Overzeal

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For one reason or another I'm always concerned about appearing overzealous before the start, and even years after the start, or a friendship or romance. I have always had this sense that I have scared people away through overzealousness, though I can't point to more than a few very-ambiguous examples. And many people are often telling me that I'm simply being paranoid.

I'm wondering if anyone has experienced being turned off by someone because of their overzealousness. Also: how did that overzealousness register? How was it evident?

By overzealousness I mean something slightly different from that desperate loneliness that can likewise be so unappealing in people. If the two things can be parsed.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I'm like you and too often produce the opposite result. I wind up appearing aloof. And alone.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:10 (twenty-two years ago)

This concern manifests itself--in my case--with a careful portioning out of emails, phone calls, etc. Sometimes I think I'm far too methodical about it, which may be creepy enough in itself (if it even registers on the other side). On occasion I will willfully wait a week or more to respond, the reason being I don't want to appear (wait for it) overzealous.... Since I can't quite ascertain the effectiveness of that waiting in achieveing its main goal, I can say that on the one hand it allows me time to think about what I really want to say, on the other it might give the eventual reply a deliberate and overly fussy quality.

new self-involved answers

(x-post)

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:11 (twenty-two years ago)

happens to me too. insecurity makes me overanxious, and thus overzealous.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean, if you really like someone, what is it exactly that you need to communicate, presuming that "I would marry you tomorrow" is a bit forward?

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:13 (twenty-two years ago)

sorry i'm broadening the scope of this thread much too much (to fit the contours of my present obsession, sorry).

new on-topic answers.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I really am aloof and self-involved except for when I'm manically obsessing over something.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Like my lack of understanding of basic anatomy.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:15 (twenty-two years ago)

BINGO

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:24 (twenty-two years ago)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I win.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Not if you have to clean up.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah I think people can often try for a certain nonchalance that says - yep like to get to you better but if you can't make that beer, coffee... then no problem. When really you think damn I think we get on well let's be buddies!

― Jack St E (Jack St E), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

yet another alternative is to be very would-be droll and cagey. i don't know if this works.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

that was my favorite m.o., but i was recently told that i just seem bitchy a lot of the time. sweet!

― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

bitch.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Ama - I think it does work but it just takes longer to work through that initial period of worry. Though your term of *years* into a friendship seems a bit long. Do you have situations where you are free of not feeling 'overzealous' after a relatively short period & others when it does go on for longer?

― Jack St E (Jack St E), Thursday, 23 October 2003 20:58 (twenty-two years ago)

i can't think of a single friendship where i don't worry about this, even the ones that have gone on longer than a decade. the only relationships i have free of this brand of anxiety are familial.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 23 October 2003 21:01 (twenty-two years ago)

i find this thread weirdly comforting but that might be the vicodin kicking in.

― mohammed abba (dubplatestyle), Friday, 24 October 2003 01:51 (twenty-two years ago)

ascertain! ascertain... ascertain...

― Kim (Kim), Friday, 24 October 2003 02:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Amst: I think maybe you are overcompensating for your presumed overzealousness. One week is far too long to go between answering an e-mail, when you really want to respond. I think you have overcorrected (if there was a problem in the first place) and now you need to find a middle ground.

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 24 October 2003 08:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I often have this problem, both in relationships and in friendships. When I get into something or someone - or anything really! - I tend to get REALLY over-into it. This scares the crap out of a lot of people, but what am I supposed to do?

If I try to compensate, people think I'm snobbish or aloof. (I'm not shy, I *am* snobbish and aloof.) (This is a lie. I am actually quite shy, as well.)

I don't know, I'm of two minds on this. I always say "be yourself, because if people are going to be put off by you, then they're not the kind of people you'd end up being friends with anyway." But then again, people who respond well to overzealousness tend to be total lunatics anyway! :-)

― kate (kate), Friday, 24 October 2003 08:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Lunatics in a good way, I hope.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Friday, 24 October 2003 08:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Sometimes, but sometimes they're just lunatics, fullstop.

― kate (kate), Friday, 24 October 2003 08:40 (twenty-two years ago)

kate no offense but you really are overzealous, if your posts are any indication.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 24 October 2003 08:48 (twenty-two years ago)

So what?

You asked a question about overzealousness. I answered honestly. It's not like I'm trying to be that way, I just *am*. Should I change myself just to suit other people? I think that would be more pathetic.

― kate (kate), Friday, 24 October 2003 08:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess what I'm trying to say is... if you find yourself constantly having to change/hide something that is at the very core of your being in order to make friends or attract a partner, then perhaps that person is not the person for you, either romantically or in terms of friendship.

Case in point, yes, I am an overzealous to the point of obsessive person - about everything in my life! When I met HSA, he said that one of the first things that really attracted him to me was my "nervous energy". So this thing which had been pushing other people away from me actually brought me together with someone who was like-mindedly obsessive.

― kate (kate), Friday, 24 October 2003 09:14 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, so you shouldn't have taken my post as an insult.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 24 October 2003 14:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Over-defensive as well as overzealous, moi?

― kate (kate), Friday, 24 October 2003 14:55 (twenty-two years ago)

The people I respect most in the world are overzealous about friendships in a very honest way and I think there's probably not a better thing in the world about which to behave that way.

That said, personally I am afraid to appear overzealous as well & do the opposite, to the point that I feel guilty about it sometimes, as if people will think my relationships with them are meaningless to me because I never get around to being enthusiastic/explicit about them.

― j c, Friday, 24 October 2003 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

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