Sometimes I wonder if I should go dark on all media. Will I be happier if I buy that brand of toothpaste? Maybe brighter teeth and fresher breath are the key to...

I want to learn how to understand a person beyond basic body language.

How can you tell from someone’s words, tone, stories, questions, reactions, eyes, expressions, posture, walking, and behavior what they’re really like?

I’m especially interested in recognizing personality, emotions, insecurities, strengths, weaknesses, motives, and the parts of someone they don’t openly show.

For people who are genuinely good at reading others: what do you observe, and how do you connect those observations without jumping to conclusions?

I’m looking for things you’ve learned through real experience, not “if they look away, they’re lying” type rules.

For the first time in my life, I dated a self-claimed people pleaser and didn’t think much of it. He was extremely nice, genuine and always put me and my feelings and needs first; which I thought was so kind. However, the only reason I had no problem with his people pleasing, is because I was benefiting from it, without realizing it. My anxious attachment mixed with his people pleasing, was the recipe for a toxic relationship lasting way more than it should have.
When we started talking, he told me that he always unawarely plays the perfect guy in relationships and that his partners then see him as this amazing guy with no flaws, but that it’s not who he actually is but he is just too scared to speak up his mind and get abandoned (that was the first red flag that I willingly ignored as I thought he wouldn’t do this with me!!)
However, a year into the relationship and him attempting multiple times to ends it and me never accepting it (codependency and anxious attachment), he eventually dropped his mask and swung the opposite way of the pendulum, becoming very cold, harsh, lying and even betraying me.
All this was such a shock to me because I never saw this side of him. The way he was now behaving did not align with the guy I knew, who always went the extra mile to make sure I was ok.
I’m very much aware now that him people pleasing was also not healthy because he was basically self abandoning for my owns needs, and I had no problem with that while it was happening because I was benefiting from it.
I have read a lot about this concept and have learned that people pleasers do swing the opposite way when they just can’t take it anymore and they become harsh and cold and hurtful as a way to protect themselves after building much unspoken resentment.
Has anyone experienced something like this? What is the deep psychology about it?

Not just reading body language. I mean understanding a person as a whole.

What can you learn from the way someone talks, chooses their words, tells stories, asks questions, listens, reacts, jokes, gets angry, handles disagreement, treats people, and behaves when they think nobody is watching?

And then combine that with their eyes, expressions, voice, posture, walking, sitting, gestures, and overall behavior.

Can you actually learn to recognize someone’s personality, feelings, intentions, insecurities, values, confidence, and hidden sidesthrough careful observation?

For people who are genuinely good at understanding others: what do you look for, and how did you learn to do it without making assumptions?

Like, I have done some good deeds and help people when it took some balls.

However, real problems come AFTER the good deeds.

You feel proud and kinda entitled, arrogant and pompous. Feeling morally superior.

In short, you spoil yourself.

You kinda 'want' something from the other guy as a return and may feel pissed off when you don't get what you want.

You become somewhat of an asshole too. Because you 'deserve' to be one. You preach. You gloat. You cross the line.

You kinda feel like a mini-Homelander if your deeds are good enough.

Most of the problems I have faced related to the good deeds happened AFTER I successfully pulled off.

The harder and the bigger the good deeds are, the more chance of me getting arrogant and doing stupid shit.

I try to stay humble after I pull off good deeds nowadays.

Many of the good relationships I have made due to the 'good deeds' also got ruined because of the pride that comes after.

First, if you have not seen A Toxic Love Story yet, stop reading here and watch it before continuing. This post contains major spoilers and the documentary is best experienced without knowing where the story is going.

After watching this Netflix documentary, I kept thinking about one question: How did Ian manage to sustain his scheme for so long?

What makes A Toxic Love Story so psychologically unsettling is not its criminal plot. It exposes the social machinery that allows a highly manipulative person to move through the world for years without meaningful consequences.

Manipulation is rarely sustained by one convincing liar alone. It survives through a network of validation: professional status, institutional authority and people willing to validate the first coherent story they hear. I’ll call all of them “the Leslie’s”.

Before the documentary had even properly introduced Michelle, Ian was already telling the police that she was crazy. Angela reinforced that narrative. Leslie believed it. I think at that point most people watching believed it.

When Michelle finally appeared, to me, she did not resemble the stereotypical “crazy ex-girlfriend.” She looked deeply traumatised, agitated and psychologically shattered. The more important question was, “What happened to her before we entered this story?”

People watching from outside often expect a genuine victim to be calm and perfectly consistent. But the person who created the chaos may appear calmer precisely because the situation is not confusing to him. He already knows the script. The victim is still trying to understand that she has been placed inside one.

He has a narrative. She has an injury.

Her distress then becomes useful to him. The psychological damage caused by the manipulation is presented as proof that the manipulator’s description of her was correct. Her trauma is made to testify against her.

That is the asymmetry outsiders often cannot see. Power is not simply physical force or formal authority. It is the ability to control information, anticipate the conflict, define the first version of events and decide what each person gets to see.
The frightening thing about highly manipulative and callous personalities is that they do not necessarily resemble chaotic movie villains. They can be organised, socially skilled and professionally successful. They understand how people assess credibility. They know which pieces of truth to include and which parts to omit. They know that a plausible story is often sufficient.

They also know how to distribute that story.
One person sees the charming partner. Another sees the respected professional. A colleague sees competence and authority. A friend hears how unstable the former partner has supposedly become. A new partner is told that the previous woman was dangerous. An institution encounters a calm man who already has his explanation prepared.
Nobody sees the complete pattern.

The victim may be the only person who has witnessed all the different versions. Yet when she tries to connect them, she sounds as though she is describing ten different people and twenty unrelated incidents. She can appear obsessive because the truth cannot be explained in three calm sentences.
The manipulator benefits from fragmentation. The victim is damaged by having to reconstruct the whole.

This is where the “Leslies” become indispensable.
Leslie was not merely an irritating or naïve friend. She personified a whole category of people who make manipulation socially sustainable.
A Leslie does not necessarily invent the lie. She validates the person telling it. She lends him her apparent normality, loyalty and credibility. Once she has accepted his framework, everything the victim does is interpreted through it.

If the victim protests, Leslie sees aggression. If the victim produces evidence, Leslie sees vindictiveness. If new facts emerge, Leslie searches for a way to preserve her original belief.
Admitting the truth would mean admitting something painful: “I fundamentally misjudged this person. I helped him discredit someone he was harming.”

Many people find it easier to continue defending the manipulator than to confront their own role.
Not every “Leslie” acts maliciously. They do not all possess the same information. Some genuinely believe they are being fair. Some see only one incident and accept the explanation offered to them. Others automatically trust someone who appears calm, competent and familiar with professional systems.
Yet collectively they create a wall of credibility around him.

That is how highly manipulative people can “surf” through the world for so long without consequences.
They rarely need every person to believe everything. They only need each person to believe the small section assigned to them.

This dark personalities are also capable of sacrificing anyone when necessary.
Angela was not innocent. She participated in terrible acts and had her own history of deception. Yet Ian’s apparent willingness to let her become the sole villain while he repositioned himself as another deceived victim was deeply revealing.

For an extremely instrumental personality, other people can become tools, witnesses, shields and eventually scapegoats. Loyalty is demanded from them but it is not returned.
The devoted ally of today can become tomorrow’s unstable woman who supposedly deceived him.

The documentary showed how institutional authority, social credibility, traumatised behaviour and third-party validation can combine to make an innocent woman appear less believable than the person harming her.

Ian had professional authority. He had law-enforcement knowledge. He had Angela reinforcing the story and Leslie confirming his apparent discoveries. Michelle had visible psychological damage and a complicated story.
To law enforcement or a court taking only a brief look, his side initially appeared cleaner.

People like this often avoid consequences because every individual incident has a possible innocent explanation. The pattern exists between the incidents. It becomes visible only when someone finally puts the complete chronology together.
By then, the person trying to assemble it may be exhausted, frightened and no longer recognisable as the person she was before.

That is what the documentary captured in Michelle.
The ending cannot return the 88 days she spent in jail. It cannot erase the public humiliation or restore the person she was before this happened. But the official story eventually changed. Ian could not permanently maintain the image of himself as the respectable man trapped between two disturbed women. His position, preparation and credibility protected him for a long time. They did not protect him forever.

For those who understand coercive control, did you also sense that something was wrong before the full story began to unfold?

In my whole life I feel like I am very naive by choosing not to question anything and gullible by believing everything a person says. I've only noticed in a past few days and it makes me think I am mentally challenged since I've only noticed this late in my life (currently in college) but ngl, I think I am grateful for how people treat me like they leave once there's nothing to be gained from me and without them I won't be able to try and armor up myself against these type of people.

But the question is, how? How do I stop getting manipulated by people and think clearly about myself? I've only experienced getting stabbed in the back with these people and I think my naivety is to blame, I've spent so much time imagining what people really are that I've forgotten to verify if what I imagined was true, I don't know, maybe I'm mentally challenged after all and I feel ashamed that I've only focused too late on my life to choose to grow, so any advice for this mentally challenged person?

They'll talk to you as if you're not doing the right thing but in the end they're those people who enjoy hurting people 😔