Full-blooded machiavellist in love?

Hello everyone, I’m glad to join this community.

I have a little story to tell.

I’m a machiavellist. I live up to values such as leverage, upper hand and victory. My past makes it even more harder since I was raised by overprotective single mother in lower middle class family. I lacked social awareness and I was very obese. If you add up all of the above it won’t be challenging to picture how I did with other people. It’s not the main story but I thought I should mention.
I’m in my mid twenties now and I never had any relationship with opposite sex (aside from few short stories with strangers). I want to change that but I just can’t find a way.
Every friendship I have is calculated. These people trust me like hell. I know their deepest secrets and desires and they know very little about me. I enjoy leverage a lot and I feel safe. In exchange I take good care of them, I’m helpful and I like to hang out with them. But it doesn’t work that well when it comes to intimacy.

I pay a great deal to the way I behave and look nowadays and I since so I’ve experienced a lot of attention but... I go insane when even thinking about asking a girl out. I’ve always been a lone wolf and I simply smashed all of those who took advantage of me in the past. Always alone. And the moment I feel something for someone I can feel that person’s advantage over me. And I go crazy. I wanna run the **** away and I almost fall in tears… waiting for the punch, helpless. Is there any way for person like me to play this game?

It’s the first time I speak up about this matter since my therapy breakdown. I’m aware it’s a deep seated issue. I have no expectations. I just want to meet your opinions.
Thank you for your time.

Hello MisterPaul: Thank you for sharing a bit about yourself. I don't think there is anything I can offer with regard to what you wrote. (Perhaps other PC members will have some thoughts they can share.) However I noticed this is your first post here on PC. So I thought I would at least welcome you to Psych Central. I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

Hi MrPaul, welcome to psych central. Hmmm, this is going to be a challenge due to your struggling with multiple personalities I would think. My guess is that part of you wants to be strong and in control, but another part of you is very frightened and sensitive. I am not sure there would be a safe place for a possible partner that would understand all the different personalities you have within you. Maybe a part of you knows that and that's why you get scared or overwhelmed and run away?

<Pressing the golden buzzer>

Walk my shoes. What would you do in such circumstances?

I don't know to be honest ((MisterPaul)), I suffer from ptsd myself and while I have experienced flashbacks of other times in my life feeling that age even, I do not have multiple personalities issues. I think the only one that could tell you is a qualified professional therapist. I do know certain things trigger me so I understand that urge to "run" from certain situations.

I hate to predict anything for you because I am not qualified for that.

I just have a few questions so I might better understand. When you say Machiavellian, do you mean that you try to take advantage of people or behave unscrupulously for your own gain? Or are you more transactional, tit for tat, always get something when you give something? And when the transactional ledger becomes imbalanced, you bite back.

Do you take advantage of those who trust you in any way? It sounds like you're trustworthy in that regard. Merely a thought on my part, but perhaps, when you're at the point of intimacy where you can reveal parts of yourself, you can let them know your mindset and that you have difficulty with what you feel. I'm probably not one to talk as I have a very limited emotional range and most things are seen through a clinical, logical lens for me.

There was a point where I was very Machiavellian at work out of necessity for survival. It took a while for me to let go of that at work, but I've never let my guard down entirely. I've put some of my work gripes down on this forum and I work at a place that can be very sociopathic. It did take a conscious effort and a lot of mental energy for me to trust anyone not immediately in my social circle, but I have greatly improved my ability to read people and determine if I should take a chance on them.

Open Eyes. Thank you for your time. I appreciate the try and wish you all the best.



ARaven0137 Every friend I have is somehow valuable when it comes to pursuing my life goals. They have resources, manpower or simply do as I ask most of the time. They tell me a lot. They think high of me.

And I appreciate it. I put lots of effort to keep these relationships going. I take care of them. I like spending time with them. I help them and I protect them if necessary. It’s real. But…

I tell them very little about me. I lie. I manipulate. Often to painlessly keep the distance. I can drop them in the blink of an eye. I’m aware of their weak spots, their secrets and… you know the rest.

It’s my past combined with the personality. People took advantage of me all my life, because I was weak, weird loser (backstory is in the first post). I designed myself. Lots of work, always alone. I don’t allow people to put me down anymore. Never. Attraction towards someone freaks me out, I feel like they have the upper hand. I dunno why. Maybe its the leverage in itself or maybe the fact that I see a girl who genuinely finds me attractive and I know that if she read what you’re reading right now she would have been disgusted or scared of me. Two options, I guess…

To the poster, I wish you good fortune in all you endeavor..i think everyone wants and enjoys leverage to be honest. no one wants to be at the bottom of the pool being stepped on...intimacy is hard. it takes great trust on both party's sides to engage. again, your issue is not that rare...I would say that everyone has sufferered that at one point or another. it's hard and scary to let the walls down.

you know what the issues are..that is half the battle, seriously. maybe just try relaxing the walls a little when you go into things. it might work. realize the other person is feeling the same way...

like I said, good luck. and we've all been there.

@MisterPaul
I was thinking that if you consider this model of the trauma triangle, it's very possible that each identity takes on one of these roles, but is an identity unto itself. This link may actually prove helpful to you where you might think about things in a different light. (it has helped me for my own challenge)

The '''Trauma Triangle''' Explains 3 Classic Roles Trauma Survivors Fall Into

Sometimes there is an inner discussion between the identities and sometimes there isn't. It's typically caused by early trauma where instead of what I experience where I experience flashbacks of early traumas, you developed an actual identity you take on. A stronger part can be confident as you shared, yet there is a part of you that genuinely doesn't feel safe to have a trusting relationship so you want to "flight".

A lot of your challenge depends on how much therapy you have had with a qualified therapist where you may learn to integrate your personalities into one identity that finally takes over. For myself it's figuring out how to reduce the triggers so I don't feel overwhelmed by them, some are hard due to the degree of trauma I suffered.

The closest I can come to "stepping into your shoes" is when my older sister's toxic abusive controlling behaviors can literally cripple me and I get flooded badly of when she was like that when I was younger, but that's not the same as losing time and functioning within a separate personality. I can get crippled, but I am aware and have to be patient until the flooding eases up. I don't lose time by switching to a different personality that I don't know has taken over. So, I can't say that I can actually put myself in your shoes. I want to respect what your true challenge is, but am not quite sure how to do so with you.