How I train myself to ditch ego language and tell the truth as it is:
'... took ... away from me'
'X [friend] took Y [friend] away from me.'
- I do not possess another person, so no one can be taken
- A person cannot control another person, so X did not cause Y to stop interacting with me
- Y has agency and decided to stop interacting with me
Revise to:
'X encouraged Y to stop interacting with me, and Y decided to stop interacting with me.'
'... is narcissistic'
- I'm not a trained psychologist
- I am not trained to deploy this term
- I am not trained to perform a psychological assessment of this person
- I have not performed such a psychological assessment of this person
Revise to:
'... talks about himself a lot.'
'... betrayed me'
- I do not have a contract with this person
- They do not owe me anything
- I made my happiness conditional on the other person perpetually conforming to a particular ideal
- People, however, are not machines: they, like me, have character defects
- Assuming and expecting someone to conform to a particular ideal is unreasonable: I have no right to imprison someone else inside my demands
- Doing so is also unrealistic: no one conforms to a particular ideal perpetually
- Doing so is also hypocritical: I, too, have failings
Revise to:
'... had drunken sex with a work colleague on a business trip.'