Relationships
The difference between kindness and erasure, and why one keeps you lonely.
I once watched a client check his phone three times before our session even started. A text popped in from his boyfriend about dinner plans, and it hijacked his attention.
He had to respond. He pulled up the eight restaurants saved in his Apple Notes, the ones his partner liked.
The catch? My client didn’t like any of them.
Sound familiar? Many of us perfect the art of predicting what someone wants before they even say a word.
Even as a therapist, I’m not immune to this. I remember spending about half an hour crafting a WhatsApp message to a friend, worried I might say something wrong. Like I was texting my old English professor, who treated my essays like crime scenes in need of red ink.
As someone who works exclusively with gay men, I see this scene unfold often.
Take a client in his mid-thirties, a banker. On Zoom, he looked puzzled when I asked about his likes and dislikes. He couldn’t answer because he hardly knew what he liked anymore.
The…