Yes, I agree. People rarely intuitively understand obligation. We leave a lot of how social dynamics functions to the schoolyard and the act of socializing, which leaves many people undereducated on how to socialize. For some people this means being an awkward nerd. For others it means being an emotional leech.

This describes my experiences in life very well. It's lead to a lot of social isolation, mistrust, and heart ache for me.

> All manner of people imagine I am the solution to their problem and I am required to fix their problem, all completely for free while they don't do anything whatsoever for me.

It's also been my experience that if you don't then suddenly you're being selfish, a jerk, etc. It's as if you're being judged by an entirely different metric of social acceptability.

Yes.

My two adult sons are the only people who have gotten it through their heads that if they value what I bring to the table, they need to be good to me and give me reason to stick around.

Everyone else seems to have some broken social concept of pecking order where being nice to them means you're their bitch and they are important, you are nothing and you are required to keep catering to them, no matter how badly they treat you. Like how when humans feed certain kinds of animals and now those animals think you owe them tribute forevermore.

Actually, this might explain a whole lot about ugly human history.

Meanwhile, in my life, my sons are the only people still close to me. Everyone else keeps being given their walking papers because, no, I'm not your bitch.

The version I heard is "If you knew X's problems, you wouldn't trade your problems for theirs." Not universally true, but goes a long way .

Another aphorism is, "some people are givers, others are takers". It's a function of personality, not resources or circumstances.