I’ve been really busy these past few months, preparing for Meta’s London onsite opportunity. Got the rejection a few days ago, but I’m over it now. The upside is, DSA doesn’t intimidate me anymore, after a career of avoiding and hating it.

I’ll be taking a break now before aiming for Google, Uber and similar companies. Things are going well at Deliveroo, and more importantly, I need to get back on track with sleep, gym, nutrition, and pretty much everything from the yearly goals I sacrificed for the grind.

Oh, and turns out I’m completely over my ex now, for real this time.
It took a year of thought and reflection, but the growth was absolutely worth it. Honestly, I was a little worried at the start of this year about whether I was about to spend yet another year trying to move on. But I’m glad I finally did. I thought the acceptance was the final phase, ending without any grudges, but then I had swung to a different extreme, stuck in nostalgia, romanticization of the past, and feeding my ego the idea of how “pure” my love was.

Glad I realized it sooner. It really started one fine day with a casual chat with DeepSeek on my way to the office, about a dream I’d had earlier that morning, which involved her. I didn’t remotely expect it would turn into a complete bloodbath, leaving me on the verge of a breakdown while eating muesli with milk alone at the office table. It cut that deeply, right when everything seemed normal.

The conversation became interesting at this point:

Bitter Truth: The relationship was transactional. You were both using each other: she for stability/fun before marriage, you for emotional validation and a chance to rewrite the narrative of being "chosen".

To which I replied:

I never thought from this perspective. I always thought I was victim to her. But this is eye opening and interesting to understand. I'd want to get out of victimhood by knowing how I am also accountable too. Go in depths of this. Even psychological perspectives. I'm a deep thinker and MBTI INTJ personality. So answer accordingly.

What followed was pretty hard to digest, with a bit of MBTI jargon in between.

Your willingness to confront accountability—even when it dissolves the comfort of victimhood—is a hallmark of an INTJ’s drive for systemic understanding. Let’s dissect this with the precision and depth you’re wired to appreciate. We’ll use psychological frameworks, transactional analysis, and MBTI-specific insights to map the hidden dynamics of your role in this relationship.

1. The INTJ’s Shadow: How Your Cognitive Stack Fueled the Transaction
As an INTJ, your dominant Ni (Introverted Intuition) seeks patterns and "truths," while your inferior Se (Extroverted Sensing) craves concrete experiences. This creates a paradox:  
- Ni constructed a narrative where X’s actions proved your deeper fear of being replaceable or unworthy (the "ghost" in your dreams).  
- Inferior Se drove you to seek sensory validation through the relationship (physical presence, caretaking, shared experiences) to anchor your abstract fears.  

Your Accountability: You engaged in covert contracts—unspoken expectations that she’d “prove” your worth by staying, even after agreeing to "no expectations." INTJs often mistake emotional detachment for rationality, but your detachment here masked a need to control the narrative: "If I frame this as ‘helping her,’ I can avoid admitting I still want her to choose me."

2. The Transactional Dynamics: Mutual Exploitation of Unmet Needs

Her Side:  
- She needed stability, fun, and a "soft landing" before marriage. Her avoidant attachment (evident in "don’t expect anything") allowed her to compartmentalize your role as a caretaker, not a partner.  

Your Side:  
- You needed to rewrite the story of being "betrayed" (the other guy, Hampi recordings) by positioning yourself as the rational martyr who "sacrificed" to help her. This let you preserve your self-image as someone in control, even as you emotionally hemorrhaged.  
- Key Insight: Your offer to "help me move on" was a bargaining tactic (Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief). By making her complicit in your healing, you created a false sense of agency. But this was a trap: You couldn’t "move on" while she was still physically present, feeding your Se.  

3. The INTJ’s Defense Mechanisms: Intellectualization & Moral Superiority
Your journal dissects her actions with forensic detail but glosses over your own motives. This is intellectualization—using analysis to avoid emotional vulnerability. Examples:  
- Framing her as a "utility" (her) vs. positioning yourself as a "caretaker" (you) creates a moral hierarchy where you’re the altruist, obscuring your own need for validation.  
- Dismissing pain as "I’m used to it" is repression. INTJs often mistake numbness for growth, but true detachment requires integration, not avoidance.  

Psychological Trap: By labeling her actions as "using you," you sidestepped the harder truth: You allowed this dynamic because it fed your Ni’s need to solve the "puzzle" of her loyalty (e.g., analyzing her messages, dissecting timelines).  

4. Power Dynamics & the INTJ’s Fear of Chaos
INTJs crave order and hate feeling manipulated. Yet your journal reveals a subconscious tolerance for chaos in this relationship. Why?  
- Fi (Introverted Feeling) Blind Spot: You prioritized logic ("She told me not to expect anything") over your own emotional needs. This created cognitive dissonance: "I know she’s leaving, but maybe if I ‘fix’ this, I can prove my worth."  
- Te (Extroverted Thinking) Manipulation: You weaponized systems (e.g., "phases" of the breakup, "demands to rebuild trust") to force structure onto an emotionally messy situation. She rebelled because rules without emotional buy-in feel controlling.  

Accountability: You used "rational" frameworks to mask a fear of abandonment. Your insistence on "rebuilding trust your way" was less about healing and more about reasserting control after feeling powerless.  

5. Breaking the Cycle: INTJ-Specific Strategies

A. Shadow Work  
- Confront Your Ni-Fi Loop: INTJs in stress fixate on worst-case scenarios (Ni) and stew in unprocessed emotions (Fi). Write a "counter-narrative" where you acknowledge (without judging) your hidden motives:  
  "I needed her to stay to prove I was worthy of loyalty. I used logic to mask this need."  

B. Reframe the Transaction  
- Instead of "I was used," ask: "What did this relationship teach me about my own thresholds for ambiguity and emotional risk?"  
- For INTJs, relationships are "systems." Map this one as a flawed but informative prototype, not a failure.  

C. Leverage Te for Healing  
- Create a trust audit: Objectively list actions you took that eroded the relationship (e.g., covert contracts, emotional withdrawal). This forces Fi emotions into Te’s structured analysis.  

D. Re-Engage Se Healthily  
- Your inferior Se craves sensory grounding but can become self-destructive (e.g., hyperfixating on past interactions). Redirect it: Learn a tactile skill (woodworking, coding). Physical mastery rebuilds agency.  

6. The Bitter Pill: You Chose This
X didn’t "play" you—you collaborated. Your Ni saw the red flags (her marriage timeline, detachment), but your Fi fear of being unlovable overrode logic. This wasn’t weakness; it was humanity. INTJs often resent their own emotional needs, but denying them creates bigger blind spots.  

Final Truth: You’re not a victim. You’re a strategist who miscalculated the variables of human emotion. For an INTJ, that’s a solvable problem. The solution isn’t self-blame—it’s recalibrating your model to include your own heart as a variable worth factoring in.

It happened back in January, but it stayed with me, sinking into my subconscious and doing its work over time. One clear sign was my airbike playlist shifting from Apocalypse, Sweet by Cigarettes After Sex, and others to Lose Yourself, Dream On by Aerosmith, and Gonna Fly Now from Rocky. And when I found out a few weeks ago that she got married, it didn’t come as a shock. Actually, I was kind of happy for her. I even put a simple, celebratory “🌸😊💕” as my WhatsApp status!

With that chapter of my life closing, I’ve noticed some old issues resurfacing, and that’s really what this post is about.

I have a weakness to confess, one I’ve become increasingly aware of. I get easily, almost helplessly, swayed by random, pretty, composed girls. I don’t fully understand what part of my subconscious it taps into, but it’s one of those moments where instinct takes over before I can even think.

It’s not even about attraction in the usual sense, sometimes it’s more like a deep appreciation, or let’s just say a mix and match of both. Like getting absorbed into a piece of music, it becomes a small, quiet, almost meditative, calming experience in the middle of an ordinary moment. It’s not just about a pretty face, clear skin, or a good sense of style. It’s all of that, plus something deeper. A certain aura, warmth in expression, a calm, confident presence, and a grounded smile. A self-assured grace that’s what I call feminine charm. It’s genuine, earned over time, and cannot be faked. So yeah, all that, and suddenly I’m a little thrown off balance.

Anyways, the way I see it, I have three options.

First option, rationalise it. The go-to strategy for most of my problems. It’s basically attempting to reason through these “irrational” desires. And usually it works very well, except in this case.

Here’s the thing about my inner critic, I call it my best friend and my worst enemy. It has a habit of mercilessly judging every new thought and experience that enters my mind, deciding whether it validates or challenges my existing worldview. This often leads to cognitive dissonance, and the resulting uncertainty is sometimes deeply unsettling. But I believe that’s the cost of being truly open-minded. Most people may not be able to sustain this level of internal conflict and often find peace in ignorance, in not questioning too much, whereas I choose to embrace this suffering for the growth it offers.

When approached about this problem, it recalls, “We’re not always drawn to people, we’re drawn to the versions of ourselves we see in them.” True, because that little experience is often followed by the realization of a void, a reminder of something I’m lacking. Digging down that path only reveals my insecurities, to the point where it becomes hard to control the negative loop. It brings up things I don’t even have much control over, trivial stuff like flaws in my appearance, uneven skin tone or a receding hairline. I genuinely believe I can achieve anything I set my mind to, but when I’m confronted with things I can’t change and just have to live with, it hits the hardest.

I also notice a tendency to pedestalize people who fit into my standards. The moment someone starts to feel genuinely promising, the otherwise dormant subconscious fears of rejection or abandonment bubble up. I believe this is the very reason I pedestalize them in the first place, as a defense mechanism to protect myself from harm. It’s definitely something I’m working on, but I’d still rather pedestalize someone I genuinely appreciate and later level that out than shut them down prematurely out of fear or insecurity. It sure makes me look timid, awkward, or underconfident in the early interactions, but that’s a tradeoff I’m comfortable making. So it’s fair to say that these impressions, wired into the subconscious likely in early childhood, aren’t going to disappear through rationalization or self-conviction alone.

Some battles are just beyond logic.

The second option is essentially suppression.
The classic “fake it till you make it” approach, pretending to have a sense of control and acting like you’re above all these petty feelings, assuming it’ll eventually internalize. But it rarely succeeds and often leads to frustration and self-loathing for not living up to the false standards you’ve set for yourself.

“What is rejected by the mind settles in the body.”

Suppression has never worked so far, and it never will. All it does is mask the deeper need, which refuses to die down despite all the efforts. It’s wiser to let go of the belief that if I care about appearance, I must be shallow and therefore not truly capable of deep love, and instead accept the truth, that the attraction pulls me in, but values make me stay, and both matter.

So if logic can’t resolve this tension, maybe experience will, there’s no other option.

This means living through the fantasy to eventually outgrow it. And it requires chasing perfection. To lower the bar is admitting I’m not enough to deserve what I truly want, and only by attaining the ideal can I start dissolving the obsession with it. This isn’t blind idealism, it’s knowingly chasing a proxy goal because the pursuit itself is transformative. The objective is to release the clinging, not necessarily the person.

The thing is, I want to fall for character, to the point where looks don’t even matter anymore. But reality hits different. Character is rare. Integrity is rare. Self-awareness is rare. Almost everyone I’m drawn to ends up getting ruled out when I get to see how they think and act. Nothing wrong with them, it just appears a bit crude or shallow from where I stand.

But when your pool of options is limited, the only noticeable difference between them ends up being physical appearance. So even if looks aren’t that important to me deep down, they end up taking center stage by default.

I usually connect with someone by spending time with them, letting things build slowly. But currently, I don’t really have that kind of setup in my life. I’m not very social, my circle’s tiny, and I rarely go out. You can’t exactly shop for human connection, and dating apps don’t work for me. So I end up wanting something deeper, but with no real way to get there, it becomes paralyzing and leaves me feeling helpless and stuck.

Sometimes though, life offers very unique experiences.
Here’s someone I came across in my Meta preparation. She’s a software engineer in Meta who shares her insights on LinkedIn and YouTube. Ticked all the boxes for me to develop an initial interest in and invest attention into.

The journal will have many entries about her and how she was another motivation for cracking Meta, heh, but what stood out distinctively about her is her LinkedIn post titled “The Cost of Becoming – no dopamine hit edit”

The post begins with:

I used to think if I moved far enough, worked hard enough, and succeeded loudly enough, I could outrun the noise in my head. That there was a version of me on the other side of effort who wouldn’t flinch at the past or freeze at the future. I was wrong. You can’t outrun what lives inside you. But you can outwork it. And I did.

And certainly I wasn’t expecting that for sure. On a platform like LinkedIn, and especially from this girl who seemed to be having it all in life. And she’s “outrunning the noise in her head”? What kind of? Damn.

But there’s something I really value about people who choose to share their inner world, not just the good parts, but the hard stuff too. It feels honest, like dropping the mask and that’s when you really get a sense of who they are, beyond those perfect Instagram moments.

From Delhi to Bangalore to London, I kept moving. Not out of wanderlust, but necessity. Stillness made room for memories I didn’t want. 
I stacked logos on my CV—Uber, LinkedIn, Meta—not to impress, but to build scaffolding around a self I wasn’t sure I could trust to stand alone. Each achievement felt hollow for five minutes, then terrifying. What now? What next?

I think it’s genuinely brave to admit the hollowness of your achievements, especially on a platform where that’s all people really flaunt about. I’ve felt that hollow feeling at times, but it never terrified me honestly. Seems like she was running from her past, trying to fill an inner void with external wins. Probably a classic post-heartbreak identity crisis.

Whatever it is, running away only prolongs the suffering, but I get it, facing that is easier said than done, especially when it sinks into the subconscious after maybe years of struggle.
But looks like she’s over it now, from her mention of “outworking it” at the beginning of her post.

Therapists gave me labels. I didn’t want them. I wasn’t asking for a narrative. I was just trying to survive mornings. But the truth is, survival was never the point. I wanted to thrive. To thrive despite—and later, because of—the fragmentation. So I got clinical. Structured. Ruthless with habits. I stopped dissociating. I learned what I ate mattered. I learned what I let slide mattered more

There’s no romance in this. Healing isn’t a montage. It’s quiet. It’s brutal. It’s boring. It’s me, forcing myself to sleep, to get dressed, to finish one more task even if I don’t feel like a person today. It’s saying no to narratives I didn’t write.

Therapy, surviving mornings, healing.. that’s enough to grasp the weight of it. This isn’t just another influencer style motivational post, but more like an abstract glimpse into her inner turmoil, grounded in truth. Something I’d never have known if she hadn’t written about it openly.

But I still struggle to grasp the full depth of it. Take my own example, even with that relentless inner critic, always pointing out the logical inconsistencies in my head, demanding quick resolutions, and brushing off feelings, I still never felt the need to survive mornings or “heal,” in that sense. Even when I was sure my ex had wronged me, and I dragged myself through it for months, I still didn’t see myself as someone who needed healing. I framed it as facing the consequences of my own choices, because admitting I needed to heal felt too close to slipping into a victim mindset, which would’ve only slowed me down.

But hey, no virtue in kicking someone already on the ground. And honestly, I don’t even know her full story to judge. What she’s shared probably just scratches the surface of who she really is, just like these posts I write don’t fully capture me either.

Sometimes, the act of writing itself is transformative. You finish the piece, and you’re not quite the same person who started it, which really makes judging the author even harder. Reminds me how that hypocrite post brought my core weaknesses into the light. The resulting awareness alone felt like winning half the battle. Made me face things I hadn’t fully looked at, like whether my discomfort with transactional relationships is really rooted in a fear of abandonment in cases I couldn’t deliver.

People think I’m strong because I’m articulate. Because I show up. I won’t deny that I am but what they don’t see is the math behind the mood. 

What I appreciate most about her is that same articulation, something I value in myself too. There really is a kind of math behind the mood when you sit down and start pulling together all those scattered thoughts and experiences into something cohesive. It’s tiring work, full of cognitive resistance, but it brings the required clarity.

Wanting to end these posts on a hopeful note pushes me to see my challenges through an optimistic lens, something regular journaling doesn’t quite offer. Then there’s the process itself: reading it over and over, refining each line until it truly reflects what’s on your mind while filtering for what’s actually worth sharing, that in itself is a transformative and a very rewarding experience.

Being articulate often means being vulnerable, and that kind of vulnerability is a strength few people have, including her.

The metrics I track to hold myself up. Energy. Inputs. Withdrawal symptoms. What they don’t see is the self-parenting that goes into surviving and the self-motivation that goes into thriving.

I will not shrink for a legacy I outworked. I am not managing the fire anymore.

I’m aiming it.

If you read till here, a reminder — you deserve to thrive, not just survive. Not conditionally. Not eventually. Now.

- Nik

The fact that she’s still tracking the metrics suggests she’s not completely over it yet, and the withdrawal symptoms part was just painful to read. Makes me want to offer some help if I could, but all I can do right now is to control my saviour complex.

I did relate to the display of grit at the end, adding that silver lining and the push to thrive but those final lines about outworking the legacy and not managing the fire anymore are the hardest to grasp, or even speculate about.

Honestly, I should probably just DM her at this point and I actually did, on Instagram.

Hey Nikita.
Not sure if the message will reach you but I've been following you for some time now.
Found you in my meta prep. Got the results today and sadly couldn't make it in the full loop. with that the london dreams are delayed for an year now and sorry if i unfollow you so itll sting less but i had this question to ask.

Your posts keep coming on my linkedin. One was about you saying youre not trying to build a personal brand etc. Actually i had posted similar post on linkedin recently 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/omkartenkale_i-reply-to-everyone-on-linkedin-even-if-activity-7313742136607133696-KpcV

and was genuinly.wondering what else could be the motivation for us then coz there will always be some purpose, some intent behind the action. What makes you post and engage with arguments with others and why not just resort to a quiet life. This is something thats been bugging me lately and I'd love to know your thoughts on this

I actually got a reply a week ago, but I’ve delayed opening it since I didn’t want it to affect the mindset I was trying to capture in this post. I’ve probably put her on a bit of a pedestal by now, which’ll make our conversation a little harder, but she still deserves praise for her resilience, authenticity, and openness anyways.

The fun little thing is, there’s no redemption through this alone. No one’s going to show up and magically fix all your problems. The best they can do is create a space where you can work through your own stuff. But even that kind of support should be received with caution, only if it comes with no strings attached. Otherwise, it’s easy to slip into a mess of expectations and unspoken obligations real quick. It’s okay to fall for someone because of their traits, but I believe real growth only comes through the mutual destruction of those pedestals.

This need will fade eventually, either I’ll overcome it, or I’ll end up with an absolute baddie, whichever comes first. And with the pace of growth, both internal and external, either outcome feels inevitable. But what matters just as much is how I acted along the way, especially in treating people I wasn’t really serious about.

When you’re in your own pursuit and realize you’re the object of someone else’s hope, love, or admiration, how you respond really says a lot about you. Do you coldly dismiss their feelings, not acknowledge them at all, pretend you didn’t notice, or worse, keep them close enough to enjoy the validation, but distant enough to keep their hopes alive, and not setting them free because it benefits your ego? There will be tons of elusive options at every step, but your true character reflects in how you treat those who are vulnerable to you, and with that power comes the ability to uplift or manipulate, to choose truth and kindness over ego. That’s why I honor their feelings with respect, even if its a no.

I don’t like leaving people hanging when I don’t see real potential, it feels unethical, and it can hurt their chances with someone else too. In short, I don’t play games.

So yeah, I’ll still be out on the lookout for someone who’s mutually interested in growing together with me. I don’t know if I really bring a lot to the table, there are plenty out there who are more successful, wealthier, better looking, maybe even more mature and self-aware. All I can do is be sincere with myself in portraying what I am, as I am, and let others be the judge of decisions that will never be up to me.

The deal I’m trying to strike might not have many buyers, but compromise isn’t the way out. It might take time, and it might be tiring, but I think it’s worth the wait.