Very true, Mike! Excellent point.

As for Alex, I've wondered often about that myself. He's one of the most confident people I know, and confidence has a lot to do with feeling comfortable declaring and maintaining emotional boundaries. While I can't say for sure, my sense is that certain aspects of his formative years prompted him to learn how to "fend for himself" on an emotional level. As such, he established a deep sense of trust in himself early on. I think this has a lot to do with it because it seems the more we trust ourselves, the less our emotions intimidate us... AND the less likely we are to internalize dysfunction from others, because such confidence helps us draw a line and know where our obligations end (as well as when someone else is trying to project a feeling onto us unjustly). On top of this, Alex is naturally prone to introspection; whenever he has a feeling, he analyzes himself to explore it. This sort of intellectual curiosity about his own psychology probably also helps a ton.

In any case, I agree that society doesn't generally teach us how to deal with our feelings. Our first line of education about this is usually our families, but families often leave a lot to be desired on that front. I think there need to be a lot of societal shifts: more emotional education in schools, a broader acceptance and destigmatization of mental healthcare, better *access* to mental healthcare, and especially a greater proliferation of media that model healthy ways to relate.

...Hm, wow, I just wrote way more than I intended to. I hope that wasn't too much. Thank you for your very thought-provoking comment!