QC

This is huge. What if we're worthy and deserving of love just by existing? I like this story better.

i dunno man sounds like propaganda to me (seriously though, people say this and it has no effect on me, my lived experience is that when i make mistakes people stop loving me, esp. women)

Brené Brown actually has a good perceptive take on this exact dynamic QC just named

go on...

i tried and failed to find a gif to express "rapt anticipation," but yes, please go on!

Brené was really high profile 6-8 years ago talking about the power of vulnerability - big TED talk star. In her second, follow up talk, in response after she went viral, she talked about receiving a letter from a man. He told her, in effect, there’s no room in my life to be...

vulnerable. My wife and my daughters want me to be on the white horse, and if I try to step off, that’s not allowed.” Brené really highlighted this discrepancy - this kind of double bind that many men experience or perceive, and was empathetic to to the guy who wrote her.

Like QC, he was expressing some similar dynamics around perfection (etc) and very conditional & performance based love, in big contrast to the ideal that Collin was pointing to