figuring things out

[Athena]

Been doing a lot this week. Went out to lunch with a friend, last night went out with a friend that came in town. The second friend wants to help me get over this odd thing I have with relationships. Was asking tough questions some I honestly couldn't answer. Last night he took me out to one of those eating places where women have on tight pants and tank tops, told him I felt uncomfortable going there many times before.. but he surprised me this time and didn't take no. Said it would help and he knows how to get me over all my problems. Wasn't as bad as I thought.. but it sure didn't help. Wasn't feeling bad that night but feeling pretty low today for some reason.

That just conjured up a nightmare I had last Tuesday. I had posted about the drawbacks of "casual" relationships around that time. That night I dreamt I was hanging upside down from a meat hook. That's not the worst of it, but you get the gist. So I guess what I'm saying is - I can see why you would not find a place like that terribly comfortable - I wouldn't either. Perhaps the thought that that's what you do to meet women depressed you the next day. Believe me, there's lots better places to meet women.

[randomperson]

Your right. I feel better today.

I think to me what did it was the fact that is the type woman that has hurt me over and over. Be it picking on me at school with no provocation, rejecting me or whatever. Stuck up divas. Cute, and flaunting it with an attitude.

I kept feeling ignored even in there while they swarmed the "popular guys". Nor did I feel good being in a place where skimpy clothes was required of them and they knew guys come in to look them over. Just felt wrong to me, something about it always did. When asked why I just don't know.

Also I watched my ex GF turned into one of these diva types after I rebuilt her self esteem.. that is when she started to ignore me and things spiraled down.. that is the main thing that drove me a little nuts.. after I saved her so many times she became the very thing that has hurt me so much all of my life.

So that whole experience that night I think did make me feel bad you are both correct. Took me a little thinking about it to see.

I know why my friend did it though. He thought they would sit and chat, as he knows I freeze in person when talking to women I feel attracted to. But they didn't and it was just uncomfortable for me.

But as I said this was the past and I am feeling much better today

[randomperson]

Often I wonder if I will heal enough to love.

The things I grow in are helping me become stable I don't think of suicide near as much, but the big things it seems like I am making little progress.

I am ok today not feeling very down, just wondering about my life.

It is pretty daunting coming to grips that I am one of my biggest problems now.

I don't want to be alone but know I will likely always have problems that will scare women away. Likely I will get better but honestly looking at my age, the problems I face, and the pace of my actual growth emotionally I don't think I will get to the spot I need in time to experience the family life I desire.

Problem with thoughts like this is it feels like self pity, in my mind I think it is not as I am trying to figure out what all this means.

I think maybe she was right saying I am hard to get along with even as a friend. Maybe I have caused all of my problems and always will and that the best I can do is ease it as much as possible. I hate how my thoughts fight against me all the time. No woman would ever put up with these odd mood swings.. and I am not sure if me being alone causes them or if it is something else.

I am doing well semi at peace.. but these thoughts haunt me.

It is not picking for praise or anything.. I'm just confused.. not sure what to do.. if I can do anything more than I am.

[randomperson]

.................

[Athena]

I don't want to be alone but know I will likely always have problems that will scare women away. Likely I will get better but honestly looking at my age, the problems I face, and the pace of my actual growth emotionally I don't think I will get to the spot I need in time to experience the family life I desire.

Random, your age is not a problem. This is where being male actually works to your advantage. You can start a family as late as 40 or 50 or even later, depending on how much energy you have as you get older and as long as you are prepared to marry a younger woman. Why do you think you are scaring women away?

[randomperson]

I am. The core problems are still there and I have no clue how to fix them.

I can work on self image and things to help then something pops up that hits on the main phobias and comes close to taking me back to the start.

I try to connect end up saying stupid stuff like I once in awhile do here.

Most people are not so forgiving. Over and over and over throughout my life I scare women off. It is the history.. living life alone it makes the phobia hard to overcome because I have so much proof that I am the problem.

Rejected for prom, almost engaged then dropped. Rejected so much.. so much pain, being alone.

It makes me feel freakish which transfers over into my personality when I am nervous which then scares people off.

I was chatting with someone for a few weeks and got ignored again. I was already on edge from my previous experiences of the week and it just tipped me over.

[Athena]

I can work on self image and things to help then something pops up that hits on the main phobias and comes close to taking me back to the start.

I have a feeling the pattern is going to continue until you sort out your phobias. What are they? Maybe we can help you get over them if we know what they are.

[CantGiveItAway]

I agree with Athena, your age is not a problem. Whos to say in afew years what could happen but I think overthinking your growth could actually hurt alittle bit like if you were thinking your at some point now then in a month or two you werent where you thought you should be or didnt feel like you could see any growth, then you feel worse and any big thing seems even bigger because you feel like your racing against time too. But I think it might be good to forget about big things for awhile sometimes and not always be thinking about having to fix something about yourself. I dont think there has to be an timeline for your growth and feel like you have to get to a point where you need to say, now im good enough for a woman or now a woman would be able to accept me.

You are very easy to get along with and not a bad talker, but it might be good to get away from thinking about girls for awhile (or how to get and please them) and having to feel like you need to find someone or if you met a girl and she wanted to be in a relationship, then you would feel like your were getting somewhere. But putting alot of pressure on a relationship like that or on someone to make you feel accepted adds a lot of strain to a relationship that shouldnt be there. But you are definitly capable of being loved.

[randomperson]

Thank you. It is this bad combo of feeling so alone living in this clutter wondering if my mother is dieing and I will soon be totally alone facing this ..combined with my past that is creating this emotional storm that I can't get out of.

I would love to forget about relationships all together soo much.. but my loneliness and low self esteem brings the thoughts up all the time. Most of it is not even on a conscious level.

I know I don't have it that bad right now either, I just struggle fixing my mind training it on the proper things, just like you mentioned.

I am going to try to find a church with a singles group.. not to date but just to have people to be around. I am hoping that will help.

It helps to have everyone tell me time is not a factor. That is something I needed to hear and need to remind myself.

[randomperson]

I have a feeling the pattern is going to continue until you sort out your phobias. What are they? Maybe we can help you get over them if we know what they are.

I have a rejection phobia and a fear of being alone mixed with low self image in regards to relationships.

[randomperson]

Everyone will be proud of me I successfully flirted with a woman at a store yesterday. She was checking us out (literally she was the cashier) and I just started talking, she was giggling and mom even said she was flirting back. Not much but for me I am proud of the accomplishment. Shows that I can attract women and that I do not always scare them off. Strong counters to my negative thinking. It was a positive growth experience.

[Athena]

I have a rejection phobia and a fear of being alone mixed with low self image in regards to relationships.

Random,

You may find this helpful:

http://www.guidetopsychology.com/mpd.htm

[Athena]

Everyone will be proud of me I successfully flirted with a woman at a store yesterday. She was checking us out (literally she was the cashier) and I just started talking, she was giggling and mom even said she was flirting back. Not much but for me I am proud of the accomplishment. Shows that I can attract women and that I do not always scare them off. Strong counters to my negative thinking. It was a positive growth experience.

It does not appear you have a problem at this level. Great! I'm happy for you.

[randomperson]

Urf finding out the boss is considering trimming away 80% of the work I do.

Every time I suggest something I can do to bring more profit in it is politely turned down. ..not good.

[Athena]

Is this a concern you feel you could bring up with your boss, just as you have stated here? I know it's probably the last thing you want to do, but perhaps by talking, you could head something off at the pass.

[malign]

Or, turn it around, instead of offering specific ideas:

"I like my job here and I want to help the business in any way I can. What can you suggest that I do?"

[randomperson]

You both know me I have. Thing is he wants me to do sales from cold calls off of numbers I must find and so far that is his focus on what he wants from me in this new direction for the company.

Anything else he seems to be feeling is a waste of time.

I have had little luck doing this so far.

The entire direction of the company is changing it seems.

We talked about this in the past and I am afraid to bring it up again. If the thought is not in his head I do not want to put it there.. and if it is at this point other than making what he suggested working (if possible) I don't think anything I say will make much of a difference.

Still likely the catalog will keep going for one more run at least.

I (think) my job will be ok as long as we have our catalog.

But if I asked what can I do? He would reinforce the cold call sales which I am struggling with.

What I was doing is suggesting extra ways to create new revenue sources for the company that I could be in charge of and handle with low overhead costs.

This week he turned most of them down, when before he was considering them.

[Athena]

It appears he has a strong belief in cold calls. They are not easy. I had a few days of group training in how to do them many many years ago. We even did role play and videotaping etc. Back then, it was industry practice to get a good chunk of our clients that way. Now our "do not call list" makes that method next to impossible. Anyway, we even had call sheets - which we were encouraged to hand in every day. It was made clear to us that if there was at least 20 "contacts" (usually took 100 dials) on the list, our job was safe no matter what the result. They expected that with enough practice you would get 2 to 5 "interested" prospects on a daily basis.

As you know, I'm not thrilled about being rejected at the best of times, so it wasn't pleasant. But I was focussed on the end goal, and that was to build a successful business, so I just considered it a necessary evil - and it worked!

So if your boss is absolutely insistent that cold calls are the new direction and won't consider anything else, I would think it's time to give it a try. But I would suggest to him that you would like some training in it (or at least some resources, reading material, etc) so you can make your calls more effective. Just to give you an idea of what's involved:

Successful cold calling requires:

1) Asking open ended questions (nothing that can be answered "yes" or "no")

2) Establishing that you are talking to the decision maker

3) Viewing objections as opportunities to discover what the client really wants

4) Main goal of the call is to get permission to meet face to face

5) A "Send me some info" response could be genuine interest or a way to get you off the phone. You at least need the prospect's permission to follow up on what you sent. Then FOLLOW UP.

6) Being prepared with a "ready to call" list. A good list will be a bunch of names and numbers of decision makers with a need for the product/service you are selling. It needs to be pretty big. You'll blow through 500 names in a week if you're doing 100 dials/day.

7) Good contact management software to keep track of who you called, follow up required, record of what you spoke about/sent them, when and where you're going to meet with them, keeping track of who you left messages for etc.

8) Scripting the call ahead of time. If ___ Then___ scenarios mapped out ahead of time so you know what you're going to say in a multitude of typical responses.

OK, that's just off the top of my head - I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff I'm missing. But those are pretty key points. I don't know about where you live, but we have "voice mail hell" up here. Talking to a real person is next to impossible. So there's probably some tricks for getting around that if need be. If your boss doesn't get you some training in this, you may want to read up on successful techniques. I'd probably start with the web or find a successful cold caller whose brain you can pick.

In my experience, if your boss really wants you to do something a particular way, you pretty much have to, unless you come up with an idea he thinks is better which you can keep trying, but in the meantime I think you may have to do what he says. Of course, if that seems to go totally against your job description from when you were first hired, I suppose you could start checking into legal action like "Does this constitute constructive dismissal?" Polishing up your resume and looking for another job is also something to consider.

I hope some of this helps.

[randomperson]

Thank you Athena those are great tips. I'm ok at it, years ago that was my main job, it is just difficult and has always made me feel unsecure as far as work security goes because sales vary every month... and I am decent not super great, just decent.

Today I happened on a list that was pretty decent and I was able to get some leads going for the first time, almost had a sale right off except there was a legit reason they did not through with it that I had no way of countering.

For years I worked on getting out of the cold call telemarketing box that I was put in from my last job, but he always reverts back to thinking of me like that. Most of my sales for the last 4 years have been store accounts and inbound. Being in sales was healthy for me forced me to get over rejection issues in general.. which I did have. At the same time it doesn't make it preffered work for me, but it is still a job. One that I still have for now. I'll give it my best shot and see what happens.

Still a chance the catalog will stick around as well, nothing is 100% yet.. still hoping for that.

[Athena]

Random, I don't know your work background so I'm sorry if that sounded condescending. Cold calling is something very few people are willing to do so I think employers jump all over it when they see somebody who is not only willing but has actually done it with some degree of success. It reminded me of an old lawyer joke:

"Did you hear they are hiring lawyers to do lab experiments now instead of rats?" The reason - 'There's some things a rat just won't do'."

Not that cold calling is unethical or immoral, it's just that - well, you know what it's like.

[randomperson]

Got a lot of work done today. Made some sales with the accounts I know.

[randomperson]

Next week is pretty big for me. My boss will decide if we will keep the catalog going another session and my mother will be going to the Dr.

[randomperson]

Read a good post about not over thinking which I do often.

Said that is what causes lot of anxiety and creates no win scenarios.

Specifically said not to do it in conversations. In the past I did that because I thought it helped me.. looking back I don't think it has. Good tip for me.

Had planned to look for a church to check out this Sunday but the week is too busy.

[randomperson]

Athena just got through checking out all the links you sent.

Great articles gets you to thinking. One part I found the most relevant was this:

A client suffering in an abusive relationship will often look up through streaming tears after describing the abuser’s behavior and say to the psychologist,

“But I love him.”Fair enough, you might think. Offer love in spite of the abuse. After all, aren’t we told since childhood to “Do to others as you would have them do to you”? Isn’t that what love is?

Well, it is true that many saintly individuals have patiently suffered through difficult marriages. But saintly individuals do not need psychologists. If the abuse gets violent, police protection may be needed, but no one who understands true love will ever have to sit in front of a psychologist offering excuses.

Excuses serve to justify repeated behavior. And, as Freud discovered, repitition is the return of the repressed. What, then, is this repressedwhich keeps getting repeated?

It can’t be love because true love can never be repressed.

The repressed is desire, and in abusive relationships it is a desire often hidden in plain sight. It’s the desire to receive what you are futilely trying to give away.

It’s the desire to be wanted. And it’s such a desperate desire that you will suffer almost anything—from one failed “lover” to another—to maintain the illusion that someone wants you.

[randomperson]

The biggest thing I picked up from all that I just read in order to find peace in my life and stop back sliding I need to come to peace with all sides of who I am. Which to date I have repressed some parts that I chose to ignore.

It might explain some of my actions. Why rejection and abuse triggers me so easy. It is the desire to be wanted.

At least now I have things I can do to try to get better. Try to better understand myself and accept the parts of me that I walled off. Before I did not really know what to focus on.

I can tell this will take time.

To know that my last relationship was not true love is exciting

Dividing Romance, love, and being intimate into 3 totally unique and different categories is new to me.

It will take a bit to process but I think this will be very useful in the end.

So the big question what does this mean. I have the desire to be wanted.

So what do I do with this knowledge to help me?