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Have you been asked to rescue someone?

Today I received this message on OK Cupid:

"Miss Kathleen, you I would like to meet. You seem to be really full of life.

"I am a lot like you. Although of late my energy has been focused on side stepping depression. Divorce is very draining, but I look so forward to walking out of the frustration and shame and breathing once again.

"I think I would enjoy being infected with your energy. Doug"

Not again. Recently I rejected a man who is deeply depressed and wants me to rescue him. He appears to have clinical depression and dependent personality disorder. Gary wanted me to make him happy, get up off the couch and hike. Although he claims to love hiking, he hasn't hiked in years.

Gary asked me to move in with him during our first (and only) meet. Yikes.

The last straw was when he posted two hiking photos I took of Minotaur Lake and surrounding mountains on his photography website. He posted my photos without my permission, and without crediting me as the photographer. I was appalled.

"It is unethical to pass off my photos as your own," I said. "My intentions were honorable," he replied. What is honorable about plagiarism?

Gary's ego is so fragile, he immediately cancelled his Facebook profile, Fitness Singles membership and photography website. Apparently, he put all of his emotional eggs in one basket.

LiterateHiker 9 Apr 6
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27 comments

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10

Gary's eggs are scambled.

@AMNOTGOD He is a shocker huh lol !!! I feel sorry for the person who made this post as Gary sound like a full on Glass ego!

9

These are the photos that Gary put on his photography website. I took these pictures from a high ridge while climbing Mt. Labyrinth in August 2016. It shows Minotaur and Theseus Lakes, and surrounding mountains. Isn't it gorgeous there? This quickly became one of my favorite hikes. It's close to where I live in Wenatchee, WA.

How incredibly beautiful. Those pictures remind me a bit of the Mammoth Lakes area in California. How long is the hike to where you took the pics?

Condor5, This is an old fisherman's trail that goes straight up without switchbacks. Short and extremely steep. Descending this trail is too dangerous on snow and ice. That's why we hiked it in August.

To the summit of Mt. Labyrinth is six miles round trip, with 2,700 feet of elevation gain. Minotaur Lake is at 6,000' elevation.

7

I'm a rescuer, I can't help it. Stray cats, stray humans, you name it. I rarely allow the rescue and dating worlds to touch, though. My one exception was a former friend with benefits who I helped get out of his pain pill addiction. Got him down to alcohol, tobacco, and weed. He later married someone else, and we're not in touch because wifey got jealous. Um, no honey, you can have him with my blessings!

how did you help him? I mean what did you do? just be there with him while he went through it? did you help with food? what? real the more in depth the better

@squiggy_70, everything from rescuing him after he punched out his brother to practicing swordfighting.

7

I got out of the people-rescuing business a long time ago. It's a futile endeavor, and often leaves
the rescuer in need of the same.

@Fanburger LOL

yes it sure can be and drags you down as well. but to say i will not help some one. How about if you helped some one and they flourished?

@squiggy_70 Helping someone isn't necessarily the same as rescuing someone.

@AncientNight Only if you're confronted by Borg.

6

part of the reason we don't come with warranties i suppose.

6

I have not ever been asked that. It stuns me that people have such gall, it reeks of weak character, to me. At first, I didn't quite understand the rescue connotation, I thought literal rescue as in saving someone from peril, which I have done more than once; then, as I read on it almost seemed incredulous to me that a person could be so weak. I'm sorry, that's terribly judgemental toward someone I don't even know. And I do not mean to belittle the value he placed on your apparent strength of character...I just didn't realize people really do such things.

5

I just rescued myself from a similar situation, one ust like those that have characterized my entire 69 years until right now. YAY ME!

5

I've never been asked to rescue someone directly, but one time found myself trying to help a female coworker who was in an abusive marriage to an egotist.

so what happened? a therapist helped me. she said I knew what I had to do and pointed it out to me

5

Holly shit... l really feel sorry for folks like this. l wonder if this stems from how they were raised, or is it really a chemical inbalance in their head.

5

I used to run into those types of people on kink sites. One of the many reasons why I don't frequent them or dating sites.

5

I think my late wife was secretly trying to do just that. She was looking for support. She probably knew she was too mentally ill to function on her own.

5

Lose the loser, not your problem.
I get sought out to rescue people all the time, story of my life.
A few months back a guy at work I had only spoken to about 4 times decided I shoudl let him come and live with me because he was homeless. Yeah, that's gunna happen = NOT! All because he heard I have taken in homeless kids from time to time. Big difference between 14 and 59.

Back to yours, so many scammers etc on dating sites.

5

No one wants to be put in that position.however I've always been the sane one amongst friends. In college I had girlfriends who would go over to a party at the boys dorm and never make it home. It was up to me to rescue them - they would send out a search person to find me and I was straight enough to navigate my way through a huge guys dorm and find my friend passed out in the hall during a beer bash party.

As far as rescuing someone emotionally - a guy in distress like @LiterateHiker's friend my I dated a guy who was a minister's son, on the conservative side but a jock on the baseball team. He had to constantly touch me. Have you ever tried eating a bowl of cornflakes while someone has their hand on your knee constantly. Drove me bonkers. Or try to watch the Wizard of Oz with a room full of people and he is belting out every song during the movie? Funny thing ran into him at my college reunion with his new 2nd or 3rd wife and he still looked the same.

5

Wow. I've had more, "Want to hook-up?" messages more than rescue me messages on dating apps.

4

When I was 16 had just learned the Heimlich maneuver was eating lunch in and the young child about 8 or 9 months old started to choke I used 2 fingers and applied this saved the kid.

azzow2, Good for you! Well done.

I saved the life of a U.S. Forest Service Ranger at Lake Colchuck during the Fourth of July weekend. My boyfriend and I backpacked in. We awoke to 6" of snow. It was sleeting sideways with howling wind blowing off snowfields in the mountains.

As we were hiking out, we came upon a female Ranger lying beside the trail, soaking wet, shivering violently and gasping for air. Wearing a regulation T-shirt and shorts. Her mother-in-law dithered around helplessly. "Why can't she breathe?" I asked. Asthma. She forgot her jacket and asthma inhaler.

Gave her two puffs from my asthma inhaler. We pulled her under a tree to get her out of the wind and sleet. She was my size. Digging into my pack, I quickly stripped and re-dressed her in dry long underwear, rain pants, turtleneck, sweater, and down jacket. Gave her my gloves and hat. (I had a hood.)

Meanwhile, my boyfriend fired up the stove, boiling water. We poured hot tea down her throat, heavily sugared. Hypothermia victims need sugar for energy. She revived, but was still stumbling and groggy. I quickly fashioned a makeshift raincoat for her from a large plastic bag.

Two teenage boys jogged up the steep trail. "Do you have a cell phone?" I asked. "This woman needs an ambulance. Please run back down toward the trailhead. As soon as you get a signal, call 911. Ask the ambulance to meet us at the trailhead in two hours." Off they went.

We carefully sidestepped her down the steep trail, holding her arms across our shoulders. An ambulance was waiting at the trailhead. As she was being cared for in the ambulance, her mother-in-law asked for my name and address. Later that Ranger send me a beautiful card, thanking me for saving her life.

Here I am at beautiful Lake Colchuck in 2010.

@LiterateHiker impressive

4

There are a few bad ones out there that are totally nuts. A friend of mine from Jersey said online the other day that you do not want to end up with a "hobosexual."
That's somebody who will gladly move in with you just to have a place to live. Maybe Gary is doing a number on you with this plagarism thing just to check you out. If you agree with what he says he might think he could manipulate and just do anything with you.

BTW, you cannot rescue people. It might seem for a while that you did rescue them and it is working, but this is just not true. In the end it will be more than you want to deal with.

DenoPenno, I was speaking about emotionally rescuing men. I imagine men meet women who want to be rescued financially.

"You can whip me into shape," overweight men suggest. "Motivation is internal," I reply. "Only you can motivate yourself to exercise regularly and eat right. You would resent me if I nagged. Hire a trainer."

3

It is very hard to rescue someone that is emotionally damaged. You want to help and you end up getting drug down their rabbit hole. My I suggest reading the book "Are you the one for me" by Barbara Deangelis. Great insight on types of people to avoid. It also includes keys to a successful relationship.

ebdb Level 7 Apr 7, 2018
3

At one time I was probably a rescuer. Maybe it comes from inexperience and low self-esteem. Lucky for me I gained experience and hope to avoid that bridge again. If a problem arises at the beginning of a relationship imagine how it will look after time?

some one asks you to rescue them? like how? people need help sometimes. this idea that if we help some one we are enabling gets to be too much.

@squiggy_70 Unfortunately, the enabling tendencies too often end up doing more harm than good. My first wife was Bi-polar and I was enabling. My second partner was an alcoholic and, until I joined Al anon, I was also enabling. When my daughter started having severe problems we went to a 'tough love' session and I found out about enabling with one's kids. It is easy to get into as it is a part of our natural make-up.

My late wife had a motto: Discipline first then love (coupled with fairness). At one point her daughter came to her and said: "Mom you know all those times I said I hate you? Thank you!"

If one truly cares one wants what's best for the other not oneself. That is often a difficult road and we all slip occasionally. Some more than others.

3

And you passed on this guy? I run from emotional vampires as soon as a little bit of that needy thing rears its ugly head.

2

Yeh everytime I have a date I rent a u haul.. just in case,

EMC2 Level 8 Apr 15, 2018
2

If it's someone who's a close friend or you're already in a relationship, then help where you can, but put your own mental and emotional wellbeing first at all times. If it isn't, then "not your problem." Walk on.

2

Spent 19 years trying. Finally had to bail when I found myself wondering if the garage rafters would hold my weight. Hate myself for abandonong her, but didn't want to do it via a rope.

1

bigpawbullets, "You can whip me into shape," overweight, sedentary men say. "Motivation is internal," I reply. "Only you can motivate yourself to eat right and exercise regularly. You would resent me if I nagged."

With online dating, research show that 82% of people post old photos and lie about their age, height and/or athletic ability. Most of the time, I don't recognize the man I'm meeting. Suddenly my "hot date" has aged 10 years, gained 50 lbs. and lost all his hair. As if I wouldn't notice.

It's not my fault that people lie and misrepresent themselves. I don't have to "up my game," as you put it.

All of my photos were taken in the past 1-1/2 years. My last two photos were taken in the last two weeks Many men say I look better than my photos.

1

I usually assume the role of rescuer and have burnt many years of my life in the position. The most sad example was after wasting several years trying to rescue a profoundly damaged (she was repeatedly raped when she was around 7 until a teen-ager by her Grey-haired next door neighbor so she was a wreck). I could fill a page with the nuances of the time with her. After she left to try to fix a 25 year younger drug addict in a different nation, I spent many hours reflecting as to why I sacrificed so many opportunities trying to fix things that were largely unfixable. My life would be much different now if I would have choosen the woman who did not need fixing.

Time is limited and if you waste time trying to fix another’s problem, you may miss out on opportunities that will not come again.

0

Whoa.
You need to "up your game" and simply walk away from this type. Is this a recurring theme in your dating experiences?

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