I remember several things I dreamed about this morning--cutting my own hair, finding kittens and puppies, a knife in the Harry Potter universe that makes unhealable wounds because it "cuts the soul" (cool idea!)--but the one I want to talk about here a little bit is about two exes of mine, and why they were so incredibly damaging.

the two exes have blurred into each other to the point where they were both represented in one person in my dream last night. they were superficially physically similar, but more important, they both played the "be my friend" game.

to play that game, a person needs to be very charming, to set the bait. the more people *want* to be friends with them, the greater their power. then they pick the most interesting/useful people in their sphere of power and groom them.

"you're better than everybody else because [characteristic]," they tell these people. multiple people at once, too; that's important, because the point of this isn't to cultivate a few special friends; it's to force people to compete with each other for attention and affection. IT IS A GAME FOR THEM. it's a blood sport for their amusement.