Do you attract controlling people?

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It seems like controlling people gravitate towards me. Or acting weird causes perfectly normal people to act controlling. I don’t know exactly what it is. As a kid I could never have fun with my friends. All they ever did was try to control me. Pretty much no fun. I constantly felt like nothing I did was right. I still feel the same way. Now I don’t have any friends because I worry about people being controlling because of them seeing me as weird.

I think, generally speaking, alot of us DO attract controlling people (myself, included). I'm thinking it might be because alot of us go out of our way to be nice, to get people to like us (I like being nice to people because I know how sucky life can be), and other people think that's a sign of weakness, I think----either that being nice is a sign of weakness, so that means we're pushovers; and/or, we display insecurity by wanting people to like us, so that also makes us pushovers, in their minds.

I think most of us are total magnets to narcissists----at least, until we learn the "color" of narcissism (it's been a special interest of mine for a couple of years, now, and I practically pray everyday that I've learned how to detect it).

Last edited by Campin_Cat on 08 Apr 2018, 7:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Are you kidding?
I seem to have a flashing neon sign on my forehead to draw them in.
But I'm very passive so I probably need someone to tell me how to live every aspect of my life.

Yes. Agreed with Raleigh that I need it. But often they are malevolent in intent. Eg sociopathic, cruel and extreme lying types

I wasn’t like that as a kid at all. I was obnoxious and not the nicest. Still attracted controlling and patronizing people. Could it be because they think I’m weird?

Not so much controlling people, as generally manipulative people have sometimes taken a shine to me. I usually manage to cut them off before they can get to close to me, but especially at work when I end up being partnered to a downright sociopathic individual, strange scenarios have been known to occur.

I try to experiment with my own behaviour to learn why by seeing how they react. I hypothesize that it might be because we project that we are highly accepting of others, insecure about ourselves and are very easy to read("Heart on your sleeve").

I've had some degree of success repelling such people by making "philosophical discussion" about difficult childhood/insecurity/etc topics that are said to be root causes of a person adopting controlling behaviours. My idea was that there's likely a person or several people who contributed towards making them this way and that if an individual presents themselves as similar to those people that they should be inclined to avoid them. Furthermore it might be possible to distance yourself from the victim types they usually target and perhaps portray yourself as not being as easy to read by throwing deliberately false signals.

I'm so sick of these types of people! It makes me not wanna trust anyone.

I'm so sick of these types of people! It makes me not wanna trust anyone.

I already don’t trust people. This is why I have no friends. When people are nice to me I never know if it’s because they pity and want to change me or truly want to be friends with me and respect me.

This is why I love animals, they don't play any games like that.

How does one detect a narcissist? I grew up with it, married it, all relationships I can think of were that. I'm done with it, but I don't want to shut everyone out. I think I can tell who I resonate with, but I can't tell the difference between a genuinely nice but guarded person and a fakely nice narcissist.

Staggeringly so. I really thought I would get better at spotting it but I seem to just keep messing up. The thing is, I never realise it's happening again until I am in way too deep.

Yes, I a do get attracted controlling the people.