One of the things that sucks about being a particularly empathetic person, which it sounds like you are, is that you feel like if you like and are nice to someone, they will like and be nice to you back, because you overestimate other people’s capacity for empathy. And then when the other person does horrible, assbaggy shit [...] you project all kinds of REASONS AND RATIONALIZATIONS for why they’re being mean, because you’re continuing to assume that somewhere in there, they’re as nice and kind as you are and they like, accidentally flew into a mean cloud on their way to the Isle Of Not Being A Shithead. [...] When people do and say mean and hurtful things without apologizing and amending later behavior, they are not secret nice people with unfortunate or accidental mean exteriors. They are assholes who use a veneer of niceness to groom and manipulate other people into giving them what they want. You never need worry about letting people like this down.
the Bad Advisor, with some words of wisdom I really could've used earlier this summer
