Isn't it weird that people just assume that you must be just like them? If they feel X, you must as well. If you say you don't, they claim you're in denial. It's absolutely bizarre.
Is it really that weird though? If most people are neurotypical then it's not so surprising that they assume others are like them. We are actually taught as much. But I agree it's bizarre when people persistently refuse to accept what you tell them about yourself. Denial? Thank you Mr Freud for that nonsense.
I have spent a life having physical and mental things about me not believed or shouted down and furiously denied because they are at the very end of the bell curve. So I get where psychopaths are coming from. Just infuriating.
To us, yes, it is quite weird to be told that we feel something that we don't, and if we disagree, to be called liars. That is very odd behavior to me.
Yeah, fair enough. As I say, I've had my fair share of people not listening to how I experience things, which are sometimes way outside of the average. This can go on for decades and ruin friendships. The phenomenon needs more attention.
I agree, and maybe a name. I postulate that there may be a connection to fear of social isolation. Perhaps the person making the insistence is concerned that if they feel differently about something, that perhaps they are the odd man out. This could in turn frighten them and make them feel insecure about their own feelings.
Insisting that someone must feel what they do may be their way of reinforcing their comfort level in being "normal".
I think you are right for many people. Heaven knows why it scares them, but it does. I don't think its just social isolation though, it's the mental discomfort amd effort involved in a rethink. Instead of embracing a worldview full of unimagined diversity of experience, they tell you you are wrong about your own experience.
It sure can be uncomfortable and when I was younger it was like a rug being pulled out from under me. But it's better to see things as they ARE and ultimately more interesting. And then the feeling when you are truly not easily disquieted anymore is quite joyful.
Well funny to say but relationship wise I incidentially "rewired" myself to a similar set of feelings that you describe for psychopaths. I personally call it a rational outlook towards relationship. Got there ten years ago in a hefty shizophrenia phase.
Sort of perplexing and fascinating at the same time.
"You surprise them by showing up unannounced at their home, they seem to be very blank in expression when they open the door, but that changes when they see it is you."
Interesting stuff. So fun for you isn’t a feeling of emotional excitement. Like with fear, is this lacking the emotional experience so many non paths have but including certain physical responses such as maybe an increased heart beat rate, faster breathing etc?
Emotional excitement is a wonderful thing, especially when you are very young. The strongest emotional excitement I have ever felt in my whole life was when I was about to knock off work at 15 and wait at night outside a recording studio to mob a certain pop band, a secret plan between me and a friend. I was utterly delirious with the thrill of it all. This should not be diminished or trivialized. It was as harmless a thrill as it gets. That humans can feel that way over basically nothing except what they make in their own head is actually a little miracle. The joy lasted in memory for years and remains a benchmark of the intensity I could once feel, without drugs (I don't use drugs).
The life lesson it taught me is not to patronize or trivialize the intense feelings and passions of young people. Adults do this because maybe they never felt it, or they just feel sour grapes. No. It's precious.
I think people should absolutely live their lives to the fullest (within reason of course, I am not encouraging serial killing or anything), and to feel everything that they can so they have no regrets later on.
Music can certainly have strong psychological effects on the human mind! I find it no wonder that music bands get mobbed because of this reason! Did you get to meet the pop band you wanted to see? :)
Yes, it certainly can be. When it comes to people that know me well, they expect a lesser version of the mask, so when I give them a more robust version when they truly need it, they appreciate that effort. However, with people who don't, it is more of a demand, and it is more tiring.
I am still trying to work out what that must feel like to the people in your life. Say, a traditional display of physoca affection, or sympathy from you. They know it's not for real, and yet, somehow......I think for neurotypicals our need is such that we will take the fakery!
Yes, there are many that have come to me trying to figure out what exactly makes me different so they can try to find it in someone, or help someone be a little less emotional. This is advice I am asked for on a regular basis.
I understand. BTW came across this reference to psychopathy. Again appears distorted. The crux of psychopathy are shallow emotions due to low levels of oxytocin? That's it? https://youtu.be/qSuzLAP3S24
No, that's incorrect. Psychopaths have a mutated oxytocin receptor that disallows oxytocin from binding to it. There is no shortage of oxytocin, there is no processing of it. It passes through the system unused.
I enjoy your logic based on reason and facts. But i can't yet accept that 90% of psychopaths are not sociopaths, but functional individual who no not threat society, but are named psychopaths, word which implies pathology. Why do not psiquiatrists, psychologist, use that word with the path suffix, sickness.
You explained that psychopathy is shallow emotions, not sociopathy.
I read and hear so many disparaging references to psychopaths or people that are labeled as such. It is misinformation...
It is unfortunate that "psychopath" is the chosen term, but I don't think that psychologists or psychiatrists should have a say on what it is called as it has nothing to do with psychology or psychiatry, but rather neurology. It would likely be better if the neuroscience community considered a new name.
After reading i have those random thoughts that might be mildly interesting to others:
1)
I am wondering what the relation between two mature psychopaths may look like (considering the uncertain statistics at 1%-2% of population it does not occur often but should happen from time to time).
On one hand it must be awesome: two individuals that understand each others boundaries, have no problems directly communicating wants and needs, each focusing on things important for their own and when considering common interests - working together with great synergy effect.
On the other hand: it seems the relation is very prone to ending. When one or both sides see that there are too many things that differ them they will agreeably split apart with no regret (situation like: we had some great time but now we want different things so only option now is to end the relationship and go our ways). This is absolutly great too but i am guessing that this makes those kind of relationships not last in tens of years but rather few months to few years tops.
2)
I find it VERY interesting to understand others perspective on the world. What i mean by this i will try to explain with example:
one day i have watched one silly show where at the end girl and guy end up on a date. And at that moment during discussion it came out that guy is colorblind and all the time he thought the girl was blonde while actually she had red hair. Whole show was just "meh" but this one realisation between the couple was insanely interesting to me even though it was very simple. And this one is actually easy to notice and explain since we have easy testing for colorblindness. I know that understanding how others perceive the world and actually experiencing it are two different things but i love to imagine it anyway.
What Athena is doing here is explaining her perspective on seeing/interacting with the world and it tingles the same curiosity in my mind. And topic here is much more complicated and harder to explain than colorblindness difference in perception from the simple mentioned example and that makes it much more interesting.
I am working on a post at the moment about the lens through which the world is viewed. We apply our thinking to others, and while it does have merit sometimes to do so, it is often an assumption that is incorrect.
Oh - this sounds like something i might want to read in particular.
You have described this:
"apply ourt thinking to others"
and i agree with what followed.
What do you think about oposite situation?:
"apply others thinking to our"
(goal here would be to get more perspectives on given situation).
Mayby it is something you wanted to mention in the post you are working at - if so, i can wait for full article (and it is probably good idea to wait since it will be whole answer and not just partial one).
"Add to that the fact that we are more than happy to listen to you without butting in or making the conversation about us. Frankly, we have no interest in talking about ourselves, and rarely do for a variety of reasons. This trait is valuable to people that spend a great deal of their lives competing for a moment of notice."
Thought about emulating this, to an extent. But realized if I do so successfully, the other person will be drawn to me for exactly just that. As I'm not psychopathic I have needs and like talking about my problems too, but if I do that will remove what they were drawn to in the first place
Why not try to find a balance between them? You can emit that aura when they are getting to know you, and then they have the thrill of discovering your softer side that you only show to them.
Neurotypicsls *NEED* to be with their SO. Psychopaths *WANT* to be with their SO.
When NT's get serious they have to live together, plan their lives out, be in near constant contact, and other things that are exhausting.
Psychopaths don't need any of that. An SO that has her own income, car, house, and is completely independent sounds ideal to me. When she's with me it's because I'm interesting or fun or whatever. When she's not with me she's simply not with me at that time.
I’m autistic and not a psychopath and I wouldn’t want to live with my S/O. I need my own space and my own space to retreat away from the world, including any S/O. People have different wants and needs, especially the neurodivergent.
Really illuminating article and I look forward to the rest of this series. What got me thinking was the idea of memories not being coded with emotions or any deeper meaning. This is not foreign to neurotypical experience. Many of absolutely everybody's everyday trivial goings on are stored in memory, or not, without any emotion meaning. I went to the store, parked the car etc. Only so much brain space is available.
More significantly, though, are times when experiences that would usually be coded emotionally at least, or even with greater and deeper meaning, are somehow not memorized that way. Some types of depression that fall short of full-on anhedonia will cause this empty non-coding. Say you are glum and make the effort to go out, and you do have a genuine bit of a laugh with your friends, the movie was truly engaging, etc, but afterwards it's very suddenly like it never even happened, almost spookily so. This can occur too for people who maybe seek superficial pleasure in excess until it ceases to be pleasant and they wonder, what the hell am I even doing? There are those times when people seem to be engaging with and even enjoying life, and yet they might say things like how it 'means nothing', I'm a shadow of myself', 'I'm watching myself from outside' etc. We don't really know how exactly this system of ongoing encoding of emotional and deeper meaning works, or why or sometimes fails.
The thing is that while for you as a psycopath, pure event memory is normal and just fine, but for neurotypicals it is awful. We absolutely need that emotional and 'meaningful' level to our memories of we are not to feel we are robots. If it happens for short periods, OK, interesting, just deal. If it goes on and on, the sense of utter wrongness (for our neurotype) can make people suicidal.
Huh, that is an interesting thing to consider. If a neurotypical had my sort of mind all of a sudden, it might be hugely detrimental to them. That is very interesting. It seems we are wired for exactly what we are meant to be.
Yeah, unless we got the complete psycopath package, it just wouldn't suit. I think also that this quality of neurotypicals interferes with the currently fashionable exhortations to 'live in the moment', 'mindfulness' etc. Up to a point that is good advice, but overall it's just not how our satisfaction mechanisms work.
Hm, I wonder then why that is the case. How does constant worry and disquiet over the future, future, the possible future, the failures of the past, help to make a healthy individual?
It doesn't! That's the downside, and it can be extreme, as it is in my case, but worry isn't that severe in everybody. The upside is joyfully anticipating pleasures, excitement that lasts long after an event, treasured memories, afterglow, finding meaning in the things we have done as we reflect on them, etc. I think of it as being like with genes, we get a harmful and a beneficial expression of the same factor.
I wonder though, when it comes to that sort of lifestyle, isn't it more likely that they feel that they are missing something, attempt to find it in the adoration of the fans, fail, and then self medicate?
It's not going to be one thing for everybody, no simple answer, there are so many possibilities. Neurotypicals are machines that go wrong in innumerable ways and the troubleshooting manual runs as thick as an old phone book.
Almost everything that matters, potentially. Beauty and success and youth will sure help, but that still leaves a lot out. Eating disorders for some. And I look to people's past, who knows what their early experiences were or what happened to them or how well prepared they are for life, particularly for a very different lifestyle with its own unexpected demands. And as for the present, we are all just stumbling through and learning and making it up as we go. That beautiful young models are also just flying by the seat of their pants, well, no surprise there!
“The psychopath wants to spend time with you when it seems fun and interesting, but the more you press them more distant that person may well become.
I have never wanted to be around clingy people, and the more they vie for my attention over whatever it is that I want to do, the less interested I am going to be in spending time with them.“
I think it’s likely this way with a lot of neurotypical’s too.
High relationship boundaries should never be about emotion. I require what I do out of people because I do not have an interest in wasting my time with someone that plays games. I am very clear as to what is expected, and if that is too much a bar to meet, they have no place in my life.
Relationship boundaries are not about avoiding pain, but rather the expectation that the other person is a mature and enjoyable addition to my life.
Well, it should be like that, of course, but meanwhile I think for NTs relationship boundaries, of they are placed at all, are all about avoiding pain. At least they start that way. Then something resembling your objective judgememt finally kicks in! A huge impedimemt to people placing boundaries is a not-untypical childhood in which parents acknowledged no such boundaries, and so the very idea lf such things doesn't even occur to people, they have no precedents.
thank you so much for this insight, athena, your writing is always incredibly eye-opening. looking forward to the next installment 🍂
Thank you for reading, Indigo.
Literally the story of my life. Currently I am unattached and people will ask if I am lonely. They don't want to believe that I'm not.
Isn't it weird that people just assume that you must be just like them? If they feel X, you must as well. If you say you don't, they claim you're in denial. It's absolutely bizarre.
Is it really that weird though? If most people are neurotypical then it's not so surprising that they assume others are like them. We are actually taught as much. But I agree it's bizarre when people persistently refuse to accept what you tell them about yourself. Denial? Thank you Mr Freud for that nonsense.
I have spent a life having physical and mental things about me not believed or shouted down and furiously denied because they are at the very end of the bell curve. So I get where psychopaths are coming from. Just infuriating.
To us, yes, it is quite weird to be told that we feel something that we don't, and if we disagree, to be called liars. That is very odd behavior to me.
Yeah, fair enough. As I say, I've had my fair share of people not listening to how I experience things, which are sometimes way outside of the average. This can go on for decades and ruin friendships. The phenomenon needs more attention.
I agree, and maybe a name. I postulate that there may be a connection to fear of social isolation. Perhaps the person making the insistence is concerned that if they feel differently about something, that perhaps they are the odd man out. This could in turn frighten them and make them feel insecure about their own feelings.
Insisting that someone must feel what they do may be their way of reinforcing their comfort level in being "normal".
It's just a postulation however, I don't know.
I think you are right for many people. Heaven knows why it scares them, but it does. I don't think its just social isolation though, it's the mental discomfort amd effort involved in a rethink. Instead of embracing a worldview full of unimagined diversity of experience, they tell you you are wrong about your own experience.
Sometimes it is envy, and sour grapes.
I used to have a lot of envy once. Not sour grapes though, because if I tried to dismiss or devalue something I'd have known I was lying to myself.
That is possible.
It sure can be uncomfortable and when I was younger it was like a rug being pulled out from under me. But it's better to see things as they ARE and ultimately more interesting. And then the feeling when you are truly not easily disquieted anymore is quite joyful.
I can see that being difficult.
Well funny to say but relationship wise I incidentially "rewired" myself to a similar set of feelings that you describe for psychopaths. I personally call it a rational outlook towards relationship. Got there ten years ago in a hefty shizophrenia phase.
Sort of perplexing and fascinating at the same time.
That indeed is fascinating.
Good on you, hope it comtinues to work for you.
does this make everyone to LOL:?
"You surprise them by showing up unannounced at their home, they seem to be very blank in expression when they open the door, but that changes when they see it is you."
-smiles-
That's also me.
Interesting stuff. So fun for you isn’t a feeling of emotional excitement. Like with fear, is this lacking the emotional experience so many non paths have but including certain physical responses such as maybe an increased heart beat rate, faster breathing etc?
Yes, that seems to be the case. Where people scream and freak out on a roller coaster for instance, to me roller coasters are quite peaceful.
I haven't been on roller coasters too much. But I remember smiling and enjoying quite a bit.
Emotional excitement is a wonderful thing, especially when you are very young. The strongest emotional excitement I have ever felt in my whole life was when I was about to knock off work at 15 and wait at night outside a recording studio to mob a certain pop band, a secret plan between me and a friend. I was utterly delirious with the thrill of it all. This should not be diminished or trivialized. It was as harmless a thrill as it gets. That humans can feel that way over basically nothing except what they make in their own head is actually a little miracle. The joy lasted in memory for years and remains a benchmark of the intensity I could once feel, without drugs (I don't use drugs).
The life lesson it taught me is not to patronize or trivialize the intense feelings and passions of young people. Adults do this because maybe they never felt it, or they just feel sour grapes. No. It's precious.
I think people should absolutely live their lives to the fullest (within reason of course, I am not encouraging serial killing or anything), and to feel everything that they can so they have no regrets later on.
Oh yes, I have chosen that route, just throw yourself at it all.
Music can certainly have strong psychological effects on the human mind! I find it no wonder that music bands get mobbed because of this reason! Did you get to meet the pop band you wanted to see? :)
I agree! :)
That's awesome
Such an interesting article, Athena. Is it very burdensome and/or tiring for you when you have to mask for someone? Does it feel like play-acting?
Yes, it certainly can be. When it comes to people that know me well, they expect a lesser version of the mask, so when I give them a more robust version when they truly need it, they appreciate that effort. However, with people who don't, it is more of a demand, and it is more tiring.
I am still trying to work out what that must feel like to the people in your life. Say, a traditional display of physoca affection, or sympathy from you. They know it's not for real, and yet, somehow......I think for neurotypicals our need is such that we will take the fakery!
Very soon you should be able to ask someone that's living with me. I haven't opened the question thread because I am waiting for her go-ahead.
Yes, eagerly awaited. I understand her possible hesitation. Really, any small insights your people can provide will be valued.
This kind of relationship (sans the NT contributing side) sounds…infinitely more relaxing.
It is definitely not for everyone though.
Absolutely, understood.
Yes, there are many that have come to me trying to figure out what exactly makes me different so they can try to find it in someone, or help someone be a little less emotional. This is advice I am asked for on a regular basis.
It likely depends on the man.
I understand. BTW came across this reference to psychopathy. Again appears distorted. The crux of psychopathy are shallow emotions due to low levels of oxytocin? That's it? https://youtu.be/qSuzLAP3S24
No, that's incorrect. Psychopaths have a mutated oxytocin receptor that disallows oxytocin from binding to it. There is no shortage of oxytocin, there is no processing of it. It passes through the system unused.
Dear Athena
I enjoy your logic based on reason and facts. But i can't yet accept that 90% of psychopaths are not sociopaths, but functional individual who no not threat society, but are named psychopaths, word which implies pathology. Why do not psiquiatrists, psychologist, use that word with the path suffix, sickness.
You explained that psychopathy is shallow emotions, not sociopathy.
I read and hear so many disparaging references to psychopaths or people that are labeled as such. It is misinformation...
It is unfortunate that "psychopath" is the chosen term, but I don't think that psychologists or psychiatrists should have a say on what it is called as it has nothing to do with psychology or psychiatry, but rather neurology. It would likely be better if the neuroscience community considered a new name.
After reading i have those random thoughts that might be mildly interesting to others:
1)
I am wondering what the relation between two mature psychopaths may look like (considering the uncertain statistics at 1%-2% of population it does not occur often but should happen from time to time).
On one hand it must be awesome: two individuals that understand each others boundaries, have no problems directly communicating wants and needs, each focusing on things important for their own and when considering common interests - working together with great synergy effect.
On the other hand: it seems the relation is very prone to ending. When one or both sides see that there are too many things that differ them they will agreeably split apart with no regret (situation like: we had some great time but now we want different things so only option now is to end the relationship and go our ways). This is absolutly great too but i am guessing that this makes those kind of relationships not last in tens of years but rather few months to few years tops.
2)
I find it VERY interesting to understand others perspective on the world. What i mean by this i will try to explain with example:
one day i have watched one silly show where at the end girl and guy end up on a date. And at that moment during discussion it came out that guy is colorblind and all the time he thought the girl was blonde while actually she had red hair. Whole show was just "meh" but this one realisation between the couple was insanely interesting to me even though it was very simple. And this one is actually easy to notice and explain since we have easy testing for colorblindness. I know that understanding how others perceive the world and actually experiencing it are two different things but i love to imagine it anyway.
What Athena is doing here is explaining her perspective on seeing/interacting with the world and it tingles the same curiosity in my mind. And topic here is much more complicated and harder to explain than colorblindness difference in perception from the simple mentioned example and that makes it much more interesting.
I guess what i want to say here is: thanks!
Thank you for reading.
I am working on a post at the moment about the lens through which the world is viewed. We apply our thinking to others, and while it does have merit sometimes to do so, it is often an assumption that is incorrect.
Oh - this sounds like something i might want to read in particular.
You have described this:
"apply ourt thinking to others"
and i agree with what followed.
What do you think about oposite situation?:
"apply others thinking to our"
(goal here would be to get more perspectives on given situation).
Mayby it is something you wanted to mention in the post you are working at - if so, i can wait for full article (and it is probably good idea to wait since it will be whole answer and not just partial one).
It went up today
"Add to that the fact that we are more than happy to listen to you without butting in or making the conversation about us. Frankly, we have no interest in talking about ourselves, and rarely do for a variety of reasons. This trait is valuable to people that spend a great deal of their lives competing for a moment of notice."
Thought about emulating this, to an extent. But realized if I do so successfully, the other person will be drawn to me for exactly just that. As I'm not psychopathic I have needs and like talking about my problems too, but if I do that will remove what they were drawn to in the first place
Why not try to find a balance between them? You can emit that aura when they are getting to know you, and then they have the thrill of discovering your softer side that you only show to them.
Good idea, I will certainly try this
Neurotypicsls *NEED* to be with their SO. Psychopaths *WANT* to be with their SO.
When NT's get serious they have to live together, plan their lives out, be in near constant contact, and other things that are exhausting.
Psychopaths don't need any of that. An SO that has her own income, car, house, and is completely independent sounds ideal to me. When she's with me it's because I'm interesting or fun or whatever. When she's not with me she's simply not with me at that time.
I’m autistic and not a psychopath and I wouldn’t want to live with my S/O. I need my own space and my own space to retreat away from the world, including any S/O. People have different wants and needs, especially the neurodivergent.
You both want your own space.
Really illuminating article and I look forward to the rest of this series. What got me thinking was the idea of memories not being coded with emotions or any deeper meaning. This is not foreign to neurotypical experience. Many of absolutely everybody's everyday trivial goings on are stored in memory, or not, without any emotion meaning. I went to the store, parked the car etc. Only so much brain space is available.
More significantly, though, are times when experiences that would usually be coded emotionally at least, or even with greater and deeper meaning, are somehow not memorized that way. Some types of depression that fall short of full-on anhedonia will cause this empty non-coding. Say you are glum and make the effort to go out, and you do have a genuine bit of a laugh with your friends, the movie was truly engaging, etc, but afterwards it's very suddenly like it never even happened, almost spookily so. This can occur too for people who maybe seek superficial pleasure in excess until it ceases to be pleasant and they wonder, what the hell am I even doing? There are those times when people seem to be engaging with and even enjoying life, and yet they might say things like how it 'means nothing', I'm a shadow of myself', 'I'm watching myself from outside' etc. We don't really know how exactly this system of ongoing encoding of emotional and deeper meaning works, or why or sometimes fails.
The thing is that while for you as a psycopath, pure event memory is normal and just fine, but for neurotypicals it is awful. We absolutely need that emotional and 'meaningful' level to our memories of we are not to feel we are robots. If it happens for short periods, OK, interesting, just deal. If it goes on and on, the sense of utter wrongness (for our neurotype) can make people suicidal.
Huh, that is an interesting thing to consider. If a neurotypical had my sort of mind all of a sudden, it might be hugely detrimental to them. That is very interesting. It seems we are wired for exactly what we are meant to be.
Yeah, unless we got the complete psycopath package, it just wouldn't suit. I think also that this quality of neurotypicals interferes with the currently fashionable exhortations to 'live in the moment', 'mindfulness' etc. Up to a point that is good advice, but overall it's just not how our satisfaction mechanisms work.
Hm, I wonder then why that is the case. How does constant worry and disquiet over the future, future, the possible future, the failures of the past, help to make a healthy individual?
It doesn't! That's the downside, and it can be extreme, as it is in my case, but worry isn't that severe in everybody. The upside is joyfully anticipating pleasures, excitement that lasts long after an event, treasured memories, afterglow, finding meaning in the things we have done as we reflect on them, etc. I think of it as being like with genes, we get a harmful and a beneficial expression of the same factor.
Perhaps this trade off is there to balance out possible sloth or gluttony.
I am not sure what you mean.
I wonder though, when it comes to that sort of lifestyle, isn't it more likely that they feel that they are missing something, attempt to find it in the adoration of the fans, fail, and then self medicate?
It's not going to be one thing for everybody, no simple answer, there are so many possibilities. Neurotypicals are machines that go wrong in innumerable ways and the troubleshooting manual runs as thick as an old phone book.
They go right in innumerable ways as well.
Sometimes I think I'm too busy tinkering under my own hood to notice!
Almost everything that matters, potentially. Beauty and success and youth will sure help, but that still leaves a lot out. Eating disorders for some. And I look to people's past, who knows what their early experiences were or what happened to them or how well prepared they are for life, particularly for a very different lifestyle with its own unexpected demands. And as for the present, we are all just stumbling through and learning and making it up as we go. That beautiful young models are also just flying by the seat of their pants, well, no surprise there!
Modeling is really quite boring and exhausting.
That does seem to be a thing.
“The psychopath wants to spend time with you when it seems fun and interesting, but the more you press them more distant that person may well become.
I have never wanted to be around clingy people, and the more they vie for my attention over whatever it is that I want to do, the less interested I am going to be in spending time with them.“
I think it’s likely this way with a lot of neurotypical’s too.
High relationship boundaries should never be about emotion. I require what I do out of people because I do not have an interest in wasting my time with someone that plays games. I am very clear as to what is expected, and if that is too much a bar to meet, they have no place in my life.
Relationship boundaries are not about avoiding pain, but rather the expectation that the other person is a mature and enjoyable addition to my life.
Well, it should be like that, of course, but meanwhile I think for NTs relationship boundaries, of they are placed at all, are all about avoiding pain. At least they start that way. Then something resembling your objective judgememt finally kicks in! A huge impedimemt to people placing boundaries is a not-untypical childhood in which parents acknowledged no such boundaries, and so the very idea lf such things doesn't even occur to people, they have no precedents.