I am so excited!
I know the answer to my relationship dilemma from three posts ago!
I am damaged and strange and thus I attract others who are damaged and strange!

Damaged, strange people behave in bizarre ways that cannot always be predicted, therefore you cannot expect them to always play nice. It's a little like opening a dog park just for rescues....the fear-aggression, pissing on one other, and confusion about just where they fit into the pack would be rampant. This is the situation of my life and my friends. We are not your typical nice, normal people (though we are certainly are nice) who play by the rules like good sheep.

The fact that I very rarely find myself embroiled in altercations with others stems directly from my crushingly sensitive sense of empathy. The mere thought of hurting someone horrifies me, therefore any pain I cause others is completely accidental (with the exception of my husband, who seems to be my go-to-guy when I get in a shitty mood....thanks, honey.) I am very good to my friends. I love people - in spite of most of their flaws - with great devotion and deep investment.

That said, I am stubborn beyond reason and have no capacity to tolerate being treated disrespectfully. My empathy ends abruptly the second I feel mistreated. My thorniest side is my ability to kick to the curb, too quickly, those who do not treat me well (regardless of how much I love them.) It's the self-preservation instinct gone terribly awry. I am indeed one of the rescues in my imaginary dog park. I have great integrity and can be counted on to be kind, honest, generous, and a whole lot more happy horseshit. Just don't make the error of being ugly to me. I am neither tooting my own horn nor denigrating myself....this character assessment is fact and nothing more.

The definition of "good" is a slippery slope.
Maybe the slipperiest slope of all.
I'm both a good (and awful) person. It is in my nature to be unforgiving. I grit my teeth and try to force forgiveness sometimes, but the end result is rarely good. I simply have no capacity to let injustice against me go. And personally, I think my friends who scrap like crazy, act like morons sometimes, but then forgive in an instant have a true advantage over me in the "good person" department.

I just happen to never growl or bite first.