I recently started watching videos and reading articles designed to teach people how to date in a very manipulative way. I don't need these tactics to date, but I want to learn about them because I realised how consciously and subconsciously people use them and how they can be extra harmful for me, a girl with BPD. These tricks are commonly used among people who have very low self esteem themselves, but these sort of things can make someone who is more honest with themselves or vulnerable believe that the person using these tactics have very high self esteem, ergo, making us want to jump up to get to their level. 

I'll write out an example that happened in my own life. I was in an on off relationship for 4 years with a person I considered to have high self esteem and be an all round good catch. He was good looking and intelligent, I couldn't see anything that he would feel ashamed about or insecure about. It wasn't until after he left me the last time, which was for good, that I began to see with the help of other people who both knew him and saw our relationship, that he had very low self esteem and brought me down to his level instead of helping me up. One conversation I had with a mutual friend really started opening my eyes to my ex's manipulation. I told this mutual friend how hard it was to not love someone who had such high standards that even the smallest lie or smallest act of injustice towards him would make him back off. The guy replied to me and said 'well yeah, but he was doing the same thing to you, he just couldn't handle getting it back...that's because he's actually very insecure.' 

Another man I met recently enough played weird tricks with me in a very similar way. Telling me straight out that he didn't like lies, that he would rather die than cheat, that he wanted someone who was moral and trustworthy. I suddenly felt so pressured to be perfect, trying to show him how great I was, how fun, how intelligent, but nothing I did ever really hit the mark with him. After he told me he didn't want to see me again, a mutual friend of ours let it be known to me that the guy in question lied to all his friends and was a very difficult person to be close to...yet he gave the exact opposite impression! It was almost like he set the bar for me to be so high to see how far I'd jump and that really, I was already out of his league and that by 'jumping' for him, he got to see me pander to him and that was what disqualified me. I've also come across men who never pay me compliments, but then expect me to feel a total rush of desire towards them without giving me any sense of getting the same rush- except that they were gracing me with their presence and 'allowing' me to be the girl they were out with. 

It's funny, because as a girl with BPD, I love paying the guys I like attention and I love giving them the desire that I know they like. I don't play weird mind games to make them jump through hoops because to me, if I really like them, it's because I've seen them be natural and I like what I see and hear. However, people in the world do play tricks to make someone believe that they're not interested or that they're only a little interested, when they actually are completely interested to the point where they don't actually believe that they can get you unless they somehow lower you. 

As a girl in her early 20s who's had a lot of interest from men over the years as well as getting the right amount of confidence from my parents and teachers and friends, I am generally quite secure with myself unless I am *made* insecure. When I am made insecure, my BPD will come out really really badly. This is why a lot of girls with BPD seem quite fine and secure and happy until they meet someone who finds a way to undermine their confidence and then suddenly we turn into the biggest wrecks. The weird thing is, I've dated a lot of very handsome and successful and popular guys and those ones have most often been the worst ones to undermine my confidence from their own insecurity. Then I see them with girls after me who are more mousy or generally insecure and they seem oddly happier than I was with that same guy, which I think is because that same guy found someone who is already shakey and nervous enough to be continually impressed by him, while a girl like me in my natural state enjoys sharing my attention among  people at parties or at social events, unless I am made feel insecure about it, then I close up like a caterpillar in a cocoon, too nervous to even dare speak to anyone else and so worried that I'm not getting enough attention from my boyfriend, who is sharing his attention around happily. 

So being highly aware of people who use these common tricks to unnerve or create insecurity in someone to make them more on their own level is very important for anyone with BPD. While with normal people, this might just create a bit of agitation or annoyance or maybe an argument or two, for someone with BPD, this can be a very upsetting and miserable situation as we can't just brush criticism off. 