#I am in a very emotionally vulnerable place and someone intentionally took advantage of that to make me feel bad

[trans-xianxian]

hmmmm I drafted an email to my boss abt how her text regarding my time off request after my mother's death made me feel very uncomfortable and how I felt like it was unprofessional should I send it

[grenade-maid]

Equal parts despise Himeno and am very drawn to her because of how uncannily similar she is to people who exploited or took advantage of me in similar ways when I was in a nearly identical emotional place as Denji. And for that I'm honestly deeply thankful that she was written. Because I think a lot of stories that deal with these situations lean too far into portraying people as monsters, or are too sympathetic or too enamored with the fantasy of how it might have been so good if the circumstances weren't so horrible. And the truth of the matter is, well, there are a lot of Himenos in the world. And very often they really are fun and exciting people you'd want to be friends with or you could be attracted to, who express care and kindness to the people around them. And the truth, equally, is that they aren't often predators intentionally seeking out vulnerable people to manipulate and exploit --but they are deeply emotionally immature in a way that makes their schtick very attractive to people who are lonely and isolated and starved for affection. And, well, turns out that covers a lot of teenagers who lack the ability to see the red flags or effectively enforce boundaries. And that immaturity and lack of self-awareness, rather than malintent, is what leads them to habitually cross boundaries in bad ways. She, like many in real life, love the attention and the esteem, getting to be the cool experienced one, getting to feel like being the one to give someone exactly what they want--even when their immaturity means they will ultimately fail. And when someone is doing that, technically giving you the intimacy you've been deprived of and craved so deeply, it becomes very very hard to say no, let alone understand exactly why the situation doesn't feel good like you thought it would. It's hard to reject a friend who you admire, and it's scary to try and do so, too, because of the fear of losing what little you have, and ruining the relationship. It's a complicated messy type of situation that's hard to explain or truly understand if you haven't been there yourself.