I think maybe the most important lesson for me here is not even "be assertive." It's "be yourself (& don't fucking apologize for that)."

I don't feel like driving anything to the point of conflict pretty much ever, but maybe sometimes the conflict has to erupt.

Because seriously, I avoid doing certain things because she would likey get upset & then I would have to tell her "hey, you're not being fair to me. I am allowed, actually."

The toughest thing I can imagine doing in a friendship is to worry less about their feelings.

I mean, she'll certainly let me know if she has hurt feelings, at which point I guess we can deal whether those hurt feelings are because I did something harmful or if they are because of unreasonable expectations that I shouldn't be accommodating in the first place.

Sometimes when people get their feelings hurt over things you do, it actually *isn't* your problem.

I think.

I'm pretty sure.

There are a couple instances I have been thinking about while I'm writing where it's like "oh, I probably should have just expected her to deal with it if her feelings got hurt."

I've been expanding someone else's "boundaries" into my own space. "Sure, go ahead, that's part of me you're invading, but if you would feel bad if I didn't go along with this, then I guess you can have it."

Where perhaps it would be more appropriate to say, "sorry, no, not doing that."

So there's "convo with Bestie" (which does need to happen), but there is also declining to make myself smaller just for someone else's comfort.

I often adjust my behavior to avoid hurt feelings even when I wouldn't actually be doing anything harmful, & if someone got hurt feelings, it would be because they had expected control over me that they shouldn't have in the first place.

This rumination started with a sex party, where I felt I was basically having to not participate in ways I wanted to because I was pretty sure that it would make Bestie/Fox feel like I was getting more attention & she wasn't the center of things, but...

I don't want to participate in sex parties where some specific person expects to be centered. So if we do it again, I'm going to be me, I'm going to do what I want, & it's not my responsibility to manage how someone else feels about me being me.

I dislike the thought of trying to be more assertive though because I just don't want to be a bitch.

I don't want to create conflict.

I don't want to make other people uncomfortable.

But I also certainly don't want to make myself smaller anymore. Which is what has been happening in this circumstance. I have been squeezing myself in & trying to do what someone else wants without regard for me, & I think it has to fucking stop.

I certainly would like anyone who wishes to be close to me to work on the skill of affirming to other people that their needs & wishes matter.

Given who I am & the trauma I have, I think it is completely fair to ask people who love me to take the trouble to learn to do that, rather than just expecting me to "toughen up". Loving people includes taking the effort to make them feel loved.

That's just sort of mind-boggling to me. I know such people exist, but personally most of my friendship skills are adapted towards making people feel that they *do* matter & *are* important even when they don't feel it.

I do not have many friendship skills for relating to people that are already quite convinced that their needs & wishes matter, & are perhaps significantly less concerned about reassuring others of the same, perhaps because they don't need that reassurance themselves.

Like, "oh, you did NOT actually need it affirmed to you that what you want matters, you are clearly already WELL aware of that."

Some of it might be as simple as "different strokes for different folks."

Most of my loved ones share the same difficulty asserting themselves, so my default is to assure them that I think what they want matters.

It's very important to me to do this. I hate feeling dismissed & unheard, so I focus on trying to be sure no one feels that.

But I suppose there are probably some people with whom that just fully backfires.