People with a kind heart often get taken advantage of. They often incorrectly assume that other people have the same kind of heart that they do. The truth is that most people aren’t all that good. They want to be, they may think of themselves as good or kind, but they don’t actually do the work.
Personally, I wasn’t much of a kind or even decent person for a long time. In improving my mental health, I had to learn balance and how to understand the people around me. But not everyone has the awareness or desire to improve.
To avoid being taken advantage of by these people, let me share with you some practical tips on how to protect yourself from people who would exploit your kindness.
1. What they do is more important than what they say.
It’s interesting to me how many people value words over actions. The world gets much easier to understand once you start paying more attention to what people do. To borrow a bit from Newton’s First Law of Motion, an object at rest will remain at rest. That is, it won’t move unless a force is applied to it. People are the same. Just like objects don’t move without a force acting on them, people don’t take action without being motivated by something – and that driving force is usually their feelings.
That means you can make an educated guess of how you are truly valued based on how other people treat you. So many people get trapped in bad relationships because they hear “I love you” and believe the sweet promises, but there’s no action. It’s not enough to say that you love or care about someone. You have to actually do the work.
And yes, relationships are work. However, in a healthy relationship, it’s joyful work. Because why wouldn’t I want to make my partner happy? Or make their life easier? Or understand that they are special and valuable? If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “If he wanted to, he would.” That’s exactly what that statement is referring to.
Someone who genuinely cares about you will back up their words with actions.
2. Avoid oversharing too early.
Predators look for soft, vulnerable targets. One of the easiest ways to identify a potential target is just to listen to them talk. A person who is perceptive and calculating enough is going to be able to find your flaws and weaknesses through your words if you overshare. Once they figure out your vulnerability, they can then exploit it.
For example, maybe you say that you have a hard time making friends or finding a relationship. A predator can look at that information and take some educated guesses. They may act on the assumption that you’re lonely, so friendliness, warm vibes, and laying on compliments is likely to work on you.
The important thing to keep in mind is that the manipulator doesn’t need to be 100% accurate in their assessment. They only need to be accurate enough to land in the appropriate neighborhood. From there, based on your responses, they can continue to reverse engineer your vulnerability.
3. Avoid rushing into close relationships.
As a young autistic man, I had a difficult time creating relationships with other people. I found that I could function well enough in the different social categories. Like, I could be neutral, a friend, a best friend, or a lover to someone. However, I struggled with how to make the transitions between these different states. There were many times I rushed things too quickly and paid for it.
I was taken advantage of by an ex-girlfriend because we had such strong chemistry early on. I thought that chemistry actually meant something, but it didn’t. As the Anxiety Centre shares, butterflies in the stomach can be an anxiety response; it’s your brain telling you that you’re nervous and excited around a particular person. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are a good person, or that you’re compatible with them in other ways.
But I interpreted that feeling to mean I had found a healthy connection because I didn’t have enough life experience to understand how meaningless it was. There are plenty of people who will spark that chemistry, but they just don’t choose to do the right things, or they aren’t good people. The only way you can know that for sure is by engaging with them for an extended period to see the content of their character.
4. Set a small boundary early to see how they handle it.
Establishing a small boundary can help you see how well the other person respects boundaries. For example, you could say something like, “I’m going to take tonight to myself. I could use a little time to myself. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
As Stanford University informs us, respectful people won’t have a problem with that. They may ask a question or two, but you will get your time to yourself. However, an exploiter will not accept your boundary. They want you to have weak boundaries with them so they can best take advantage of you.
Instead of accepting your boundary, they may try to guilt-trip you, push the boundary by reaching out to you during your downtime, or completely ignore it. If they do any of those things with a small boundary, you can rest assured that they will do it with big boundaries, too.
5. Consider how you feel after spending time with them.
Exploiters want to break down your defenses so that you’re less inclined to say no to them. They want to encourage your vulnerability so they can take advantage of you when they want to. Not only that, but they will be taking from you. They may be taking time, emotional energy, or other resources that you don’t want to give.
Consider how you feel after spending time with a particular person. Do you feel lighter? Happier? More fulfilled? Any kind of positive feelings? If you do, then it’s likely that they aren’t an exploitative person, assuming you’ve known them for at least a little while. It’s easy to fake being a kind person for a little while, after all.
On the other hand, if you feel drained, emotionally exhausted, or you find that you’re losing resources, then it may be time for some boundaries. Once you establish those boundaries, their reaction is going to tell you a lot. An exploiter is going to object, guilt-trip, gaslight, or just ignore your boundaries. Then you know you should cut them off.
6. Don’t ignore subtle signs of your own discomfort.
Do you find yourself confused? Do you find yourself wondering about their intentions? They may not be doing anything too overt, but those subtle signs are worth paying attention to. You may not be able to consciously put the pieces together yet, but your subconscious may pick up on unhealthy patterns or behaviors that you can’t fully articulate.
Look for a consistent pattern of discomfort. When do you feel uncomfortable? When do you feel misgivings about a person? Can you nail it down to specific actions? Or is it more like a vibe? Even if it’s a vibe, it’s worth acknowledging as a potential warning that something may not be right. Granted, it can take some time to be comfortable with someone, but this feeling shouldn’t persist.
No one is entitled to your time or “fairness” in judgment. If they make you uncomfortable regularly, it’s best to believe that than go through whatever years of suffering may be ahead of you.
7. Learn to be okay with being less convenient or displeasing others.
People-pleasers are a prime target for exploiters. They derive their personal satisfaction from external validation, that is, from trying to earn praise from other people. That puts them in the unenviable position of needing to conform to another person’s wishes to earn their approval. The problem is that exploitative people will absolutely use that against you to push your boundaries and take advantage of you.
It’s okay to say “no” for any reason that you want to. If you just don’t feel like doing something, or purposefully want to limit their access to you, that’s perfectly fine. Any reasonable person is going to accept that as okay and readjust their expectations to your boundaries. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but it is necessary.
Final thoughts…
Exploiters are most interested in soft targets to take advantage of. The thing is, they are easy to spot once you understand what you’re looking at and remove your emotions from the equation. There are so many people who stay in terrible relationships because the other person says “I love you,” even though their actions don’t.
These people reveal themselves over time. All you have to do is be patient and wait. Take things slowly. Sooner or later, they will reveal who they actually are to you. Trust is something you build over time. It’s okay to be patient.
