Thread: Why RP partners are so UNRELIABLE (a friendly rant about myself)

Really great thread idea! I had a similar idea for a thread on the opposite side of the coin, the how toxic expectations can ruin an rp partnership but it came off as too know-it-all preachy to just make it a topic that I expected people to read and comment on. Still, I like the idea of bringing back some perspective to the rp sphere when it comes to relationships and how we treat each other. Several years ago, I was in an rp partnership with a great gal and we had an rp for a little over 3 years. We wrote long ass ridiculous posts for it, I drew it into a comic book at one point, produced tons of artwork for it, and I visited her in real life twice, once with my mom in tow and another time with my ex husband. There was a lot of depth of feeling between us. The project was gargantuan and we were both very proud of it. But I was an insecure asshole. At that time in my life, I didn't have a job, home alone all day and night because my husband didn't give a shit. I was depressed and extremely insecure and I didn't really have anything else to occupy my time even when I got a job, the rp and the escape it provided, the validation I got from my partner were a bit like a drug for me. And I developed some very toxic patterns of behavior. So, she'd post and it would be wonderful and we'd gush about it, then I'd quickly post within 2-3 days, and she'd gush over it with me, making me feel great and good about myself. Then she'd give me a ballpark estimate of when she'd get the post to me, within the week. Thing was, with me home all day, she had school, a job, and a social life on top of the rp, so, sometimes it wouldn't turn out the way she'd roughly planned and I'd be counting the minutes to the exact second for when she said she'd do the thing. And I took that shit extremely personally. But I was such a ballless piece of shit, I wouldn't even approach her about it half the time. I'd assume, despite her deadline coming and going, that I was being unreasonable to even ask her about the rp, even though everything within me desperately wanted to. I'd resist this need to prompt her until it got to a crescendo within my head, until in my delusion, she wasn't even a real person anymore, but a fiend who was either intentionally misleading me to emotionally torture me, or she was just too fucking nice to finally hit send on the carefully worded rejection letter that she'd been busily writing all this time. I'd finally burst through and confront her, martyring myself on the stake of our rp, giving it all up because I just knew she wasn't really interested and she didn't have to say it, I'd save her that burden... meanwhile, blaming her completely for being the one throwing this wonderful story away and how I just wasn't good enough to live up to her standardsyou know, the ones she never set. And her response was.... ...wut? I am in the middle of writing my post right now? What is going on? Where is this coming from? I was so desperate not to lose her and the rp that instantly, all would be forgiven but I'd hang onto this martyrdom act she'd made me go through and nurse it for each time we had another post lag. She was so great and wonderful and I was so worthless in my mind, that I couldn't believe in myself and my ability to maintain her interest, nor in my right to do so. So every other interest she had, whether she went out with friends for an evening at the movies, or had other rps, it was all seen as a blow to myself, things and people she liked that were better than me and threatened her willingness to stay. And I continued this pattern of emotional abuse for a long time with her, her constantly having to sit me down and drawn out long letters trying to prove to me her loyalty, trying to talk some goddamn sense into me, trying to help me gain some perspective. I always promised I'd gotten it that time, promised to reread the notes she sent me that poured her heart out the next time I felt insecure but I never did. I kept them in folders and never looked at them again after the current crisis had finally died down. I bring this up to offer up a different side of the coin, the rp partner who cannot understand and doesn't have the perspective that was lined up in the OP. I've been through therapy and rehab and gotten my shit together, and since breaking up with that old rp partner, I've encountered a couple of folks who took pages from my old playbook. It's not terribly common but they crop up every once in a while and there's not much to be said for these types of people except some professional help might be in order. I'm not being facetious, it seriously took me some hard therapy to break free of this cycle of toxic neediness and even still, sometimes it comes back up in different shades to different people in different scenarios. Mostly, I just wanted to add my two cents, since a friend of mine recently came to me flabbergasted by an exact copy of my old self trying to go through one of those martyr scenarios with her and it upset her greatly. She had no idea what she was looking at and it was incredibly disconcerting because she, like my old rp partner, spent a lot of time trying to reevaluate what she did wrong. Nothing. There is nothing wrong with doing any of the stuff outlined in the OP and communication is great but nobody owes you a blueprint of their daily plans or an explanation for why our rp isn't on the freaking list. Demanding such is abusive and toxic. Ask for what you want to know but don't badger and bully people over a few hours or a few days. Trust your rp partners. I know it is hard when people flake on you over and over again but expecting the worse of someone because something bad happens to you all the time is not going to make someone more loyal or more willing to be with you. That's like, because you've been cheated on before, demanding to be able to read your boyfriend's texts and know when and where he's going to be and who with and if he doesn't tell you, then HE MUST BE UP TO SOMETHING!!!11 This is about partnership and I think some people forget that. This isn't someone in the way of you getting your perfect fantasy lived out or your story told this is someone who is helping you create it. There's so much animosity towards our prospective partners, right off the bat, everything they must be and shouldn't do, it's like we're looking for every excuse just to write the damn thing alone. Really, excellent thread idea. Nobody should feel the need to justify their choices when they commit one of the opening post's crimes. This is the norm and we need to make more people aware of it. We also need to make more people aware that the abuse of a passive aggressive, bully martyr, is not something you have to deal with.