~I'm just a sucker with no self esteem~

It's not just that people without self esteem issues speak a different language to those who do, it's that there seems to be a fundamental incompatibility between the two, so that if you 'speak' one you cannot grasp the other.

In my experience this is suffered to a greater extent by those without self esteem issues.
People suffering from self esteem issues can comprehend the language of having self esteem but not speak it.
For people who don't have the issues, it's (often) as though there is only one language.

And so before getting to learning the language there is proving that it exists.

This is an observation, made during a long talk with a friend tonight. It is not a criticism of either 'language'.

And it partly comes about because it took me a long time to realise that what I was interpreting as not caring had a large component of not understanding.

Self esteem: It's not a one-size-fits-all (or even most) garment.