By relationships, I mean both platonic and romantic. I’m just doing a bit of soul searching and reflecting on things I’ve done in the past.
For example, I used to get a weird sense of satisfaction by rejecting girls that showed interest in dating me, even though deep down I wanted a relationship and wanted to give them a chance. Not in a cruel way, just in a “sorry I’m not looking for a relationship right now” kind of way.
I also used to sabotage friendships that were forming before I got too close to the person. Sometimes I ghosted people, acted cold around them, or just didn’t go out socially with them. The result was exactly what you’d expect - people just stopped speaking to me and didn’t make an effort anymore, just as I hadn’t with them.
I’ve hurt people that cared about me and can’t figure out whether it’s fear of getting close, fear of showing my vulnerabilities, or something else entirely.
Reasons for patterns like this are most often to be found in childhood. You probably were rejected emotionally in your childhood by someone you yearned to be connected with (parent?!), and now you are repeating or replaying that shit in a vain attempt to get over it. This sounds weird but it makes sense when you see it as “taking the stronger role” to not be the weak and suffering part of the relationship - it’s a form of self protection.
Good therapy (there’s bad therapy as well unfortunately) can help.