PSA. Just because a guy is charismatic or charming does not mean he’s emotionally intelligent.

Interesting lesson I learned the office past year. I had a boss who was incredibly charismatic- people instantly loved him. Even people who barely knew him/ rubbed shoulders with him I could see thought they had an amazing relationship with him and outsized loyalty to him, where they were willing to do huge things for him despite having only had a few exchanges with him. Because they liked him so much. He knew how to joke with people, in the right way to make them feel elevated and seen and special.

My boss turned out to have incredible emotional blocks. Although he was amazing at cultivating surface relationships. Working with him 3 years I found he could barely express his feelings in a more one on one way. We merely worked together and there were several situations that affected my work there that were deemed almost too taboo to discuss even though they desperately needed to. When a situation made him uncomfortable or angry or I brought up any issues with the job he’d default to manipulation, blame shifting, calling me crazy or sneakily trying to stigmatize my response to disrespect or unfairness as mentally unwell as a way of diverting from the topic and humiliating me into silence for bringing it up. Even when I’d bring an issue to him- he wouldn’t listen. He’d sit at his computer with his back to me- completely silent surfing the internet and acting non chalant and like he barely heard as a power play and way of emphasizing his dominance. He didn’t even know how to validate or acknowledge what was being said and reveled in not doing so because he felt it made him look big and like a power player.

Another major flaw of his is that would absolutely never apologize. It literally pained him to get the words out. So when I made minor mistakes on matters of preference he’d drag me as brutally as possible demanding i’d apologize in elventy billion different ways. But when I went through a deeply disrespectful bullying situation in the office being called a bitch and retarded for several months. He tried to brush that under the rug without any real acknowledgment or apology. When I cited it as the reason for serving him a letter of resignation. He still couldn’t bring himself to apologize despite me having referred to the situation as “staggeringly fucking insulting”. He still would not apologize or admit anything was wrong or inappropriately about it.

I cOmMuniCaTEd with him ad infinitum to no avail because even though he knows how to speak in a way thats likable and makes him look good and super charming he doesn’t genuinely know how to hear people, an issue even other men on the team complained of with him. I came to see exactly why he ss divorced. A lot of his issues of emotional in intelligence weren’t a matter of ignorance either but of misogynistic choice and toxic personality. He thought it looked pussy to listen or apologize, powerless and stupid.

The younger attorney I worked with another person who seemed very likable on surface also was beginning to develop these same issues of arrogance and emotional unintelligence because he idolized the boss and copied everything he did.

But no one looking from the outside would know how fucking emotionally stupid and underevolved they were

In fact, I was the one constantly sidelined and read as not emotionally intelligent. Told I didn’t “get people” or couldn’t know what was going on even in situations that involved my own daily experience with people in my own department. Because I’m fairly quiet and introverted. I was the one constantly read as emotionally unintelligent. But the reality is I do understand people emotional needs and motivations far better than they do. Like I understand that when a person is coming to you listing off a long problem that you don’t just stand there silently with your back turned or looking at them like they have a third eye, or purposely playing nonchalant and bored to show your status- that that person is looking to be heard and validated on their complaint. I’m also super quick to see people and their motivations whereas they often were so self focused they missed huge things about people’s feelings that were right in front of their face. For example they were stunned when I left- yet knew I’d been putting up with an abusive humiliating situation in their for months- they never projected how I must feel in it.

Because they’re so socially good on the surface. I took the L when we “broke up” and I left. It was assumed I would’ve been too mousy and bitch ass to open my mouth and have an adult conversation about the issues at hand- because everyone knows how introverted I am. In actuality, I took the issue to them many times but their lack of emotional intelligence made them take it as a joke and think they didn’t need to hear or even appease me/ smooth the situation over. Instead they loud whispered my complaint around as sTrAnGe and why would she say that instead of looking into the actual problem.

They most emotionally intelligent and sensitive guy on our team actually turned out to be a chubby kind of socially awkward guy who their standards of toxic masculinity caused them to not respect. But I actually found he was far more in tune with how to relate to and have an emotional exchange with others than they were despite them being far more popular and charming on the surface.

I really liked my boss and never would’ve believe someone as incredibly charming as him could be so emotionally almost stunted and retarded/ constipated, but he was.

The Lesson: Just because a guy is charming/ charismatic/ popular do NOT assume hes emotionally intelligent. In fact know that most men regardless of how they look on the outside will never be emotionally intuitive and evolved as even the most introverted and withdrawn of women.

I regret buying the lie that others there pushed on me that I was too introverted to know or understand people and that since he was more popular he obviously gets people way better than I do. My instincts about everything that was going on there including people and their motivations that others dismissed because they couldn’t see- were all correct and so fucking perceptive in the end. But for a time I allowed myself to be gaslighted but people’s smug and woefully incorrect judgment that my being quiet made me too socially simple and stupid to have a good read on people and situations there. That someone like me couldn’t possibly be correct in what I saw and perceived, it just has to be how the more popular/ charismatic but actually low key almost emotionally stunted person perceived it because they’re the ones who really “gEt pEoPLe”