You are not responsible for the depth of others' disillusionment.
However, I noticed that you're typed as an Extrovert. Try smiling less.
Actually, continuing on from that and what Athenian said, I was just thinking earlier that the difference between my 'communal/humanitarian' approach towards relationships with people - it's more my function in society relating to theirs, than me, on a personal level, relating to them on a personal, individual level - has often probably been what's caused misunderstandings for me.
It's often happened (and now i see it with such clarity I don't think I'm as likely to repeat it!) that someone I've met has offered to do me a favour. I've accepted it, thinking, y'know, it was just out of natural generosity - but it's not. It's a personal gesture of friendship, they wouldn't do it for anyone, they're just offering to me because they like me and want to show it, and in accepting the favour, I am, unbenownst to me, accepting their advances.
Then I offer one back, but when it's coming from me it's
not a gesture of friendship. For me, it's a simple fact of logic: person X needs 1, person Y has 1 in abundance. If everyone gives their spare stuff to people who need it, everyone's happier and there's less need/want in the world, so I'll start with me. I really would do the same for anyone. It doesn't mean I like them any more than anyone else and it isn't a signal that I want to get closer to them or start hanging out more with them. But they think it is. They think I'm reciprocating the gesture they made, which itself went right over my head.
Of course, I might actually like them personally
as well, but not necessarily...
It's only months or even years later, that the gulf between our two perceptions of our relationship becomes apparent - when I begin to feel as though their favours for me are controlling me, and I feel suffocated by all the time they seem to want to spend with me and baffled as to why they do, and I begin to feel uncomfortable with them telling me I mean the world to them and how they feel so close to me, because I feel nothing of the kind in return.
And I find myself with a choice of either going along with their vision of our relationship, and pledging large chunks of my free time to spend with people I might actually dislike or at least find irritating, or being the bad guy and giving them a reality check.
And eventually I just have to put some distance between us - but they feel rejected, hurt, betrayed and 'tricked'. And I get called a big old meanie, who leads people on and then cuts them dead once I've had what I wanted out of them.
Wow, I've like, seen the light... but what to do about it??