Should I Be Back On Facebook?: Learning Not to Be an Altruist

I am kind of an accidental altruist. It might not be news to those who know me well, but it has been news to me, in that "Hey guys I'm gay." "Well, duh." kind of way.

I've learned that I have a strong tendency to be care-taking people in a kind of co-dependent way, and now that I have identified this tendency, I see its fruits all over my life. I withdrew from Facebook in order to tighten in my social circle, allow myself to regroup, and take time to figure this out. I've learned a few good lessons so far:

When people ask for help and agree on what their needs are, helping can be a good thing. But when I decide what I think people need and help them without their consent, that's kind of creepy.

When helping feels good to and benefits everyone, helping can be a good thing. But when helping someone leads me to feel resentment or exhaustion or pain or distress, the helping becomes an act of self-destruction.

And maybe most importantly, when helping comes from a solid core of self-worth and belief in one's loveableness and value, helping is a pure offering from generosity and benevolence. But when I help because that is the proof of my value, the necessary condition of being worthwhile or loveable, or the thing that prevents abandonment, the helping becomes impure, an offering not to the person being helped, but to my own inner demons.

So I got off Facebook, and it helped. The silence helped me focus on myself. I found that many of the triggers to be helping people in unhealthy ways were removed. I just didn't have to see the expectations of others, and so, I didn't have to face the difficulty of saying no and telling the inner demons to hush up. I didn't have to see evidence that made me think people needed my help, and so, I didn't have to fight the urge to help them in unhealthy ways. Having a tighter circle felt like training wheels: I could practice on relationships where I felt the most confident, committed, and supported in my new habits.

But now, I kind of want to come back. Partly because I am lonely. Aaron is working a lot, and I want a little more contact with my tight circle than I have. And I miss seeing some of the people I know less well: the pictures, the travels, the thoughts, the books. Partly, I want to test my new resolves in a bigger arena. Can I maintain these new behaviors in a setting that's harder?

I don't know the right answer about whether I should come back. But I think I will try it. If I find that I am not ready, I have new info and will pull back again and keep the training wheels a bit longer. If it goes well, I will find new ways to use Facebook that don't push me back into my caretaking habits. I'm just going to take the plunge and see what happens.

A side note is that I spent more time reading and writing (on this blog again!) without Facebook, and I liked that change. I'll see what happens with my time and my intellectal pursuits as well in this experiment.