Over on Baggage Reclaim, a reader, Kim2, posted this comment:

Why do we waste time with men like this?…I believe it is low self-esteem and low expectations but I don’t know how to correct that. How to get so proud of yourself and respect yourself enough to not waste time on jerks.

Here’s my answer, and it’s surprisingly simple:

You just make the decision not to waste time on jerks, and act on that decision when you are faced with one!

When you waste time on a jerk, do you feel proud of yourself?

When you waste time on a jerk, do you respect yourself?

Of course you don’t! It’s a vicious loop and the way you escape it is to break your participation in the perpetuation of the loop. You develop high self-esteem and high expectations by acting like a woman who has these things already – and a woman who has these things already would not waste time on jerks!

A woman who has high self-esteem would laugh in the face of a man who treated her poorly. So laugh in his face.

A woman who has high expectations would walk away from a man who treated her poorly. So walk away.

Would a woman with high self-esteem call up a man who left her, crying and begging for him to return? No, she would not…so hang up the damn phone!!

Would a woman with high expectations keep seeing a man who is seeing another woman? No, she would not…so tell him “You can’t have us both, I’m outta here.” and then get the hell outta there!

The foundations of self-esteem and self-love, and the forming of high expectations, are all based, in whole or in part, on what behavior you will tolerate, whether from yourself or others. If you are willing to tolerate poor treatment from others, then that sends a powerful message to your own psyche about your self-worth.

Furthermore, you are not only being treated badly by them, but by putting up with it, you are guilty of self-abuse. You become a willing participant in your own mistreatment!!

Fortunately, the opposite effect is also true: if you refuse to put up with nonsense, you are sending your psyche a message that you love yourself too much to put up with it. And the less you put up with it, the more you will come to feel love for yourself, and the less you’ll put up with it! You’ve just broken the old cycle and created a new one!

So, stop worrying about his behavior so damned much, and focus on your own. Stop asking yourself “Why do I put up with jerks?” and simply stop putting up with them.

Vow today that you will start acting like a woman with high self-esteem would act. If you start to act as if you already have confidence, self-esteem, and self-love, pretty soon, you’ll find that you do have all of these things for real.

I focus on myself, my life, my work, my hobbies.

I want someone to share my life with, but I’m not consumed by their absence from it.

Life is good, though perhaps not great. I am happy. I love myself.

Then you come along.

Suddenly, all I can think about is you. Happy, lucky, optimistic thoughts about what we might become together.

My focus shifts to you. What can I do to give you what you want and need to be happy (with me)?

I stop loving me, and start loving you.

I stop relying on myself for contentment and happiness, and start relying on you for these things.

I abandon myself, and I want you to abandon yourself (to attend to me)!

My focus turns to what I think I should be getting from you, and how unhappy I am that I’m not getting what I need (anymore).

Your focus is on you, your life, your work, your hobbies.

And I find myself waiting, waiting, waiting for you to give your focus (and love) to me.

I become increasingly frustrated, obsessed with getting what I need (from you). I start to shut down, become angry and resentful.

Because I am no longer the happy, independent woman who attracted you initially, you start to withdraw.

Because I can (by now) recognize the signs of a man’s impending departure, I withdraw as well.

Either you leave, or I leave, or we both leave; and our relationship is no more.

I feel abandoned and unloved.

Healing takes time, but eventually, I remember who I was before you came along.

I focus on myself, my life, my work, my hobbies.

I want someone to share my life with, but I’m not consumed by their absence from it.

Life is good, though perhaps not great. I am happy. I love myself.

I had love and happiness when we started; I have them back again now that we are through.

So, where did they go during our time together?

The light bulb turns on.

My fear of abandonment has nothing to do with you, or the man before you, or the one before him, or the one before the one before him.

It has everything to do with where I look for what I need and want, for what will make me feel loved, for what will make me happy.

When I am not in a relationship, I look inside myself for these things.

When I am in a relationship, I look outside myself for these things.

You didn’t take these things from me; I gave them up, expecting you to take over my job.

You didn’t abandon me; I abandoned myself, long before you were out of the picture.

No matter what we included in the analyses, the answer was always the same – there were no consistent differences in how a person was judged depending on whether that person was dining solo vs. with one or more other people. (Bella DePaulo, Psychology Today)

I’m an old pro at dining by myself, mainly because I tend to be a defiant sort of single woman. If I want a good meal, why on earth should I let my lack of a dinner companion stop me from having one? And if someone wants to stare and make a judgment about what must be ‘wrong’ with me that I’m sitting there alone – well who the fuck are they that I should worry over their opinion?

Of course, as I’ve gotten older and more mellow (ha! ha!), it’s less about defiance than it is about where I am in my introvert/extrovert cycle¹. When I worked in an office, I would go out to lunch or dinner quite often, because I needed that solitude after being in an office full of people all day². Now that I work from home and am alone almost all the time, when I go out for a meal, I tend to look for someone to accompany me.

Ultimately, though, regardless of what DePaulo’s study reveals, we would all do better to realize that our anxiety isn’t really caused by what strangers might think about us in situations like this; but rather, it’s a direct result of the thoughts and judgments we ourselves hold about our single state. If we’re not comfortable with that situation, we project those feelings outward, and onto others.

¹ I can go happily through long periods alone; and then talk your ear off for five hours when we hang out.
² In all fairness, it didn’t hurt that my favorite spot was an Italian restaurant with a primarily male waitstaff who fawned all over me.

I’ve been thinking it for a while now, but tonight I finally decided to see if Google confirmed my theory about what’s behind my despondent mood on many Sundays. Bingo:

After a big night of drinking – not necessarily a major binge, but say 4 drinks or more – I’ve definitely noticed that my general mood is a bit depressed for the next couple of days. There’s a general feeling of being a bit ‘down’ and even a bit uneasy, edgy, anxious and not as relaxed or happy as usual. (The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs)

I haven’t figured out yet whether I simply need to be more restrictive about my drinking, or whether I should just give it up entirely except for perhaps the occasional special celebration. But I also have a bad habit of forgetting that I’ll completely regret this tomorrow! until it’s tomorrow already and too late to do anything about it. Sigh.

I wonder if it would work to set a time every day to remove a beer from the fridge, set it on the counter, and take a good long look at it while listing out loud all the bad results it inevitably brings me: dehydration, headache, nausea, exhaustion, depression, crying, bags under my eyes, swollen ankles and legs, etc.

Basically, I would be training my brain to associate a bottle of Michelob Ultra with so much negativity that I’d not want one in my hand. Hmmmm.