Are You Self-Loathing and Single? Maybe You Think Too Much

In this post I would like turn the tables on my ongoing exploration of self-loathing, especially in the context of relationships, and ask this: why isn't everyone a self-loather in this way? I think humility is, to some extent, a part of most people's make-up, and love has a way of magnifying that, due to the inestimable wonder and awe we feel when we think of our beloved ones. Assuming a significant number of us do feel this way—as suggested by what we hear during proposals, wedding toasts, and the like—why do so many of us nonetheless succeed in maintaining relationships without succumbing to the self-sabotage so common to "chronic" self-loathers?

I think I have an answer, and it boils down to simple pragmatism. Focusing on our shortcomings gets in the way of the business of living—and loving.

Think of the great problems of metaphysics. How do we know the outside world exists? How do we know the people around us have minds of their own? How do I know I'm awake and not in an extended dream? Do I have free will or is it just an illusion? If we thought about any of these questions for too long, we'd drive ourselves crazy (or become philosophers—same thing, really). In order to go about our daily affairs, we have to assume that there are chairs on which we sit, other people with whom we interact, and that we're awake with real choices to be made. We can entertain such questions, of course, but at the end of the day we have to forget about them and just live. (The same goes for death: if you think too much about dying, you'll never have time to live.)

When Leo Tolstoy struggled with the meaning of life, as he recounted in his Confession, he wondered why the average person doesn't seem to have to same problem. He found it ironic that he, with his tremendous literary success and fame, had trouble finding the meaning in his life, yet the farmer or housemaid didn't seem bothered by it at all. His conclusion was that the common man and woman had religion to instill their lives with meaning, but another way to think about it is in terms of the pragmatism I described above. Tolstoy had the leisure to ponder such questions, but the average person at the time—and even now—did not. And even if they did stumble upon these questions, they intuitively knew better than to let them get in the way of the struggle of day-to-day living.

It is this pragmatism that enables most people to reconcile their feelings of inadequacy in the face of love with being in love itself. If we thought about it, many of us would admit to feeling that we're not good enough for our partners. At the same time, however, the drive to create a deep emotional and physical bond with another human being is incredibly strong—far too strong, for most of us, to let feelings of inadequacy get in its way. But for the chronically self-loathing, the cognitive dissonance comes to the surface and becomes impossible to ignore. (Sometimes they manage to ignore it for a while, but then it creeps back, and the cycling I discussed earlier begins anew.)

The solution for the self-loather seems simple, then: just don't think about it! That's more easily said than done, however—like depression, self-loathing involves not just having feelings of inadequacy, but also blowing these feelings out of proportion and dwelling on them. You can't simply tell self-loathers to stop thinking about it, that they're OK and move on with their lives, any more than you can tell a depressed person to stop ruminating and "cheer up." It's much more difficult than that.

In the context of relationships, the self-loathing need to find a way to deal with their problem (if it can't be solved altogether), starting with learning to trust in the sincerity of their partners' feelings for them. If the self-loathing can't find a way to reconcile their feelings of inadequacy with their need for intimate relationships, they risk being alone—a valid lifestyle choice for some, but only if it is freely chosen, and not the result of feeling you're not good enough for anything else.

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I also mention Tolstoy's Confession here, in terms of my own personal search for meaning.

For a select list of my previous Psychology Today posts on self-loathing, relationships, and other topics, see here.

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