al baddies are interested in extracting what they want from us. But they are too deft and complicated ever to allow themselves to be painted in villainous colours. They are our friend, and friends don’t h

Like a cartoon baddie, real baddies are interested in extracting what they want from us. But they are too deft and complicated ever to allow themselves to be painted in villainous colours. They are our friend, and friends

don’t

Use synonyms

harm those closest to them, do they? Poignantly, baddies may not even be overly conscious of harbouring dark motives. If we were being very kind to them, we might say: perhaps they’re not bad as

such

Linking Words

, they’re just afraid of being abandoned. They’re not bad, they just

don’t

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like dissent. They’re not bad, they just had a very difficult time when they were little and want to ensure that they aren’t left high and dry ever again. They

don’t

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set out to destroy people, they are simply not so focused on the independent existence of others. They

don’t

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mean not to listen to you, it’s that certain rooms in their minds are bolted shut. They

don’t

Use synonyms

mean to harm you, it’s that they haven’t fully realised you quite exist as your own autonomous entity. They aren’t bad as

such

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, what they are above anything else is very damaged and very ill in ways they cannot think about and that they will try at all costs to stop you noticing as well – but their effect on us most certainly is bad – and in that sense they may royally deserve the punchy title we’re threatening to accord them. Interestingly, we’re not all equally poor at spotting baddies. There are backgrounds in which we were taught that if we were not happy in a situation, we didn’t have to worry about causing a problem, we could just politely make our excuses and leave. But others of us were brought up by people who were – in the sense we’ve been examining – something akin to baddies themselves, who sold us an ambitious story about loving us and

then

Linking Words

didn’t honour it, thereby seriously scrambling our ability to know our minds, recognise our feelings and protect our interests. We may now be adults who can’t tell for a very long time when bad is being done to us, who think it might be a good thing, or that it might become

good

Suggestion

better

over time or that it is a punishment we deserve or that a bit of trouble doesn’t really matter, given how little we matter in the end.