Inadequacy

[El Héroe Oscuro]

Has anyone ever had that feeling where you feel like you aren't good enough for someone? Like you feel that the person you're associating yourself with is just so much better than you in so many ways that you find yourself questioning yourself a lot? How do you deal with this issue?

I guess this is more of a self-esteem issue than anything. The context of this is I sometime's question why my girlfriend is with me because I've always considered her the "popular" kid and me the "nerd." Call it dumb but meh, it troubles me at times to the point of depressive states.

 

[Sirfetch’d]

I feel ya. I can't count how many friends I have felt bad when hanging around them because I feel like I don't fit in because I'm not as good as they are. I've even said it to them and they reassure me I am, but shaking those thoughts can be tough :[

 

[Alfieri]

The whole "league" thing is a joke. We're all humans. You can probably think of the most incredible and popular person that you consider is out of your league, but just keep in mind that they wake up looking like a mess the same way that we all do. They poop and eat junk food just like we all do. We have the same biology. So people should do their best to lighten up their spirits and just go after your goals and go after the person you like, even if you think they're too good for you, they're not.

 

[Bellsprout]

I've felt that before, but I don't feel it anymore. I don't think I'm mind blowing amazing in anyway, but I know I'm good person and I'm good to those around me. To think that your friends or the person you're dating is too good for you is such a sad thing to think. And I don't mean that in a mean way. These people have you in their life because you are good enough for them they enjoy you and to think they're all tolerating you for some mysterious reason is so far off.

At the end of the day you're the one that goes to bed with yourself. Unless you are an absolute piece of **** which I'm sure you would know for sure by now you deserve good people in your life and they deserve you back. I see this kind of attitude in some people I know sometimes and it hurts me because I see them tolerate things from other people they shouldn't because they feel as though they're underneath them. No one is above you unless you place them above you.

 

[Sonata]

I pretty much feel this way around every girl I hang out with because like, I don't know. There's all these people that talk to them every day and they hang out with all these muscly skinny dudes and then there's me and I just. A lot of times when this happens and I start really thinking about it I over think it and just stop hanging out and talking to them altogether. I don't know what else to do, but when I'm around girls really is the only time I really feel this way.

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

So when these thoughts do pass through your head, what do you do if anything? I hate thinking like this more than anything.

My girlfriend, who is drop dead gorgeous, goes to a college a few states away from me so were working on a long distance relationship. She goes to a lot of frat parties a lot and while she reassures me that she'll stay faithful, I constantly worry about something happening because I already know that guys have been hitting on her -she's told me - so I don't know if things are actually going on or not. I'm doing my best not to be the "overly attached boyfriend" but at the same time my trust issues are constantly causing me to go into these depressive states that I just want to beat.

 

[Sonata]

For me it's almost natural because it happens all the time, and it's almost like a warning to myself from myself because I know if I keep staying around them then I'll start to really fall for them and then as always it'll end badly for me. I heed my warnings and just walk away from it all and then wait a couple of months for my head to cool and see if I was right and if I was then I saved myself some trouble and if I wasn't then I go back at it again. It's a vicious cycle. I think the best thing to really do though is just not worry about it. If you're always worried whether something's going to happen or not then first you'll make yourself all down and depressed and then if it does happen then it'll be a lot worse, and if it doesn't happen then you'll keep expecting it whereas if you just don't worry about it then it's nbd.

 

[Radioactive]

Not for a long time have I felt this – years at least, and even then I question whether I was delusional. It was a crush of mine, as you'd expect - when I talk to her we're both just stunning together in conversation, and she's really nice and all to me and I to her… I still don't know.

After that I've just taken to the belief that I'm not human. No, not that. I'm not some otherkin, I don't have a spirit animal, and I don't have headmates. I think that I and many others are the next evolutionary link in humans and it's beginning to be realized. We're taking an incognito and systematic approach to dismantle you people's genes – expect us to only **** within ourselves and have lots of kids. I'm going for at least 4 if not more than 10, since I am convinced this oddity of ours is hereditary.

 

[CelticsPhan]

This is some deep shower-thought type stuff that hits me now and then. For example, I'm in mostly Honors and AP classes, home to your usual crowd of brainiacs that work two jobs play three sports have girlfriend and letters from the best colleges you can think of. I do well, but there's always those kids that are in front of me, no matter how well I do.

I promise I'm not bragging when I say this stuff because it's not just the classroom I feel this way. I absolutely love sports but I've never made any of the teams I try out for. The closest I can get with this interest is watching and posting my reactions to the many games I watch.

And then I think of the professional sports players I watch. They were born knowing their one true ability in life and get paid in the millions for it. I realize that's not for me and pursue something else, and then remember that I'll have a decorated boss who has me at their disposal.

There's something in me which could be natural human psychology, but I want not to be well-rounded in a lot of things to just be the best at one thing and get rewarded for that. But what makes me think that being the best at something is worth my time?

Even take Pokemon as an example. I play Challenges and even speedrun now and then. I feel okay about that until I see players getting the world's fastest time for a game on Twitch. And then I feel sad for myself because I never had the privelage to get paid to sit and play Pokemon all day, or record five minute raps and get paid, or even watch sports games and write about them to get paid.

It's 11 PM here and I'm engaged in a deep session of self-thought. I have to be up in seven hours but oh well, back to my normie life. I'm not depressed, but I think things that bring me down.

 

[Oryx]

I have felt that way before, but I try now to take it as a learning opportunity. At work I'm surrounded by people that can easily breeze through a demo as if it's nothing after leading a teaching session on a programming language no one else knows, have their hands in everything that passes through our team, and can help anyone that asks for it in our department's chatroom. I stammer my way through demos and don't have enough experience or confidence to give people lessons, and the one time I tried to help in the chatroom I was wrong in a silly way (not to mention most of the questions are outside my skillset). Those people are objectively better than me, but they've also been around at work and just on the Earth for many more years - instead of feeling inadequate and losing what confidence I have I try to look at them as inspirations and aspire to integrate their good features into my skillset.

The one thing that does make me feel inadequate though is when a person my age spent their whole lives working on developing a skill, like playing an instrument or singing or drawing or a sport, and I'm also interested in the same thing. I know no matter what I do I'll never catch up to that person so I start to feel pretty discouraged. :( I have to actively turn my mind off of competition mode to handle it.

 

[Diggerez]

Well every human is just a work in progress that will never be finished. It's impossible to be good at everything and possess everything. There's always going to be something you can choose about somebody else that you want. It's just pure envy, and a lack of self confidence because you don't realise what you have yourself. Life is about feeling content with what you have and I think that's how happiness is achieved.

 

[Poki]

I'm far from that trivial ****. I threat people the same way they threat me, no matter their social status. **** that "o sry im outta ur league" ****.

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

I'm far from that trivial ****. I threat people the same way they threat me, no matter their social status. **** that "o sry im outta ur league" ****.

How do you keep that mentality though? I think a lot of people would love to feel like that, but because of interpersonal conflicts can't achieve that.

 

[Aizuke]

I felt that way once and yes it was self confidence to blame. But all in all, that insecurity was my own doubts and there was no reason for me to think such things. I try to surround myself with people I feel comfortable with, that there is no "challenge" with people that make me feel less "superior" or vise versa. And I can happily be me. People who want to be with you or around you, usually because they genuinely care for you and second guessing and doubts can lead to the downfall of a friendship or relationship.

If the people around you make you feel happy and confident, then you don't really need to doubt yourself. Don't better yourself for anyone either, don't try to change your whole image to suit another person and lose yourself in the process. The people worth keeping in your life are the ones who accept you for you.

 

[Vinny Vidi Vici]

As the old Groucho Marx quote goes: "I don't want to be apart of any club that accepts people like me as a member". I think everyone can relate to feelings of inadequacy as the only way to never fall short of a personal goals is to never make one at all. When it comes to things like 'social standing' or being in various leagues of looks, status, intellect, whatever, I think it's important to note that these things blatantly do exist, but getting bogged down in the quagmire of it all can be soul sapping. If you devote your entire life to climbing these various ladders, you might find your life is pretty empty once you finally get to that top wrung. Just accept that there are always going to be social barometers that people are judged on like looks or material wealth, but there are also other more intrinsic things like how you treat other people that people respond to as well. I don't personally believe in Karma in the sense that what goes around definitively will come around, but I think a philosophy of always having good intentions, no matter who you're dealing with is a pretty rewarding way of living life.

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

I felt that way once and yes it was self confidence to blame. But all in all, that insecurity was my own doubts and there was no reason for me to think such things. I try to surround myself with people I feel comfortable with, that there is no "challenge" with people that make me feel less "superior" or vise versa. And I can happily be me. People who want to be with you or around you, usually because they genuinely care for you and second guessing and doubts can lead to the downfall of a friendship or relationship.

If the people around you make you feel happy and confident, then you don't really need to doubt yourself. Don't better yourself for anyone either, don't try to change your whole image to suit another person and lose yourself in the process. The people worth keeping in your life are the ones who accept you for you.

What if that person that makes you happy to be with is six states away from you? Granted she'll be back in 3 months time, but still - it's troublesome to me.

 

[Aizuke]

What if that person that makes you happy to be with is six states away from you? Granted she'll be back in 3 months time, but still - it's troublesome to me.

I understand, I really do. I've been through this, and the distance wasn't even in same country. All your doubts and insecurites that you feel, don't let them get the best of you. Because they might just be your downfall in the end. Don't give her a reason to find someone else who you think may be better for her or better than you. She's with you now, and you're taken this journey together and distance builds a relationship stronger, if you have faith and trust in each other.

 

[Nah]

Oh sure, thoughts of inadequacy creep into my head fairly often.

And Matt....I agree with Aizuke. These fears you have about your girlfriend while she's away, if you allow them to build, will actually be what would drive her away from you. No girlfriend/boyfriend likes someone who is paranoid about their actions while they're not together.

And I don't remember how long you 2 have been together, but there's a reason why she's been with you as long as she has. She hasn't left you, and I think that means something. I'd like to think that she sees something in you that you might not, and that's why she's with you. Put a little trust in her, I'm sure she'd appreciate that.

Then again, I probably shouldn't be giving out relationship advice, seeing as how I've never been in one myself.

 

[Oryx]

Oh sure, thoughts of inadequacy creep into my head fairly often.

And Matt....I agree with Aizuke. These fears you have about your girlfriend while she's away, if you allow them to build, will actually be what would drive her away from you. No girlfriend/boyfriend likes someone who is paranoid about their actions while they're not together.

And I don't remember how long you 2 have been together, but there's a reason why she's been with you as long as she has. She hasn't left you, and I think that means something. I'd like to think that she sees something in you that you might not, and that's why she's with you. Put a little trust in her, I'm sure she'd appreciate that.

Then again, I probably shouldn't be giving out relationship advice, seeing as how I've never been in one myself.

I think you're right though, from the perspective of someone who's been on the receiving end of that jealousy before in a relationship. Despite being told "it's not about not trusting you, it's about feeling inadequate", it still feels like mistrust - like he thought so little of me that he didn't even trust me to be faithful to our relationship or that I was telling the truth when I told him that I love him.

I'm not really sure how my boyfriend learned to somewhat get over it - he still has issues with it but it's much better now. I told him it was a dealbreaker, because a guy that can't handle me hanging out with other guys because he can't trust that I'll be faithful is not someone I want to be with. I don't want to feel crappy whenever I have fun without him because I know he's home freaking out over whether or not I'll meet a guy and break up with him. I think for a while we had some rules that I followed, like hanging out with guys in groups, but it's really unfair to put those kinds of restrictions on a new college student that's trying to find a friend group imo.

 

[Poki]

How do you keep that mentality though? I think a lot of people would love to feel like that, but because of interpersonal conflicts can't achieve that.

It's all thanks to the bad friendships I had throughout the years. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have started thinking like that.