Leeches: Recognition and Avoidance

Crazies represent two extremes in behavior; one wants pity, the other craves attention. Note that while I use girls as the crazies in these examples, crazy boys exhibit the EXACT SAME type of behavior.

Let’s talk about attention-crazy girl. We’ll call her Amanda. Amanda is pretty. Amanda is friends with everyone, but hides herself. When she talks, it’s about movies, sports, pop culture, and Twilight. Amanda manages to keep everything about herself hidden. Amanda suppresses all of her emotions by being really bubbly and always having something to do.

Alex notices how happy Amanda is and starts to think that she has a perfect life. He starts to wish that he was part of that life, so he starts talking to Amanda. At first Amanda keeps herself closed off, but since Alex’s active listening skills are irritatingly rare, Amanda opens up to him.

Amanda starts talking about how she feels fake because she pretends to be happy all day, and how there’s a loser boy who stares at her and makes her feel creeped out. Amanda talks about how there’s this one boy she likes named Aidan. She says Aidan is ‘not like the others’. What Alex soon realizes is that the reason he’s not like the others is because he doesn’t give her attention just because she’s pretty. Aidan makes her earn his attention.

Amanda has a problem though: her friends don’t like Aidan, they like the creepy guy. Unfortunately, Amanda is mean to the so-called ‘creepy’ guy. Amanda asks him to do favors for her, because she needs to feel the validation that she’s pretty and that she has control over someone. When the creepy guy does her favors, she says, “Oh, I didn’t really want that… I was joking.”

When the creepy guy tries to talk to her, she doesn’t talk back. She politely pays attention, and replies to questions with “OK,” and “I dunno.” The creepy guy feels a strong attraction to her, but Amanda doesn’t want to give him a chance. She doesn’t want to get to know him because he’s not as smart as a programmer, he doesn’t look like a football player, and he doesn’t talk with the confidence of a politician. In fact, Amanda is sure that he’s a perfectly nice guy, she just isn’t willing to give him the chance to prove it.

Karma has an odd way of catching up to people. Amanda’s friends call her a slut whenever she talks to Aidan. Eventually, Amanda hooks up with Aidan. Aidan runs around the entire school telling them he hooked up with Amanda. The next day, as she walks down the hallway, Amanda hears girls whispering the word ’slut’ over and over. Amanda feels slutty. Amanda feels used. She feels embarrassed. All her friends can talk about is how she will hook up with an asshole, but not give a smidgen of attention to the creepy guy (who isn’t really all that creepy).

Amanda’s group of friends greets her by saying, “Hey slut.” She hangs out with them a little bit, fighting back tears, feeling like an outsider. She starts to get a pit in her stomach. Finally, she runs off to the bathroom covering her face so no one will see her crying.

(Dear reader, people who you THINK are popular are actually the loneliest people at school.)

Alex comes in to calm her down. Amanda reacts positively to Alex. She walks out, much calmer, and he walks out, irritated that he had to take the time to calm her down. Alex decides to avoid Amanda, because she’s a drama queen and a pain in the ass.

After a while, Amanda senses this, and uses her normal tricks to get Alex’s attention. But Alex is armed with the knowledge that Amanda needs constant attention. When Amanda comes up to him and says, “Wow, that’s an ugly shirt.” he replies with, “OK.” and looks away. This drives Amanda insane and causes her to come near him more frequently. Alex suffers with Amanda until he graduates and goes to college.

Next, let’s talk about pity-crazy girl. Let’s call her Alison. Alison, a quirky-but-adorable loner hangs out in corners. She’s the type that looks up every time someone passes by, hoping that they’re coming to talk to her. A boy named Alex notices her. He feels a mix of pity and interest for Alison.

As Alex approaches Alison ignores him, but he can tell by her body language that she wants someone to come over and make her feel less lonely. Alex walks over and starts talking about the weather. Eventually Alex gets sucked into a real conversation.

Alison and Alex trade phone numbers. That evening Alison starts sharing her most intimate feelings with Alex. She starts telling Alex about how badly she wants people to like her, how her parents make her feel like a loser, and how she feels fat and ugly all the time.

Since Alex is a good person, he does active listening and starts to make Alison feel good about herself. For Alison, this is the first time anyone has shown an interest in her life. She starts to talk about how she feels nervous around guys, and how she’s afraid that they’ll notice the bald spot on top of her head and stop liking her.

After about fifteen minutes of Alison spilling her soul out, Alex starts to feel uncomfortable but he likes having someone that trusts him. He feels like a father figure, like he has someone to protect. Alison senses his protectiveness and develops a strong mental attachment to Alex’s protectiveness. She thinks, “My daddy is a prick, so I’ll project all my daddy issues onto this 17 year old boy who will NEVER break my heart!”

Idiot. After a while, Alex starts to get tired of hearing about how Alison feels fat and ugly, and he distances himself from her. Alison doesn’t like this. She starts to feel abandoned. She starts to feel like she can’t get close to anyone because she just can’t trust them not to abandon her.

Alison starts showing up unexpectedly in places. She changes the way she walks from class-to-class so she can catch a short glimpse of Alex. Alex starts avoiding Alison. Alison keeps watching him from a distance, because now she’s obsessed with him.

That’s just goddamn creepy.

That’s about it for me. Here’s the Sparknotes for this note:

– Avoid crazy people
– You can recognize crazy people BEFORE they go crazy on you by recognizing insecurity.
– Also by looking at their actions with other people. (favors, friends, etc)
– Last but not least, don’t make the mistake of avoiding someone just because they ‘play the game’. Make sure they’re actually crazy first (look for insecurities/compensation)
– Give a girl you normally wouldn’t even look at a chance. Take a risk. You don’t lose anything, and they get to be happy for a little while.
– Give a guy you normally wouldn’t even look at a chance. Take a risk. You don’t lose anything, and they get to be happy for a little while.