“Ask Kai: Advice for the Apocalypse” is a column by Kai Cheng Thom to help you survive and thrive in a challenging world. Have a question for Kai? Email askkai@xtramagazine.com.
Dear Kai,
I’m a gay man in my 40s, and my question is simple: Am I an emotional vampire? All my life, I have struggled with keeping my friendships healthy and alive. Now, during the pandemic, I find myself almost completely without social contacts outside of my parents, whom I live with as their primary caregiver.
I have exactly one friend, I’ll call him Dan, another gay guy who is very social and has a huge support network of his own. I’m afraid that I rely too much on him, and that I’ll end up smothering or boring him and drive him away. I’ve lost many friendships in the past. Some of them ended in conflict, while others ended because, well, the other person didn’t seem to care about me as much as I cared about them.
I could blame bad luck, the fact that I live with my parents or the reality that we live in a society where it feels impossible to make friends as an gay adult in middle age—especially if you’re introverted and hate social media the way I do.
But there’s a certain point where you have to ask yourself if you’re the problem. And maybe that’s me. If that’s true, then I’m at a loss for what to do. Is it even fair for me to seek friendships anymore, given that I seem to be a burden to others?
Count Suck My Life
Dear Count,
I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been feeling so lonely and so lost. You know there is great power and resonance in the metaphor of the “emotional vampire.” When vampires are portrayed in popular media, their defining trait is drinking the blood of others. And because of this, we are primed to think of emotional vampires as people who suck the liveliness out of those around them. However, a much more interesting and psychologically significant trait of mythological vampires is that they cannot see themselves in mirrors—suggesting that vampires are, perhaps, souls that have been denied a reflection in the world around them.
Everyone longs to see themselves reflected in the loving gaze of others. This is a foundational human need. When we are really seen—affirmed, validated and understood—by family, friends and lovers, we come to know ourselves as whole beings who are both worthy of love and capable of loving. It is through loving reflection that we come to feel alive.
I wonder, then, why the dominant culture seems to stigmatize our need for loving reflection. Why are we shamed for needing the intimacy of friendship and romance, and for the loneliness that inevitably follows when we don’t receive it? Why are the lonely deemed as monsters—vampires—who are undeserving of human closeness?
I offer you these thoughts, Count, because it’s not for me to tell you whether you are an “emotional vampire.” Yet, even if you were, my question for you would be: Is this such a bad thing? All of us deserve to have our needs for intimacy met, just as we all have the capacity to cross boundaries and even hurt others in our attempts to do so. So yes, unquestionably yes, I think you have the right to pursue friendships, now and always.
We all have an emotional vampire inside of us, Count; perhaps this is why we fear seeing the loneliness of others. This is the shadow side of not finding our loving reflection: The fear of seeing our own loneliness and fear reflected instead. And ironically, our collective fear of releasing our inner vampires causes us to evoke vampirism in others. So how do we get our needs met in a way that satisfies both ourselves and the people with whom we are seeking closeness? And what can mythological vampires teach us about making the shift from taking life to sharing life?
“We all have an emotional vampire inside of us; perhaps this is why we fear seeing the loneliness of others.”
Contemporary vampire lore is littered with characters who seek the answer to that very question with varying success, from the eponymous hero of Joss Whedon’s Angel to Anne Rice’s vampire Lestat de Lioncourt and Stephanie Meyer’s Edward Cullen (yes, I know opinions of the Twilight series are divided! The example still stands). While their traits and story arcs differ wildly, each of these characters struggles with their need for blood, to partake of human life. Each makes a commitment, with varying success, to fulfil their needs in a way that is ethical and allows for ongoing relationships with the human world. Each also struggles with loneliness.
This, I think, is the crux of your dilemma, Count: You are looking for a way to meet your needs, yet you fear hurting others and being rejected as a result.
I am not going to fill this column with suggestions about “how to be a good friend,” because I don’t know you well enough to make that advice sufficiently specific to be effective. What I will say is that, for those of us who have trouble maintaining healthy friendships (I have been such a person) and suspect that our own behaviour is contributing to the problem, shifting this reality is a process of deep self-transformation. Everyone’s process is unique, but I will break things down in a list of general steps that will hopefully make it easier to conceptualize:
1) First, we might work on identifying our unhelpful patterns. How, exactly, are we contributing to toxic friendship relationships? What specific behaviours and tendencies might we habitually resort to that may inadvertently be driving others away? A helpful hint: Such patterns often emerge when we are stressed, afraid or in conflict.
2) Next, we could ask ourselves how we can change or replace unhelpful patterns. For many people, it’s simply not enough to say that the change will happen because we want it to: We need to actually replace the unhelpful behaviour with something both realistic and more effective at getting us what we want. Our “toxic” or “negative” behaviour patterns are often rooted in self-protection; they are actually meant to help us survive past difficulties or traumas but are no longer adaptive in our current situation. For example, “narcissists” are commonly thought of as constantly demanding attention and being untruthful. Yet a child who has experienced neglect and punishment for expressing their needs might learn to demand attention and distort the truth in order to receive any care at all. Unfortunately, once these survival tactics become habits in adulthood, they usually cease to have the desired effect and can lead to painful conflicts.
It can feel extremely frightening or triggering to let go of our go-to behaviours, so it’s important to work slowly and mindfully. Quite often, we need help to do this from both professionals (like a therapist or counselor) and also from informal resources (such as an online support forum), so that we can get candid reflections on how behaviour looks and feels from an external point of view.
3) We may also need to develop a whole separate skill set to seek out and make new friends. Start by identifying spaces and opportunities where you can meet potential friends—is there someone at work who you feel you can connect with? Are there clubs or online gatherings where you can talk with people who share your interests? Are there volunteer groups working on issues you are passionate about? Next, you can plan how to make an overture to a potential friend. People often think that this has to be a subtle dance, but you might be surprised at how effective directly asking someone “Do you want to be friends?” can be. Then, you can work on how to grow these new connections into deeper friendships, and maintain them beyond that. (This is where we loop back to the points above.)
All of this is long, unglamorous, often tiresome work, but the benefits are well worth it. Even in this time of pandemic and physical distancing, there are opportunities to engage with the questions I’ve asked here—for example, via online therapy (every therapist I know has switched to online work these days), online book clubs and online social events. It’s worth noting that one doesn’t need to create social media accounts in order to do these things!
If you are going to engage in personal work around developing healthy friendships, Count, I would also remind you of the mythological trope that vampires are not born, but rather made. I have learned the hard way that it doesn’t really matter how many fantastic relationship skills we learn if the people around us aren’t willing to use them with us. Many of my own toxic patterns were passed on to me by people in my life who sought to meet their needs by overwhelming my boundaries. This is to say, the “problem” of emotional vampirism, if there is one, is perhaps not the fact of our individual needs, but the way that our pain and trauma is passed from person to the next. The careful work of disentangling needs from traumas is a collective problem—it’s something we need to do in a community as well as on our own.
On a practical level, this could mean that you need to consciously seek out people who are capable of appreciating you, Count. Where your friendships have ended painfully in the past, it might be important to ask: What were the ways that the other people contributed to the problem? Do you see any patterns between them? Many of us are unconsciously attracted (both romantically and platonically) to personalities that are not necessarily good for us, which is not to say that they are “bad” people. It’s more that compatibility is a tricky thing, and not always intuitive.
Seeking a healthy community could also mean developing strategies for keeping past pain out of your existing friendships. For example, you mention that you are worried that you rely too much on your friend Dan, and that you will eventually drive him away. What does this fear tell you about the pain you carry from your past, Count? How can you deal with this pain without placing it onto Dan? Somewhat paradoxically, you might actually need to discuss this with him, if he’s open to it—not in a way where you’re asking him to play the therapist, but perhaps simply asking how much interaction with you he would like. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a huge conversation (although it could be, depending on your relationship). It might simply look like making little comments that let him know you’re open to feedback or to him taking space from you when he needs to—like adding “No worries about getting back to me right away!” at the end of a non-urgent text or email.
Finally, I cannot stress enough how helpful it can be to find a therapist, counselor, spiritual care provider or other mental health professional. One of the key differences between a professional helper and a friend is that a professional’s most important job is to help us hold our pain. A very good friend might do this as well, but a healthy friendship makes room for this to happen in both directions. Conversely, while a professional might help guide us toward getting our needs met, most can never truly fulfil our longing for spontaneous human closeness—which is why many of us need both professionals and peers at various points in our lives.
“There is nothing wrong with having needs nor with carrying pain. What matters is how we choose to live out the stories of need and pain.”
There is nothing wrong with having needs, Count, nor with carrying pain. What matters is how we choose to live out the stories of need and pain. The nosferatu of ancient legend might have been portrayed as irredeemable monsters, but contemporary tales of vampires offer us a different lens on the ravenous beast within. Many pop culture vampires labour for years—centuries, even—to find a way to share in humanity again. It’s a long, difficult journey; a heroic quest that can only be accomplished by repeatedly braving the risks and rewards of relationships. It’s through brave relationships that our needs are transformed into intimacy, Count. By discovering the hero within, we find our reflections and come back to life.
Wait, there’s more
Someone who came out as trans during quarantine asks Kai for advice on how to cope while waiting for gender-affirming care, which might be delayed by the pandemic. It’s our latest in the video series “Ask Kai: Quick Tips for the Apocalypse,” offering relationship advice for those in a hurry.
Kai Cheng Thom is no longer a registered or practicing mental health professional. The opinions expressed in this column are not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content in this column, including, but not limited to, all text, graphics, videos and images, is for general information purposes only. This column, its author, Xtra (including its parent and affiliated companies, as well as their directors, officers, employees, successors and assigns) and any guest authors are not responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in this column or the outcome of following any information provided directly or indirectly from it.
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