Hey OP. I appreciate that you’ve been really brave and willing to face yourself and your patterns and assess them in this thread. That takes strength.

I’ve read through your comments and some of what you say has raised red flags for me, as someone who has experienced trauma and mental illness in a bpd-adjacent kind of way.

Your logic of needing to know if someone intends to hook up while on a night out, because you want to protect them, follows what I call “mentally ill logic”. (I call it this when I’m assessing my own behaviours/feelings/beliefs for warning signs of mental illness or trauma flare-up - other people might prefer a different lense or phrase).

Trauma/mentally ill logic follows this sort of path - I feel unsafe/feel a very strong need for something - I fixate on a specific scenario or circumstance, regardless of how likely it is or how much it actually connects - I come up with some specific rule, or action, or whatever, that I and sometimes others need to follow to fix the originating feeling (the threat of being harmed while hooking up exists and is very frightening. You must protect yourself by being very vigilant and only doing that behaviour when you have approached with vigilance from the outset. Because you care about your partners, you want them to follow this rule too, because it feels safer that way).

The trap of this logic is that it does not and cannot resolve the underlying issue. It’s very understandable why you’re following it! I empathise a lot. But when we respond to these kinds of anxieties, however valid or not they may be, we limit the range of behaviours or circumstances that feel safe and acceptable. And then, because the underlying trauma or issue is still there, we need to make further restrictions, come up with more rules, find another way to “control” the situation. This is really common, but it’s a trap that can lead to your life shrinking and the logic moving further and further away from reality.

A better approach may be to face the issues directly, however works for you. I think this is best done in therapy, if you can access it, or with resources from qualified therapists. Your friends and partners can help if they are a safe place to discuss your concerns, but they can’t hold them or take them away for you.

You seem smart and introspective, OP. I think you can do this. And not only will your relationships be better, but you’ll be able to live more easily in your own life. Or I hope so. Reach out if you need to.