High-Maintenance People

[BadBeast]

Those people are only like that because they've generally had some poor sap running around after them all their lives, pandering to their mopey moods, temper tantrums, their hand wringing anxiety ramps, and their passive aggressive use of emotionally charged expectations. The silent, withering look of disappointment when the impossibly high bar once again proves too high. Those people need to learn some fucking social skills that they didn't learn from their doting, hopelessly servile Mothers. The way they carry themselves, as if bravely bearing their whole live's worth of utter disappointment in anyone who tries to meet them on their own terms. Fuck that noise. Send them back to their parents for re-training. Spend too long around these people, and your brain gets full of fuck, really quickly.
Make any kind of emotional investment in them is like trying to feed a coke habit. Even when they've got all of it, it's still never enough. The languid apathy when nobody is attending to them, as they lurch from one ridiculously dramatic "crisis" to the next.
From the outside their lives seem so much more interesting than they actually are. Egocentric as a gyroscope, they are woefully oblivious to the needs of others, until their own are met. And, of course, their needs are  impossible to meet, so it's like one endless one way street that goes nowhere.
I can't be doing with them at all if I can help it.

[Succulent Plant]

Those people are only like that because they've generally had some poor sap running around after them all their lives, pandering to their mopey moods, temper tantrums, their hand wringing anxiety ramps, and their passive aggressive use of emotionally charged expectations. The silent, withering look of disappointment when the impossibly high bar once again proves too high. Those people need to learn some fucking social skills that they didn't learn from their doting, hopelessly servile Mothers. The way they carry themselves, as if bravely bearing their whole live's worth of utter disappointment in anyone who tries to meet them on their own terms. Fuck that noise. Send them back to their parents for re-training. Spend too long around these people, and your brain gets full of fuck, really quickly.
Make any kind of emotional investment in them is like trying to feed a coke habit. Even when they've got all of it, it's still never enough. The languid apathy when nobody is attending to them, as they lurch from one ridiculously dramatic "crisis" to the next.
From the outside their lives seem so much more interesting than they actually are. Egocentric as a gyroscope, they are woefully oblivious to the needs of others, until their own are met. And, of course, their needs are  impossible to meet, so it's like one endless one way street that goes nowhere.
I can't be doing with them at all if I can help it.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Going back to what Roger was saying, yes, you can have high maintenance (HM) people in your life, I personally have found that they are best in small doses.  They aren't the ones you want to spend time with on a daily basis.

I think all of us require maintenance of some sort or another.  It depends on your relationship with them.  I have friends who seem completely normal and fully functioning when they are doing it on their own, but the minute they get into a relationship they turn into a complete stranger.  Needy and clingy and UGH.  You look at them and you have to ask "Where the fuck did this person come from?"

Then you have those who are the complete opposite.  When they are single they need constant reassurance that they are still fun and nice looking and all that, but the minute they get into a relationship they go all hard ass and controlling.

Then there are those of us who are always perceived as HM because of who we are or where we live or how many kids we have.  Guys don't date 43 years old women with 3 kids.  They automatically presume we are HM. 

I've found that a lot of people I think will be HM on meeting them turn out to be completely self sufficient and then people who I think have it all together and their lives are damn near perfect need a nanny just for their emotional support to get thru a day.

It's sad, but you never really know how a person is until you get to know them and a lot of the time, by the time you realize just how high maintenance thay are, you're already friends/lovers/room mates etc with them so you're stuck.  A lot of HM people know this fact about themselves and they hide it well until you're fully entangled in their web of craziness.

I guess, as the alternative is becoming an emotional hermit, you just have to learn to deal with these people the best you can without making yourself crazy.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Those people are only like that because they've generally had some poor sap running around after them all their lives, pandering to their mopey moods, temper tantrums, their hand wringing anxiety ramps, and their passive aggressive use of emotionally charged expectations. The silent, withering look of disappointment when the impossibly high bar once again proves too high. Those people need to learn some fucking social skills that they didn't learn from their doting, hopelessly servile Mothers. The way they carry themselves, as if bravely bearing their whole live's worth of utter disappointment in anyone who tries to meet them on their own terms. Fuck that noise. Send them back to their parents for re-training. Spend too long around these people, and your brain gets full of fuck, really quickly.
Make any kind of emotional investment in them is like trying to feed a coke habit. Even when they've got all of it, it's still never enough. The languid apathy when nobody is attending to them, as they lurch from one ridiculously dramatic "crisis" to the next.
From the outside their lives seem so much more interesting than they actually are. Egocentric as a gyroscope, they are woefully oblivious to the needs of others, until their own are met. And, of course, their needs are  impossible to meet, so it's like one endless one way street that goes nowhere.
I can't be doing with them at all if I can help it.

Yup, fuck 'em! They are almost invariably whiny people. I can't stand whiny people. Kill them and eat the fuckers.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oftentimes they're chipper fake-nice bitches who hate to bother you but think so highly of you and just have one little question... oh and while you're at it would you mind doing this? You are such a doll! That turned out so well, can you do it again, with a flourish? Oh, and how about a bow? Aren't you just the sweetest! Would you mind terribly, but maybe upside-down this time with extra arms? Not QUITE like that, I was envisioning it more pink... Oh I HATE to be a bother, but would you again?

and so on until you realize that they will NEVER be satisfied, and the minute you fail to perform to their satisfaction they turn mean.

[LMNO]

The worst, the single worst aspect is the turn-on-a-dime attitude.  I don't mind a bitchy queen, so long as they're always on; you know what you're getting.  No, the ones that bug me are the sweet as sunshine, everything is good, you're-such-a-good-friend, WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY CAR KEYS, OHMYGOD MY LIFE SUCKS, DON'T TALK TO ME RIGHT NOW THE ENTIRE DAY IS RUINED I SAID DON'T FUCKING TALK TO ME!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The worst, the single worst aspect is the turn-on-a-dime attitude.  I don't mind a bitchy queen, so long as they're always on; you know what you're getting.  No, the ones that bug me are the sweet as sunshine, everything is good, you're-such-a-good-friend, WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY CAR KEYS, OHMYGOD MY LIFE SUCKS, DON'T TALK TO ME RIGHT NOW THE ENTIRE DAY IS RUINED I SAID DON'T FUCKING TALK TO ME!

Those are the people I ditch.

[Doktor Howl]

Does it count if I'm yelling at industrial equipment, my cell phone, or stupid people?   

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Does it count if I'm yelling at industrial equipment, my cell phone, or stupid people?   

It doesn't count if you haven't been gradually escalating your demands to the point of the ridiculous and unattainable, and then making your disappointment someone else's fault.

[Doktor Howl]

Does it count if I'm yelling at industrial equipment, my cell phone, or stupid people?   

It doesn't count if you haven't been gradually escalating your demands to the point of the ridiculous and unattainable, and then making your disappointment someone else's fault.

Oh, good.  Because I'm all about flying off the handle at work.   

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I think I may be high maintenance. Didn't think I was, but I'm noticing a pattern in my relationships and/or interactions.

I did not think I was because so much of the time I just want to be left the fuck alone. You do your thing, I'll do my thing. Every thing will be aces. So that, naturally, meant that there was only a small portion of time where I had needs that required others to meet. But I don't think that's actually the way HM/LM works.

My problem is that I need things spelled out for me in very short sentences with small words, as it pertains to what people expect from me. I do not assume that since you're working 8 am, I need to be up at 7 am making your lazy ass breakfast. I do not assume that since your mother is coming to visit, I need to clean the house, get a shower, and gussy up.

This leads into the area where I don't make a connection between someone having to work early tomorrow and their want to go to bed early tonight. I don't make the connection between someone wanting to show me off to their parents and me needing to put some sort of effort into that to make them happy.

Not sure if that makes sense. It isn't so much that I'm caught up in my needs, I don't really have that many, it's just I don't pay attention worth a good god damn because I'm always thinking about quantum physics or trying to figure out what that weird roadkill thing was on the way home . . . and other people's expectation don't make any sense to me because they are so different than my own.

Anyway, my boyfriend is starting to think I'm high maintenance. And the girlfriend is kinda confused. So that's THAT ramble.

I was up front when I said I have communication problems and things need spelled out in small words before I ever even considered a relationship . . . and they both said they were cool with that. I even provided examples. :P But I dunno.

Crazy cat lady up in the mountains, talking to herself, rocking on the porch with a shot gun and some crochet. That'll be me.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I think I may be high maintenance. Didn't think I was, but I'm noticing a pattern in my relationships and/or interactions.

I did not think I was because so much of the time I just want to be left the fuck alone. You do your thing, I'll do my thing. Every thing will be aces. So that, naturally, meant that there was only a small portion of time where I had needs that required others to meet. But I don't think that's actually the way HM/LM works.

My problem is that I need things spelled out for me in very short sentences with small words, as it pertains to what people expect from me. I do not assume that since you're working 8 am, I need to be up at 7 am making your lazy ass breakfast. I do not assume that since your mother is coming to visit, I need to clean the house, get a shower, and gussy up.

This leads into the area where I don't make a connection between someone having to work early tomorrow and their want to go to bed early tonight. I don't make the connection between someone wanting to show me off to their parents and me needing to put some sort of effort into that to make them happy.

Not sure if that makes sense. It isn't so much that I'm caught up in my needs, I don't really have that many, it's just I don't pay attention worth a good god damn because I'm always thinking about quantum physics or trying to figure out what that weird roadkill thing was on the way home . . . and other people's expectation don't make any sense to me because they are so different than my own.

Anyway, my boyfriend is starting to think I'm high maintenance. And the girlfriend is kinda confused. So that's THAT ramble.

I was up front when I said I have communication problems and things need spelled out in small words before I ever even considered a relationship . . . and they both said they were cool with that. I even provided examples. :P But I dunno.

Crazy cat lady up in the mountains, talking to herself, rocking on the porch with a shot gun and some crochet. That'll be me.

No worries babe, I'll be your neighbor. 

I'm a lot like you. I tell people every fucking day, "I am not psychic, you have to tell me what you want, I don't guess well and since I really don't give a flying fuck, I am not going to play this game."

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I think I may be high maintenance. Didn't think I was, but I'm noticing a pattern in my relationships and/or interactions.

I did not think I was because so much of the time I just want to be left the fuck alone. You do your thing, I'll do my thing. Every thing will be aces. So that, naturally, meant that there was only a small portion of time where I had needs that required others to meet. But I don't think that's actually the way HM/LM works.

My problem is that I need things spelled out for me in very short sentences with small words, as it pertains to what people expect from me. I do not assume that since you're working 8 am, I need to be up at 7 am making your lazy ass breakfast. I do not assume that since your mother is coming to visit, I need to clean the house, get a shower, and gussy up.

This leads into the area where I don't make a connection between someone having to work early tomorrow and their want to go to bed early tonight. I don't make the connection between someone wanting to show me off to their parents and me needing to put some sort of effort into that to make them happy.

Not sure if that makes sense. It isn't so much that I'm caught up in my needs, I don't really have that many, it's just I don't pay attention worth a good god damn because I'm always thinking about quantum physics or trying to figure out what that weird roadkill thing was on the way home . . . and other people's expectation don't make any sense to me because they are so different than my own.

Anyway, my boyfriend is starting to think I'm high maintenance. And the girlfriend is kinda confused. So that's THAT ramble.

I was up front when I said I have communication problems and things need spelled out in small words before I ever even considered a relationship . . . and they both said they were cool with that. I even provided examples. :P But I dunno.

Crazy cat lady up in the mountains, talking to herself, rocking on the porch with a shot gun and some crochet. That'll be me.

No worries babe, I'll be your neighbor. 

I'm a lot like you. I tell people every fucking day, "I am not psychic, you have to tell me what you want, I don't guess well and since I really don't give a flying fuck, I am not going to play this game."

Yay!

Yeah . . . sometimes I can read people brilliantly and figure out what they need, in a general sense, but as soon as it comes in relation to me it's like a wall goes up and I am absolutely clueless. In the past, people have delighted in making me feel like a god damn moron and playing the emotional blackmail or guilt trip game. I try to limit the crazy and drama in my life now, and that has helped. But good god damn if I can't fuck up a relationship twelve ways to Sunday just asking questions.

[BabylonHoruv]

Going back to what Roger was saying, yes, you can have high maintenance (HM) people in your life, I personally have found that they are best in small doses.  They aren't the ones you want to spend time with on a daily basis.

I think all of us require maintenance of some sort or another.  It depends on your relationship with them.  I have friends who seem completely normal and fully functioning when they are doing it on their own, but the minute they get into a relationship they turn into a complete stranger.  Needy and clingy and UGH.  You look at them and you have to ask "Where the fuck did this person come from?"

Then you have those who are the complete opposite.  When they are single they need constant reassurance that they are still fun and nice looking and all that, but the minute they get into a relationship they go all hard ass and controlling.

Then there are those of us who are always perceived as HM because of who we are or where we live or how many kids we have.  Guys don't date 43 years old women with 3 kids.  They automatically presume we are HM. 

I've found that a lot of people I think will be HM on meeting them turn out to be completely self sufficient and then people who I think have it all together and their lives are damn near perfect need a nanny just for their emotional support to get thru a day.

It's sad, but you never really know how a person is until you get to know them and a lot of the time, by the time you realize just how high maintenance thay are, you're already friends/lovers/room mates etc with them so you're stuck.  A lot of HM people know this fact about themselves and they hide it well until you're fully entangled in their web of craziness.

I guess, as the alternative is becoming an emotional hermit, you just have to learn to deal with these people the best you can without making yourself crazy.

Women with 3 kids, irregardless of age, require certain changes in lifestyle to be involved with in any meaningful way.  That's not the same as being high maintenance though, at least not in my opinion.  It's more a matter of style.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sounds like you two are not high-maintenance at all, as much as not easily able to pick up on other people's expectations. And that's different.