Definition: The Olympic-level sport of bending yourself into a human pretzel to keep others comfy, while your own needs get tossed in the dumpster fire of “later.” It involves deploying excessive smiles as armor, suppressing opinions like buried landmines, and treating “no” like a cursed word – all to avoid the terrifying specter of mild disapproval.
This sycophantic marathon inevitably backfires, building a pressure cooker of volcanic resentment when folks don’t reciprocate your over-the-top effort. You crash-land as the exhausted martyr, realizing your “harmless” helpfulness actually trained everyone to ignore your boundaries while you slowly evaporated.
Example:
She agreed to work late again, suppressing her exhaustion and true opinion, twisting into a human pretzel to avoid disappointing her boss.
He smiled through the dreadful party, ignoring his own boundaries to keep everyone happy, only to crash later as an exhausted martyr simmering with volcanic resentment.