I have this weird tendency of putting people I admire (ex. mentors, friends, family) on a pedestal. If I feel like they have more knowledge about life or access to new experience that I can gain to grow (which is what I value and what drives me), I'll do this weird thing where I go submissive as fuck so that the person doesn't feel threatened and feels bad enough to give knowledge (since that's what I want). But imo, that's not the way to go to get knowledge. I'm disgusted by that sort of way of acting, and even though I'm much more grounded and genuine now, it's a weird sort of tendency where if for example I have a mentor who's good at a specific topic I need work on (ex. empathy), I'll try to use them as my "solution" to my problems and parentify them, in some sort of way.

It's like instead of looking at them as equals, I put them on a pedestal as a beacon of knowledge, and then I open up too much and cave my frame completely. It's important to be ego-less to learn, but at a certain point, it's supplicating (like asking if I can ask a question to a mentor for something that I already paid with my own money for their time, and being overly thankful like wtf?). It's like I want to make sure that they don't feel threatened by me, so that I can get them to put more effort into giving me the best advice. But in turn, I lose frame and respect for myself, and cower myself. What's a better strategy to go at it and increase chances of outcome of learning from these mentors in my life, without cowering and losing frame, while still being outcome-independent and humble?

I value growing as a person, and so most of the people I surround myself with are people who I feel are better than me in different domains. Not an issue, but here's the problem. If all the people I try to surround myself with are "mentors", and my strategy is to always cower to mentor-like people in my life in order to avoid being threatening in order to gain knowledge, then this translates to me always putting on this cowering act around most of the people in my life, in this pursuit to gain knowledge and grow. Yeah, I learn a lot, but I'm also always cowering. I don't want that patheticness in my life.

See where the problem lies? It fucks with psyche, because here I am, caving my frame to most of the people around me. And this fucks with me in terms of inviting different friends together. Because then, it's like some weird shit where it's like I'm putting on this "student" act around people who should be equals as friends. And when they meet, that's then reinforcing the idea of my lost frame.

On the other hand, if I don't have any knowledge to gain from someone, or they're not particularly beneficial for my life (outside of maybe me planning out a hang-out, or them being a cool tag-along to chill), it's always equal and everything is a vibe. I hold frame with no issues, it's easy mode. We're just vibing. So overall, it's a struggle between "no frame and grow fast" or "frame and only grow moderately and stay stagnant" unless I can find a strategy to grow and hold frame.