Reply #150: One point worth reiterating:

[woo me with science]

People have touched on it a couple of times.

In a nutshell, the screed you posted sets up wholly unrealistic expectations for human interactions and labels anything that falls short of the golden ideal as abusive. You even admitted, in some postings above, that the interaction in the restaurant was more "less than ideal" than catastrophic. Yet you continue to use the word "abuse."

Words matter.

"Abuse" is an ugly word, for a reason. It means something. This sort of accusatory relabeling of normal interactions is exactly how faux victims BECOME faux victims. They learn to continually compare real, imperfect human interactions to some template of the ideal. As a result, they are constantly offended and wounded by interactions that others would consider a part of normal life.

When you apply the word "abuse" to any interaction that falls short of ideal, then you are bound to experience incident after incident after incident of "abuse" in your life, simply because of pure reality and the imperfection of human relationships.

When you start to perceive and label all these benign incidents as repeated "rapes to your soul," you assume the identity of a repeatedly raped "victim." You lose your compassion for how real, imperfect people interact with each other, and you lose compassion for the real, imperfect people you are labeling with this ugly word, "abuse." You become a narcissist. Or you teach your child to be one.

This is not an instance of emotional abuse. However, it is an excellent example of a particularly sick and insidious brand of pop psychology that infects how too many people perceive relationships today.